Vierge, who had looked like the strongest of the Yamaha riders earlier in the season, seems to have lost something in the interim. 12th and 11th in the full-length races and a DNF in the Sprint race continued his run of poor form which extends to four rounds now. At Honda, Somkiat Chantra had his best weekend of the year which isn’ t saying much when you score four points. Dixon’ s stand-in Vickers wasn’ t able to put points on the board. There’ s a four-week break until Round Eight at Donington Park on July 10-12 and hopefully, once we get there, we’ ll see Petrux and Dixon back, and both Bautista and Oliveira closer to full fitness.
WorldSBK 2027 The series will kick off at Australia’ s Philip Island on February 15-17 and it’ ll be the last hurrah for the series at The Island. In 2028, the race will move to the Tailem Bend facility in South Australia- not the same track MotoGP is moving to in 2027, that’ s a street circuit in Adelaide. Whilst not wholly unexpected, it’ s a divisive decision given that there are wildly different opinions about Philip Island. Most would agree that the racetrack itself is magnificent but the facilities are stuck in a time warp and in need of a major upgrade to bring them up to overseas standards. Tailem Bend( aka The Bend) isn’ t without challenges though, it’ s just about as inconvenient to get to as PI and there’ s much less accommodation on offer compared to what’ s in the towns close to PI. The owners will want this to be the start of a long partnership with the series so expect them to work hard to address these issues although there’ s little they can do to make the track itself as memorable as The Island.
46 KIWI RIDER