WorldSBK finale preview and schedule as teams assemble at P.I.

2022 FIM Superbike World Championship
Round 12 – Phillip Island

The Grand Ridge Brewery Australian Round and the iconic Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit will draw the curtains on the 2022 FIM Superbike World Championship.

The title race is all done and dusted for Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) which means the pressure is off. Who could forget for his emphatic debut with Ducati here at Phillip Island in 2019, when he swept to three dominant wins, the first of which was won by nearly 15 seconds, the biggest dry margin in Phillip Island’s WorldSBK history.

Alvaro Bautista

“We come to the last race of this season. For sure, arriving with the Championship is always much better. Now I feel much more relaxed even if before the previous round I didn’t think too much about the Championship. Now it’s done. We enjoyed a lot the moment. But now I would like to finish the season as best as possible. Phillip Island is one of my favourite tracks. I’ve always been really fast there, so I hope to find a good setup with the bike. I hope to find a good feeling with my bike there and try to enjoy as much as possible. There is no real target in terms of results but I will try to give my best to end the season with a good result.”

Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha with Brixx WorldSBK), relinquishes his crown after just one season and comes into Phillip Island with a 37-point buffer over Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK). The outgoing World Champion aims to sign off the season in style but knows that the combination of his rivals and their packages will be a strong one.

Toprak Razgatlioglu

“You know, I’ll say this once again: I need three wins because it’s my last chance. Alvaro is very strong at Phillip Island and Ducati is very strong on the straight. I think he’ll ride alone like at Catalunya. But anyway, we’ll keep fighting. We will see what happens at Phillip Island.”

Teammate Locatelli has a mathematic chance at fourth overall in the Championship but realistically, he’ll aim to get fifth bagged, with just 15 points covering three riders to seventh place.

Third place going into his “second home round” of the season, Jonathan Rea is on record as solely looking for race wins and whilst he’s conscious that a win won’t mean that he and his Kawasaki team don’t have to look for improvement, it’s something he’ll look to achieve. Six wins on ‘The Island’ for Rea, he is within striking distance of matching Troy Corser’s record of seven at the circuit, but he knows it’ll be tough.

Jonathan Rea

“I am really looking forward to Phillip Island. I enjoy the layout of Phillip Island and it’s a challenging track. It’s going to be a different challenge than before because I’m guessing there will be a lot more grip because the conditions will be a lot cooler than recent years. We’ve come at the middle of spring, start of summer in Australia, so we could have anything. We can have four seasons in a day in February, in the middle of summer, so what’s it going to be like in November? You never know what’s going to happen there.”

It’s game on for eighth in the Championship, although perhaps it is Scott Redding (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) who already has it in the bag, as he’s one point clear of the injured Iker Lecuona (Team HRC).

It’s a big weekend for Redding, who returns to Phillip Island for the first time since his WorldSBK debut weekend, where he took three podiums with Ducati back in 2020. Redding is the lead BMW rider in the Championship and whilst that’s already locked in, he’ll hope to propel the German manufacturer to fourth in the Manufacturers’ Championship, as they’re currently three-points behind Honda.

After Iker Lecuona’s injury sustained in FP2 at Mandalika, he slipped to ninth in the standings and is one point behind Redding. Lecuona’s had a stellar first season aboard the Honda and has had podiums and plenty of top five finishes but he has been ruled out of this weekend and will be replaced on the Fireblade by Tetsuta Nagashima.

Tetsuta Nagashima

“I’m really happy to compete in the final WorldSBK round because it will be my first experience of the series and I’m both curious and looking forward to it. At the same time, I wish Iker a speedy recovery and hope he’ll be back soon. I will try to help the team with the bike, collecting as much data as possible for the future and doing my best to enjoy this opportunity. As I said, it’s my SBK debut so I don’t know what to expect and the weekend schedule is also new to me but I’m ready to get going!”

Xavi Vierge (Team HRC) looks certain to stay in the top ten in the Championship. He’ll have the aim of outscoring BMW to try and deliver fourth for Honda, at a circuit he knows well from his Moto2 World Championship days.

Xavi Vierge

“We have come to the final round of the season, and I cannot image any better location than Australia. I love the Phillip Island track and missed it so much when the pandemic prevented us from racing here. So I’m excited to ride, my goal being to round out the year on a high, possibly top five or even better. The weather is always a question mark, as it can change so quickly and dramatically here. I hope it will be dry, because when it rains here it’s usually quite cold too, but we will adapt to any situation.”

Already crowned best Independent Rider for 2022, Axel Bassani (Motocorsa Racing) is seventh and just four points off Lowes in sixth and just 15 from Locatelli in fifth. It is however Bassani’s first time at Phillip Island, so perhaps he’ll not be as far forward as we’ve seen before.

Garrett Gerloff (GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team) is the next Independent rider as he readies for a final weekend with his team at the track where it all began.

WorldSBK Championship Points

WorldSSP

Starting at Aragon in April and ending in Australia in November brings to a close 12 rounds of incredible fights and intense battles, with Phillip Island promising more emotional moments ahead as riders wave goodbye to the Championship, the paddock and the season.

The Australian Round will mark the final round in WorldSSP for several riders, including the top two in the Championship. Dominique Aegerter (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha), who wrapped up the title last time out in Indonesia, and runner-up Lorenzo Baldassarri (Evan Bros. WorldSSP Yamaha Team) will head to WorldSBK in 2023 and will be looking to end the season on a high, although both will be making their first appearance in WorldSSP at the circuit. Despite this, it is a circuit they both know well from their Moto2 days: Aegerter took a best of fourth there in 2012 and Baldassarri claimed a podium with third in 2015.

For one rider, it will be a farewell not just to the Championship but the WorldSBK paddock as a whole. Jules Cluzel (GMT94 Yamaha) is gearing up for his final round in WorldSSP after he announced his retirement come the end of the season, and he’ll hope to go out on a high. Cluzel, whose WorldSSP record includes 63 podiums and 24 wins in 132 races, is the only rider on the entry list to have won at Phillip Island in WorldSSP, back in 2014 for MV Agusta.

Whilst the top two positions are in place, there is still plenty of scope for change in the positions behind. Can Oncu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) is currently third and is looking to hold on to that to take his first top-three Championship finish; the worst he can finish is fifth, which would still be his best in three seasons of WorldSSP.

Oncu stands 39 points clear of Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team) and 41 clear of Stefano Manzi (Dynavolt Triumph) in the standings, both of whom will race for the first time in WorldSSP but know the circuit from Moto2 and Moto3. Bulega’s best result came in the latter with 11th place in 2017, whilst Manzi’s was ninth in 2019 when in Moto2.

Federico Caricasulo (Althea Racing) has hit some good form with four podiums in the last six races, and he can still break into the top five of the Championship. Twice a podium finisher in Australia and with both WorldSSP and WorldSBK experience at Phillip Island, can Caricasulo continue his good form and snatch fifth or better in the Championship? He is 41 points clear of Indonesia Race 1 winner Niki Tuuli (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) and Tuuli will be looking to add to his win tally as he goes in search of his first Australian podium.

Tuuli, however, will have to watch out for the riders behind as they look to surge up the order with 25 points separating Tuuli in seventh and Cluzel in tenth.

After being announced for the 2023 season with MV Agusta Reparto Corse, Marcel Schrotter will make his WorldSSP debut at the Australian Round with the same team. He raced at Phillip Island this year in Moto2, taking 13th place, whilst he has a best result of ninth here throughout his Moto2 career. The German will stay on in Australia to race the final round of the Australian Superbike Championship alongside good buddy Jack Miller.

For Oli Bayliss this will be he first outing on home tarmac since becoming a full-time World Supersport Championship rider.  Oli has had a lot to learn this year, but at least this weekend he won’t need to learn a new track.

WorldSSP Championship Points

Phillip Island WSBK/ASBK Round Schedule