There were as many overtakes in the last lap of the WSBK Portugal races as there usually are in an entire MotoGP race this season. But Turkey’s star Toprak slipped further back in the battle for the title.
Toprak doesn’t win. Again.
Reigning world champion Toprak whatsit yet again was the only one of the top 3 usual suspects to emerge winless from the race weekend, and now has 0 wins from 9 starts. Not from lack of talent, either. He was hella fast in qualifying and practise sessions, but couldn’t convert that into victories.
In Race One, he slightly messed up the last corner and was passed over the line by the blindingly fast in a straight line, monkey riding an Exocet missile Alvaro Bautista on the Ducati.
In the Superpole race, Toprak was passed on the last lap by Johnny Rea after very nearly crashing out of the lead. The young Turk produced an outrageous, Marc Marquez save by picking up the bike on his elbow, literally the first time anyone has ever seen a Superbike saved like that. It only earned him another 2nd place, though.
In Race Two, Toprak just couldn’t keep pace with race winner Johnny Rea (on his 350th WSBK race start) and 2nd place finisher Bautista. Yamaha’s World Superbike team have pulled the same stunt as Ducati have in MotoGP. Cunningly wrong-footing their opponents by improving their bike so much that it sucks. The Yamaha just eats its tyres this year. The team are fannying around with electronics to try and solve this and make the bike as good as last year’s.
Small rider, medium-sized points lead
Cheerful miniature Spaniard Alvaro Bautista leads the championship, with Johnny Rea hanging onto his little blonde pigtails 17 points behind. Toprak is another 35 points back from the Norn Ironman and could seriously do with some wins about now.
The bigger they are…
Estoril was a bit of an injury fest, mostly due to sheer back luck.
Mikey van der Mark has only recently returned from a horror lower leg injury. At Estoril he had a huge, low-speed highside in Friday practise and suffered a horror upper leg injury in the same leg. It was horrible luck, especially as the lanky Dutchman is one of the handful of riders who can suffer two injuries 3 feet apart and both of them be in the same limb (A 3 foot gap between injuries would be like Bautista breaking an ankle and collar bone).
Likeable Texan Garret Gerloff was also ruled out of the weekend after suffering a huge, high-speed highside in practise that thumped his knee as hard as he thumps his Bible. Again it was horrible luck as he was setting top 3 times before he crashed.
Philip Oettl had the same crash as Gerloff but broke a collarbone and his weekend was over too.
Return of the Axe Murderers?
Two decades ago, legendary racer turned commentator James Whitham entered the World Supersport championship. Amazed and delighted by the sheer, brutal insanity of World Supersport at that time, he named it the Axe Murderers Class.
In recent years, WorldSSP has been a bit more subdued. But with the new rules allowing bikes like the Ducati V2 on the grid, things might be changing. The second WorldSSP race of the weekend was truly epic, helped by the extremely dodgy damp conditions.
Like the old days, there was a pack of about 6 or 7 riders battling at the front and everyone was making ludicrous overtakes all over the place.
Title favourite Domi Aegeter won the race as usual, but behind him was Spain’s favourite Yorkshireman Kyle Smith, who finished second after starting 19th on the grid.
Baby Bayliss, who apart from being named after a hairdryer is the son of WSBK and MotoGP legend Troy Bayliss, started 17th and finished 6th. An outstanding performance for the Aussie, who is approximately 12 years old or thereabouts.
It looks like World Supersport might be turning back into the festival of lunacy that it was in its glory years, which is a very good thing.
Next race
It’s 3 weeks until the next World Supers installment at Misano, just down the road from Valentino Rossi’s house. (He has been known to show up on a scooter in the past, but Vale might be doing some kind of car race or something that weekend. I can’t be bothered looking it up).