The second session of free practice for the World Supersport class saw the same four names dominate the timesheets. The Ten Kate Honda riders took an early lead, but by the end of the session Michele Pirro had been forced to allow Parkalgar Honda’s Eugene Laverty and Motocard.com Kawasaki’s Joan Lascorz ahead of him, the Italian dropping to 4th. Kenan Sofuoglu held on to his place at the top of the timesheets, but the gaps between the top 4 are minimal.

Further back, Japanese veteran Katsuaki Fujiwara took 5th place, ahead of a gaggle of Triumphs, with Chaz Davies beating out ParkinGO teammate Jason DiSalvo, who was fractionally faster than Matthieu Lagrive, taking the place of the retired Sebastien Charpentier.

Results of FP2 for the World Supersport class at Portimao:

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Eugene Laverty has put his Parkalgar Honda on provisional pole for Sunday’s second round of the World Supersport championship at his "home" circuit. The Portimao track sponsors the Parkalgar Honda team of Laverty and Miguel Praia, and having a rider on pole is an excellent start for the circuit.

Laverty took control in the second half of the session, after the Ten Kate Hondas of Michele Pirro and Kenan Sofuoglu had dominated the early running. Behind the Italian and the Turk, Kawasaki’s Joan Lascorz fought with Triumphs of Chaz Davies and Jason DiSalvo, with Davies eventually coming out on top to take the 4th spot, while Lascorz was forced to settle for 5th. The Parkalgar’s fortunes were given an extra boost by Miguel Praia’s 6th fastest time, who finished at the head of a very tightly bunched group which included Fabien Foret and David Salom. British rider Gino Rea rounds out the top 10.

Results of the first session of qualifying for the World Supersport class at Portimao:

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The Ten Kate Honda riders Kenan Sofuoglu and Michele Pirro dominated the first session of free practice for the World Supersport class at Portimao, taking the lead early and relinquishing it only to each other. Triumph’s Chaz Davies held on to 3rd spot for a long while, before being deposed by Kawasaki’s Joan Lascorz as the session came to a close. Davies’ American teammate Jason DiSalvo eventually nudged the Welshman into 5th, ahead of championship leader Eugene Laverty and his Parkalgar Honda teammate Miguel Praia, the Portuguese rider putting in a strong performance at his home round.

Results of FP1 for the World Supersport class at Portimao:

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Ask most motorcycle racing fans to name a World Supersport team, and the names you are most likely to hear are the Ten Kate Honda team of Ronald and Gerrit ten Kate and Simon Buckmaster’s Parkalgar Honda team. But Kenan Sofuoglu and Eugene Laverty have got had their hands full over the past season holding off the Spanish Motocard Kawasaki rider Joan Lascorz, and this year Lascorz looks even stronger than ever.

To highlight this fact, Kawasaki released a promotional video presenting Lascorz and his team, Team Kawasaki Provec Motocard.com, to give them their full title. Though the video contains little information, it does show the process that goes into preparing a race-winning World Supersport machine. It remains a fascinating insight to just how close these machines are to standard production road bikes, that you can walk  in off the street and buy, if you are so inclined.

World Superbike’s return to South Africa in 2009 after an absence of seven years was to be the first attempt to restore the long history which South Africa has with international motorcycle racing. The initial race at Kyalami was judged to be a success – with the exception of Regis Laconi’s terrible injury on his first full lap out of the pits – and the paddock and fans were all eagerly anticipating further visits to the spectacular South African circuit.

Their pleasure is to be short-lived, however. The 2010 round of World Superbikes at Kyalami will be the last visit the series pays to the South African circuit for the foreseeable future, it emerged last week. The culprit – as ever – is the global economic crisis. The financial meltdown has forced the Gauteng economic development to cut costs, and one of the areas it decided to cut was in the investment the council had made in international motorsports through the Gauteng Motorsports Company. According to reports in the South African newspaper The Star, the contracts with the organizers of the World Superbike round and the V8 Superstars races had been settled amicably, with penalty payments totalling 115 million Rand (US$ 18 million). By canceling the contracts – due to run through 2013 – the Gauteng province would reportedly save 796 million Rand (US$ 109 million).

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The enormous success of MotoMatters.com has seen our traffic grow tenfold over the past three years, and we are starting to become the victims of our own success. We have completely outgrown our current hosting situation, and after DNS problems made MotoMatters.com unreachable for a small part of our readers earlier this year, it was clear we had to act.

The time has now come for us to switch to a bigger, better and faster server. Unfortunately, this means some inconvenience for our readers for the next week or so, as the internet gets used to the idea that http://www.motomatters.com is located on a different server. Consequently, the website could become unreachable for a short length of time, and mail may not be delivered correctly.

Fortunately, this situation should not last too long. We’re hoping everything should be back to normal by next Monday at the very latest, though the inconvenience should only last for a couple of days.

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There was much disappointment around the world when it was announced, shortly before the first round at Phillip Island, that the 2010 World Superbike season would not be shown live online on the World Superbike website, as it has been done in previous years. The reason was simple: TV companies – who had paid sizable sums to Infront Motor Sports to screen the races live – were fed up of losing their audiences (and therefore their advertising income) to the website of the company they had handed their money over to.

Fortunately, the World Superbike series can lend at least some succour to racing fans. For Infront has placed highlight reels of both World Superbike and the World Supersport race up on the World Superbike series’ Youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/sbk. So fans who have missed the races can at least get a taster of the action from Down Under before their local TV stations show the races – if they are being shown in those territories.

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Results of the World Supersport race at Phillip Island: 

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Results of the warm up session for the World Supersport class at Phillip Island: 

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In the runup to the first World Supersport race of the 2010 season, MotoMatters.com – like every other motorcycle racing news outlet – is swamped with press releases. Unlike most other news outlets, however, we do not bother our readers with them, for they are, for the most part, bland and uninteresting fare, and completely interchangeable.

Not all of them are so insipid, however. In the press releases of some teams, the character of the riders, press officer or team manager shines through, spicing them up and making them a much more palatable affair. And they don’t come much spicier than the missives from the pen of Parkalgar Honda World Supersport boss Simon Buckmaster. Buckmaster is not shy of expressing his opinion, and likes to do so forcefully and frequently. This makes him a breath of fresh air, and always informative and entertaining to talk to, whether you agree with him or not.

Just prior to the first race of the season getting underway, Buckmaster fired off a press release with his view of how the season will unfold, and who he thinks will be champion this season. It will come as no surprise to find out that the Parkalgar team boss believes that his very own Eugene Laverty will be the man holding the trophy at Magny-Cours in seven months’ time, but his reasoning provides a fascinating insight into the politics of the World Supersport class, and is a very entertaining read to boot. Here’s what Buckmaster has to say:

Simon Buckmaster says…

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Results of qualifying for the World Supersport class at Phillip Island:

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Results of the second session of free practice for the World Supersport class at Phillip Island: 

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Results of the first qualifying session for the World Supersport class at Phillip Island: 

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Results of the first session of free practice for the World Supersport class at Phillip Island: 

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In case you still needed a little help in getting warmed up for the World Superbike season opener at Phillip Island next weekend, here’s a video from the Italian channel SuperbikeTV. Yes, it’s in Italian, and therefore contains commentary which non-Italian speakers will find incomprehensible. But it also features footage of the bikes on track, and that should get your juices running ready for Sunday. Just a few more days to go …

Joan Lascorz topped the timecharts at the end of two days of testing at Phillip Island, getting within spitting distance of Kenan Sofuoglu’s pole record from last year. The Spaniard had been strong all weekend, finishing as fastest in three of the four sessions the World Supersport class had at the Australian track, the final test in the run up to the opening round of the 2010 season.

A cluster of Hondas sit from 2nd to 4th, with Eugene Laverty’s Parkalgar bike sandwiched between the Ten Kates of Kenan Sofuoglu and Michele Pirro. These four look the most likely title candidates, but the old guard of Katsuaki Fujiwara and Fabien Foret will give them a run for their money from time to time. 

With three Kawasakis and three Hondas in the top six, the prospect of a Kawasaki winning a world championship is looking increasingly realistic. Team Green have generally had a miserable time in all of the World Championship series they have entered, their last title coming in 2001 in this very class, with Andrew Pitt aboard a Kawasaki ZX-6R. But the World Supersport series is the only class where Kawasaki have shone, and with Joan Lascorz growing in maturity year on year, the Spaniard could be one to watch in 2010.

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Results of the second and final session of testing for World Supersport at Phillip Island: 

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Results of the first session of practice for the World Supersport class on Monday: 

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If Moto2 testing has been dogged by bad weather and poor conditions, the sun has smiled on the World Superbike and World Supersport classes. The men – and woman – of the WSBK paddock enjoyed the warm sunshine of the Antipodean late summer, but then again they did have to fly halfway round the world to enjoy it. Kenan Sofuoglu immediately made himself at home at Phillip Island, setting the fastest lap of the first day of testing during the morning session, and showing a similar turn of pace in the afternoon. Motocard Kawasaki’s Joan Lascorz was quickest in the afternoon session, but his time was well off the time set by the Ten Kate Honda rider in the morning session.

The Ten Kate Hondas and Motocard Kawasakis dominated the timesheets, taking the top four spots with Sofuoglu and his new teammate Michele Pirro sandwiching Katsuaki Fujiwara and Lascorz between them. Another Kawasaki was 5th, the Lorenzini by Leoni bike of former WSS World Champion Fabien Foret. The Frenchman finished just ahead of last year’s championship runner up, Eugene Laverty on the Parkalgar Honda.

Sebastien Charpentier was the fastest of the Triumphs, ahead of his BE1 teammate David Salom. Chaz Davies was the second fastest of the British riders in 10th place, 3 places ahead of newcomer Gino Rea, and two places ahead of his Factory Triumph teammate, American rider Jason DiSalvo.

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Results of the second session of practice for the World Supersport class at the Phillip Island test :

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Results of the first session of practice for the World Supersport class at the Phillip Island test: 

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After several long, dark months of near silence on racetracks around the world, motorcycle racing fans can ready themselves for a feast of on-track action. For 10 of the next 14 days will see every international race class on track testing, with the bonus of the opening round of the World Superbike championship to top it off. 

First up is a major outing for the Moto2 and 125cc classes at Barcelona’s Montmelo circuit. A total of 42 riders are expected to take to the track, including the cream of the 125cc crop and some of the major players in Moto2. 

In the 125cc class, the four favorites for the title will face off for the first time. The Derbis of Pol Espargaro and Marc Marquez will be up against the Aprilias of Bradley Smith and Nico Terol, as the teams and riders prepare for the championship. 

Smith returns to the Aspar fold, after failing to find a place in Moto2. In compensation, however, Smith will start the season with the best chance of becoming the first British World Champion since Barry Sheene in 1977. He knows the bike and the team, and his biggest challenge may come from his still growing body, as he inches north of 5’8, outgrowing the ideal size for a 125 racer.

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In another warmup for the 2010 World Superbike season, which thankfully is getting ever closer, Miller Motorsports Park organized a telephone press conference with Jason DiSalvo, the Triumph Factory Racing World Supersport team’s new signing. DiSalvo spoke at some length to reporters about his recent test at Portimao, which was his first outing on the Triumph Daytona 675, about adapting to the Pirelli tires, about racing in Europe and about training outside in the frozen northeast, during what is now being referred to as "Snowmageddon II". Below is the transcript of the press conference:

Moderator: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Miller Motorsports Park’s second teleconference with riders of the World Supersport and World Superbike championships. This week we have Jason DiSalvo, who rides for the BE1 Triumph Factory Team in World Supersport Championship.

Jason has been a fixture in American racing for a number of years. He raced in AMA from 1999 through 2009. Made his way up from Superstock and Supersport up to the Superbike class, where he raced from 2005 to 2009. He started racing when he was 4. He has spent some years in Europe doing 125GP racing. He was the youngest rider ever to race in an FIM-sanctioned 125GP race. And we’re glad to have him here. So, hello, Jason.

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With just over two weeks to go until the 2010 World Superbikes season kicks off at Phillip Island in Australia, the ever-assiduous staff at World Superbike headquarters have put together a video preview of the season to whet your appetite for the racing – as if that was necessary after a long cold winter. The video features a rundown of the teams and riders participating in the upcoming season, interviews with most of the protagonists, and highlights of the fantastic racing that made up the 2009 season.

So pour yourself a fresh beverage, pull up a chair and enjoy 25 minutes of World Superbike action. It’s very nearly time to go racing again. 

You can also watch this video in high resolution on the World Superbike Youtube channel.