ROAD RACING
FIM SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 1 / FEBRUARY 27-29, 2020
PHILLIP ISL AND / PHILLIP ISL AND, AUSTRALIA
P70
BY GORDON RITCHIE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
T
he tire chewing nature of
the 2.76-mile circuit at Phil-
lip Island often means the
top riders ride in a bunch for a
while before normal service is re-
sumed. But with three races with
winning margins of just 0.007,
0.067 and 0.037 seconds, and
three different winners for the first
time since the triple race format
was introduced at the start of
last year, there was something
special about the opening 2020
round.
In the first race, a 22-lap full-on
version with Tom Sykes (BMW
Motorrad WorldSBK Team) on
a record-breaking Superpole
starting position, the action was
hyper behind him, as he led for
exactly half the race before his
tire started to give out, and first
Scott Redding (Aruba.it Rac-
ing – Ducati), then eventual race
winner Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata
Yamaha WorldSBK Team), and
then fellow Yamaha rider Michael
van der Mark ("VDM"), all led.
But it was Razgatlioglu's first
Yamaha win and the third of his
career.
"Before the race, I was incred-
ibly stressed because this is my
first time racing the R1 and as an
official rider," he said. "I knew I
needed a good early track posi-
LIGHT THE FIREWORKS!
