VOLUME 58 ISSUE 17 APRIL 27, 2021 P89
On paper, Frenchman
Loris Baz, a former
MotoGP racer, seems
to be the odd-on
pre-season favorite
going into the 2021
MotoAmerica Superbike
Championship. Ducati
wants the title.
THIS!
YAMAHA
AND
SUZUKI
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN J. NELSON
W
ith defending MotoAmerica Super-
bike Champion Cameron Beau-
bier moving to the world stage in
2021, MotoAmerica Superbike will have a
vastly different look at the top, even if many
of the main players are still the same. Beau-
bier's dominance in 2021 was something
the series has rarely seen in its 45-year his-
tory and his absence sets a clear demarca-
tion into a new era for the series.
Exactly who will fill the void left by the
rider who won five out of the last six Mo-
toAmerica Superbike Championships is
still very much in the air.
On paper the odds-on pre-season favorite
would probably be Frenchman Loris Baz.
Ducati stepped back into the series at the tail
end of last year with a second of the potent
Panigale V4 Rs joining the battle, and Italian
World Superbike part-timer Lorenzo Zanetti
gave Ducati its first MotoAmerica/AMA
Superbike win in a decade. That apparently
whetted Ducati's appetite and its Ameri-
can squad Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati
brought in a heavy hitter in Baz for 2021.
Undoubtedly Baz is the real deal. A for-
mer MotoGP rider, Baz was scoring podi-
ums in the Superbike World Championship
just last season. And he came out swinging
in MotoAmerica preseason tests, topping
the charts on the first day.
