ROUND 1 / FEBRUARY 21-23, 2025
PHILLIP ISLAND CIRCUIT / VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
ROAD RACE I FIM WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP
P86
out of pitlane before the allotted
pit intervention time. He is on a
first-time WorldSSP legal 636cc
Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R. More
newness abounds.
In the early title fight, Booth-
Amos and Manzi are tied on 45
points.
CN
WorldSBK Race One (Top 5)
1. Nicolo Bulega (Duc)
2. Toprak Razgatlioglu (BMW)
3. Alvaro Bautista (Duc)
4. Danilo Petrucci (Duc)
5. Scott Redding (Duc)
WorldSBK Superpole (Top 5)
1. Nicolo Bulega (Duc)
2. Andrea Iannone (Duc)
3. Danilo Petrucci (Duc)
4. Scott Redding (Duc)
5. Sam Lowes (Duc)
WorldSBK Race Two (Top 5)
1. Nicolo Bulega (Duc)
2. Alvaro Bautista (Duc)
3. Andrea Iannone (Duc)
4. Scott Redding (Duc)
5. Danilo Petrucci (Duc)
what a middleweight track bike
could be was broadened and
deepened in 2022. This year's
all-new bike is the Yamaha YZF-
R9 triple, and this year's most
improved bike is the Triumph
Street Triple 765 RS.
There were concerns that the
new Yamaha was a bit too "road
-
bikey" and not as track-focused
as
the MV Agustas and Ducatis.
Or the old R6 four-cylinder 600 it
replaces.
The gangly frame of Stefano
Manzi (Ten Kate Racing Yamaha)
soon popped that idea off to bed
with a race-one win on Saturday
in what was also a contest with a
mandatory mid-life tire stop.
Manzi is so good he even won
a race on a Triumph in the first
'Next Gen' season (in 2022),
and funnily enough, the latest
Triumph (now with a more linear
rear suspension link and Ohlins
suspension) allowed Tom Booth-
Amos to take a hard but assured
win in the second 18-lap race of
the weekend.
Tom Booth-Amos (69)
came home for a career-first
WorldSSP win in race two.
Booth-Amos was a model of
concentration and pace, and he
won race two by 0.671 of a second
from Manzi and then Bo Bendsney-
der (MV Agusta Reparto Corse).
Booth-Amos was no second-
race
flash in the oil pan, as he had
been second in race one on an
overheated Saturday, behind Manzi
and ahead of WRP Racing Ducati's
new signing, Marcel Schroetter.
There were crashes aplenty in
preseason official testing, leaving
riders like Philipp Ottl and Fed
-
erico Caricasulo out on their ears
(or
more accurately, left knee and
right wrist, respectively).
There were some huge race
crashes too, as Jaume Masia
(Orelac Racing VerdNatura Duca
-
ti) accidentally ran into the back
of
Valentin Debise (Renzi Corse
Ducati) at the scary quick-braking
zone of T1.
Jeremy Alcoba (Kawasaki
WorldSSP Team) had a grim race
one but somehow finished fourth
in the second 18-lapper until he
was demoted to fifth for coming
