VOL. 50 ISSUE 35 SEPTEMBER 4, 2013
Kawasaki's Tom
Sykes wins the
first of two redflagged World
Superbike races.
P73
Briefly...
The position of the MV Agusta in
the World Superbike paddock for
2014 was complicated at Nürburgring when ParkinGO team owner
Giuliano Rovelli announced that he
will concentrate on the strategic expansion of his airport parking business and look after his family life.
This opened the door to the possibility of the Althea Team running
an MV Superbike in 2014, although
the class has yet to be confirmed –
full Superbike or the new Evo class.
It is known that Althea has spoken
with Dorna about how to make it
happen. The full Superbike option
may be the way to do the required
development for any MV Superbike
machine of the future, particularly if
the whole class goes towards Evo
rules in 2015.
A four-rider World Superbike
safety committee has been voted
on by their fellow riders and the
four who will enter discussion in the
riders' interests are Jonathan Rea,
Sylvain Guintoli, Carlos Checa and
Marco Melandri.
ond after 18 of 20 planned laps.
But the marshals or race direction should have stopped the first
race quicker when Federico Sandi's Pedercini Kawasaki blew up
so comprehensively that he fell in
his own oil in the braking zone.
There were oil flags out in plac-
es and race control didn't know
how serious the leak was, but
somebody, somewhere, should
have stopped it before Pata
Honda's Jonathan Rea and Fixi
Crescent Suzuki's Leon Camier
arrived there at high speed and
crashed.
Loris Baz had a heavy crash on his
Kawasaki in morning warm-up and
suffered injuries to his back and left
forearm. He had to go to the local
hospital for a CT scan before he
would be allowed back on track,
so he missed race one and was finally diagnosed with a fractured C2
vertebra. He is probably going to
Spain for more medical attention,
but he is not in any danger of spinal
or neurological damage.
Confirmation was made by Dorna in
a Friday media briefing at Nürburg
that the current four classes in the
series will remain in 2014, and the
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