VOL. 53 ISSUE 30 AUGUST 2, 2016 P51
four WorldSBK seasons
to date second, third,
fourth and fourth again,
after making 100 race
starts in total.
Despite all his former
WorldSBK glories, his
new Ducati placement
is a gamble for both
parties in some ways.
Outgoing works rider
Davide Giugliano has
been unable to win even
a lone race in nearly
three injury-affected
seasons on the factory
Ducati, however, 2017
season wins at least
should be within the
grasp of a re-motivated
Melandri.
He is also a former
teammate of Davies, so that
at least is a known quantity for
everyone to deal with.
With the "big two" of Jonathan
Rea and Tom Sykes already
re-signed with KRT, and with
Melandri and Davies confirmed
on the next-best Ducatis, the
rest of the WorldSBK field is tak-
ing shape—if not officially yet in
most instances.
Alex Lowes, who has sent
Yamaha over and beyond the
edge of happiness with his joint
win of the Suzuka 8 Hours,
should compete again in the
Pata Yamaha WorldSBK squad
but his teammate is hotly tipped
to be Michael van der Mark.
The seeming lack of an obvious
path to MotoGP with Honda,
the lure of an eventual path of
possibilities to MotoGP with
Yamaha—and maybe even simply
a change from a career path
spent only on Hondas in recent
seasons—are some reasons to
switch to Yamaha.
Honda already has Nicky
Hayden all signed up to race in
its official Honda Europe team.
Alongside him should now be
Stefan Bradl who is out of Mo-
toGP options.
Also exciting for many in the
paddock is recent chat from
Aprilia about restarting some
form of semi-factory or even
small-scale official WorldSBK
squad, to get some winning
glory back again, while the Mo-
toGP project continues to move
closer to competitiveness. For
a parent company like Piaggio,
MotoGP is the big deal still, of
course, but the RSV4 almost
certainly still has what it takes to
win in WorldSBK. It won both of
its final 2015 season races, after
all. The question is, with whom
will any upping-of-the-ante take
place?
Lorenzo Savadori appears
certain to go with the best Aprilia
bikes in 2017, but will those be
with the existing last-minute 2016
Aprilia squad run by Giampiero
Sacchi's IodaRacing outfit, or
will recent BSB champions and
2016 WorldSBK rookies Mil-
waukee SMR swap their current
customer-supported BMWs for
(Above) Michael van der Mark is
being heavily linked to a move to
Pata Yamaha for 2017.
