News

It’s been a full two months since the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship riders jumped off their bikes and began a well-earned summer break, and everyone is yearning to pick up their machines back up and do what they do best: get out racing. A bit of off-time never hurt anyone however, and our riders have made sure to keep busy and recharge their batteries.

Several riders began their vacation by remaining on track, with Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK), PJ Jacobsen (TripleM Honda World Superbike Team), Alex Lowes and Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team), as well as World Supersport’s Hikari Okubo (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) flying to Japan for the Suzuka 8 Hours race. A fresh and exciting endeavour to start the summer which also gave them time to explore Japanese culture with their loved ones.

Leon Camier (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) was also supposed to take part at Suzuka with the rest, but a crash in testing unfortunately kept him off the tracks. The Brit didn’t allow the injury to water down his summer however, as we’ve seen him dipping his toes into fishing and, most recently, surfing; while fellow Englishman Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) doesn’t seem to have allowed his ankle injury to get into the way of enjoying some quality time with his family. Same goes for Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia), who spent part of his holidays supporting his brother Michael out on track, when not biking in the Northern Irish forest.

Keeping with the water theme, Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) picked sunny southern France for his recovery. Judging from the videos from his social media feeds, we can confirm that it beats working. Fellow Ducati rider Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Racing – Junior) also chose boats and beaches for his holidays, in his case the Italian coast; while Loris Baz (GULF Althea BMW Racing Team) tried his hand at jet skiing around Valencia.

Want a busy summer? Look no further than Jonathan Rea’s, who on both sides of his Japanese exploits has been caught doing motocross, watching boxing, and enjoying the family life. Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) has kept equally occupied, popping up on a mountain bike in Trento, flying his plane over Venice and even showing off his DJ skills.

One of the main attractions of a long summer break is having the time to head back home, especially for those who live on the opposite side of the world. That’s what Tati Mercado (Orelac Racing VerdNatura) or Jake Gagne (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) did, with the former skiing and doing motocross in his home country of Argentina, while the American also picked up his beloved dirt bike for a spin back in California.

Now the summer is over at last, and there will be no post-vacation slump for the WorldSBK riders as they head back to the tracks in just one week! Catch the Nolan Portuguese Round from September 14-16^, thanks to WorldSBK VideoPass.