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“Are you not entertained?” shouted Russell Crowe in Gladiator. No, he wasn’t talking about the 2019 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season, which kicks off next week and looks set to be a classic. 

Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) has rewritten the record books in WorldSBK over the last four years. If there’s a record worth holding, it belongs to the Northern Irishman. Rea and Kawasaki have thoroughly deserved their success, but the battles have been closer than meets the eye, and in 2019 it looks like the WorldSBK grid should be even more competitive.

With BMW and Honda returning with their full factory support to the series, a brand-new Ducati and a four-strong Yamaha attack; the number of cards in the deck might be the same but there’s a lot more players at the table. Jonathan Rea is sitting at the table, sunglasses on and surrounded by his team65, trying not to give the give the game away. He’s holding Pocket Kings and has a strong hand, but he’s not unbeatable. The question on the lips of every WorldSBK fan is: which rider holds the Pocket Aces?

Ducati is the easiest bet to make for this. A brand-new bike, the V4 R is a full-blooded, MotoGP™ derived machine and it’s quick but it’s also new. It’s important to remember the team need to understand how to get the most from it. Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) is a former 125ccGP world champion and a MotoGP^TM podium man. He’s got speed and experience, but WorldSBK is brand-new to him. He’ll have to adapt and learn. Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) has been Rea’s closest challenger in recent years but he’s had an injury-plagued winter. Is the Welshman at full fitness? If he is and the bike hits the ground running, he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

Are Yamaha ready to step up? Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) starred in pre-season testing, and team-mate Michael van der Mark was a race winner and regular front-runner last season. The Yamaha R1 has made another step forward over the winter, and they look set to start the campaign as Rea and Kawasaki’s closest challenger. Yamaha has also expanded its interest in WorldSBK, with Marco Melandri and Sandro Cortese joining the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK squad. The Italian team are taking their step up to the Superbike class seriously; the team wants to be the top Yamaha squad. Melandri came close to retirement last year and wants to show everyone he can still win races. Whereas Cortese is finally getting the chance on a big bike and he wants to show what he can do. If you’re looking for a team motivated for success, look no further than this.

BMW is back with a full factory effort in 2019 and the fanfare is justified. The German manufacturer has teamed up with Shaun Muir Racing and the all new S1000 RR was enough to tempt Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) to join the project. Sykes looked strong in January testing at Jerez and Portimao for the BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team, but is he strong enough to win on the BMW? It’s unlikely to be a winner in the early rounds but if Sykes can secure pole positions, and the bike looks fast enough to do that, this season will be a success. The team has invested a lot of resources into WorldSBK, which you can see just with a glance in the garage, so don’t be surprised when Sykes is fighting at the sharp end.

Honda is the wild-card of the 2019 grid, with the Moriwaki Althea Honda Team. The return of HRC has been met with much fanfare, but they’ve been testing behind closed doors, so we haven’t been able to see their pace out on track. The Phillip Island test will be the first chance we get to see how the team will operate, but it’s likely that this season will be a learning year for the team, and that the lessons will be put into their 2020 machine.

Whilst Rea will be looking up and down the pitlane to see who his challengers will be, he’ll also be looking at the opposite site of the garage. Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) is a WorldSBK race winner and has proven himself on almost every Superbike. He’s been a podium finisher on Ducati, Honda, Suzuki, BMW, Aprilia and Kawasaki machinery. His experience speaks for itself, and for the first time in his career he’s racing a bike that is expected to win races. He’ll want to answer the call and show he’s a title contender. Phillip Island is one of his favourite circuits, so it could provide a near perfect platform for the first race on his return to WorldSBK.

The grid will be stacked in 2019. From front to back there are potential race winners on race winning machinery. With an additional race each weekend - the ten-lap Superpole Race - there is little doubt that 2019 will be entertaining.