So Super Supersport in 2011
Yamaha, Kawasaki and Honda riders have all won races. Davies' team- mate Luca Scassa has two victories to his credit on his R6, Provec Motocard.com rider Broc Parkes has proved that he can win on the ZX-6R and the first of a large number of potential winning Honda CBR600RR riders to have jumped up to the top is Gino Rea (Step Racing). With no official factory Triumph effort this year the results for the Daytona 675 have not quite kept pace with the main Japanese bikes but the other facts and figures about the class show it is wide one, be you a privateer or a fully supported rider.
Behind the big four winners we have had another three who have already claimed podium finishes. David Salom, Broc Parkes' team-mate, is second overall after an incredibly consistent season, which has included his first two podiums in this class. Three points behind the Spanish rider is a WSS legend, Fabien Foret, who has come close to his first 2011 win, despite some serious injury worries at the start of the year riding for the perennially successful Hannspree Ten Kate team. The veteran rider has posted five podiums from eight races. British riders have shown strongly again, with Sam Lowes (Parkalgar Honda) a real threat from the very first race. His three 2011 podiums place him sixth right now, despite his own mid-season injury worries.
As well as the officially supported and best backed teams even relative low spending efforts have been able to take advantage of the single bike rule and other cost saving exercises put in place for 2011. Robbin Harms and his Harms Benjan Honda team have been threatening the podiums all year, and for a long time were the best CBR squad in the results standings. Experienced rider Massimo Roccoli overcame some tough early times to make himself a real thorn in the side of the top few on his Lorenzini by Leoni Kawasaki. A fourth and a fifth in two of the last three races have put him into the top ten, one place behind another top privateer from Italy, Roberto Tamburini (Yamaha Bike Service RT). And even as the season has worn on a privateer like Tamburini can become even more competitive, not less, setting a fifth, a fifth and a fourth in the past three races.
And the fight for top ten places every weekend? That has become a frantic battle once more, with freight trains of riders chasing around in equally matched machinery, all vying for season best or career best results. In 2011 WSS has split the atom of competitiveness again in a big way, with several high energy particles capable of strong reactions, all of which makes Davies' amazing consistency and current dominance all the more remarkable in such an open class of racing. Four rounds left, all of which should be as hard fought as ever.
