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The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship is heading into the second half of the season amid an incredible tight Championship battle following the Pirelli Navarra Round. With six rounds scheduled to complete the rest of the 2021 season, WorldSBK Executive Director, Gregorio Lavilla, spoke about the two flyaway rounds as well as the arrival of the Autodrom Most and Circuito de Navarra onto the calendar for the first time.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, the Argentinean Round at the Circuito San Juan Villicum missed out on a race in the 2020 campaign but returns to the Championship for 2021. With the complexity of travelling in the current circumstances as well as government regulations that may be in place in each country, Lavilla provided an update on the 2021 Motul Argentinean Round.

Confirming that the Championship is in close contact with the authorities in Argentina, Lavilla said: “Right now, there are two different conditions. Argentina has the track in place and right now, what we’re doing is confirming the possibility to go there to avoid the quarantine on entry because we’re working in a kind of bubble to be in a safe environment and to provide all the facilities to make the event happen. We are having regular weekly meetings with the relevant people there and we’re working as the event will happen despite the last season, always needing pending confirmation about whether COVID allows us to go there or not.”

Adding about the Pirelli Indonesian Round, Lavilla confirmed that procedures are in place to have the event, although the circuit currently remains subject to homologation: “The situation is the same in Indonesia, with the particularity of that in Indonesia the circuit is under construction. The track and protections part has been finished, it is halfway through the Race Control, the medical center, the TV Compound and the heliport. In the hotel zone we are already guaranteed a high number of rooms available for the entire paddock community. They work very fast and go hard. If there is no external element that can stop this progression, for the moment it is being planned with the assumption that it can be reached on time. As this appointment is in November and there are a few weeks ahead, we will continue to follow the situation until we reach the point where we have to make a confirmation.”

The 2021 campaign features, apart from the Indonesian Round, two new circuits with the Autodrom Most and Circuito de Navarra hosting rounds six and seven of the season. With these two rounds now complete, Lavilla was full of praise for the two venues: “Everything went well in Most and here, it was running very well. We knew it was a bit challenging because at new tracks, everything needs to be put in place in the way we like to work. We made it; we worked hard, the events were successful and now, we’re just looking forward towards the next races. Obviously, all of them already had WorldSBK except the last round in Indonesia, so things should be a little bit easier.”

You can watch the full interview with Lavilla in the video at the top of this article, where he discusses the first half of the season and the incredible three-way title fight taking place in the 2021 Championship.

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