OFFICIAL PROGRAMME · THE SEA CHANGE
EXCITING CONTENT
THE SEA CHANGE
The British round of the WorldSBK Championship may be the ideal place to speak about the sea change that has already set to alter the face of the biggest production derived class in the world . Mainly by altering the faces of the riders who will compete here in the short and medium term . Where are our new riders coming from ?
For a decade and more the WorldSBK championship has been almost a friendly UK civil war , with rider after rider holding British passports winning races and challenging each other for championships - and then going on to win them in a couple of cases . It ’ s not all British all the time , but the UK has been the predominant nationality of riders at the sharp end for years . Even Sylvain Guintoli , champion in 2014 , has lived in the UK for so long some he has been adopted as an honorary Brit by some . all UK riders and World Champions . One sea change that has already started in WorldSBK is that the modern golden rider generation from the UK is now thinning out in numbers , due to the inexorable march of time , and no-one British coming along to replace them .
Leon Camier finished a couple of years ago , but this year we have had Tom Sykes and Leon Haslam go back to BSB , and Chaz Davies also retire from WorldSBK racing . That still leaves a strong UK contingent of Jonathan Rea , Alex Lowes , and Scott Redding , but it is much smaller ‘ Superbike Island ’ than it once was . And let ’ s remember that Rea is 35 , Lowes 31 , and even Redding is now 29 . There are no very young British racers in WorldSSP either - Spanish resident Kyle Smith is 30 , and Tom Booth-Amos 26 .
Britain itself has almost always been enthusiastic about WorldSBK racing , from its earliest times and all through those championship glories of Carl Fogarty , Neil Hodgson , James Toseland , Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea . And in WorldSSP , Cal Crutchlow , Chaz Davies and Sam Lowes were
Once upon a time there would be a clear line of succession for BSB rider from national racing to WorldSBK . For a couple of decades having a UK passport was almost as much of a guarantee of quality and performance in WorldSBK as it was for American or Australian passport holders in
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