World SuperBike 2019

Looks like the World Superbike series will no longer be the Jonathan Rae show. The four time consecutive champion was beaten convincingly in each of the first six races by newcomer Alvaro Bautista. Bautista is no rookie in racing. He came from MotoGP and is a past 125cc World Champion. Good to see Ducati on top of a series and turning the tables on Kawasaki and Rae.

I have only seen the first two races, but he seems to be handling it pretty well. A little "ass kicking" is good for us all, now and then. Makes the races more interesting as well.

In the post race interviews Rae has seemed resigned to the fact that the Ducati with Bautista on it is just better than he is on the Kawasaki. He has not shown any inkling of being a bad sport, but he seems a bit taken back that he is easily beating the field, as always, except Bautista is half a second faster per lap than he is. It is more interesting now, but if Bautita dominates as Rae has for the past four years it will get boring again.

the power advantage of the Ducati in a straight line is pretty dramatic, just like it is in MotoGP right now. Put a MotoGP veteran on a bike that is MUCH faster in a straight line than anything else on the grid and you have a recipe for dominating wins.

Its interesting that Chaz Davies is on the same bike as Bautista and he's dwelling down from 7th to 10th in all the races and you sure see how valuable the pilot is in the racing equation

Just thought I'd jump in to highlight the error of the first sentence of this thread...

Rae was nowhere until Bautista apparently forgot how to ride. Not sure what his issue is, but he said somewhere that he doesn't have the front end feel he expected, and that seems plain enough now!! He's also got to have a mental block with it by now: "Don't-think-about-it-don't-crash-don't-think-about-it-don't-crash-don't-think-about-it-don't-crash-don't-think-about-it-don't-crash-aw-FUCK!!!"