Sunday 15th April 2018 will be the day of a war of the worlds. At Motorland Aragon (Spain), Jonathan Rea will try to get his 57th victory in World Superbike; if he did it, he would leave Aragon with two wins in the pocket, very important to distance his opponents like in the past few years. In the meantime at Brands Hatch, short track close to London, Bradley Ray (photo) will start from the pole position and try to get his second double win of the season, two weeks after the one conquered in Donington Park.
LONG-DISTANCE DUEL – We will see a long-distance duel between riders that are one the opposite of the other. Jonathan Rea, 31 years old, is the icon of today’s WorldSBK. Fast and merciless, he keeps winning in spite of the 1100 rpm less his Kawasaki has than last year, solution adopted by Dorna in order to help the opponents of the rider from Ballymena. On the other side, Bradley Ray is just 20, he’s at his second season in Superbike and he’s given wings to Suzuki, who decided not to return to World Superbike and preferred to invest on the most competitive national championship all over the world. BSB, yes. Until two weeks ago few people knew him and now he’s almost a superstar. Even Valentino Rossi was impressed by his performance and sent him his congratulations before Argentinian GP.
UPSIDE DOWN – Rea and Ray are the main actors of an upside down Superbike. They said BSB was a championship just for old riders, but the start of 2018 season saw the birth of a young star and he could even become an important personality. By contrast, WorldSBK title contenders are more than 30 years old: Rea and Davies are 31 anni, Fores 32 and Melandri 35. Moreover, WorldSBK will race in Spain in front of “four cats” (and this is the country where Dorna is based…), while BSB will attract to Brands Hatch at least 50.000 people…