Two great races! The Ducatis and the Suzukis have definitely improved. Aprilia looks to be OK without "eyebrow" as well.

Laverty was an animal...too bad about his motor in race 2.

The WSBK Video Pass is pretty nice. 

A stone lifted from my heart when I saw the Ducatis (almost) keep up, even on the straights 

The Buell down 50km/h on to speed was scary...

good racing, happy to get the season going again!

Good Racing again at last!!  Hooray for Suzuki! It's going to be an interesting season. What if they get halfway through the year and everybody runs out of engines?   

Quote from: stopintime on February 23, 2014, 02:53:27 PM
A stone lifted from my heart when I saw the Ducatis (almost) keep up, even on the straights 

The Buell down 50km/h on to speed was scary...

Eh, Checa got pole position at PI last year, so the stone may return. 

And the Buell, it's looking like a long season for our lads.

Quote from: derRoteBaron on February 23, 2014, 10:03:23 PM
Good Racing again at last!!  Hooray for Suzuki! It's going to be an interesting season. What if they get halfway through the year and everybody runs out of engines?   

Starting the whole field from pit lane... what could go wrong?

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see several front runners need exra motors. Only allowing 8 for 14 rounds (28 races) plus practice and superpoles seems very tight.

I wonder if Ape is rethinking the decision about letting laverty go

Quote from: Speeddog on February 23, 2014, 10:45:29 PM
Eh, Checa got pole position at PI last year, so the stone may return. 

+1 The Ducs have always gone well in PI. The course has tons on fast corners and, from what I've read, the 1199 is very stable and corners well. We'll need to wait for the tracks with long front stretches to really gauge where the Duc falls.

Quote from: thought on February 24, 2014, 07:53:49 PM
I wonder if Ape is rethinking the decision about letting laverty go

Surely they are. I'm not sure they meant to let him go though. The report I read was he was going to MotoGP to ride their factory effort bike with Hayden...then Gigi up and left for Ducati which put a stop to the GP project. They apparently tried to get him back in WSBK, but already had contracts with Melandri and Guintoli, so they were stuck.

Quote from: Triple J on February 25, 2014, 09:02:22 AM
Surely they are. I'm not sure they meant to let him go though. The report I read was he was going to MotoGP to ride their factory effort bike with Hayden...then Gigi up and left for Ducati which put a stop to the GP project. They apparently tried to get him back in WSBK, but already had contracts with Melandri and Guintoli, so they were stuck.

Ahh... didnt know that and I'm glad that he wasnt just booted off for no reason.  I've always liked him and I'd love for him to get some more recognition.  Was hard for me to follow WSBK last year with the limited online offerings but should be fixed up this year

Quote from: stopintime on February 23, 2014, 02:53:27 PM
A stone lifted from my heart when I saw the Ducatis (almost) keep up, even on the straights 

must be some of that unibrow magic.