WorldSBK 2022: Can you pick a winner?

WorldSBK 2022 is nearly here. April 11 sees the start of a new championship - year 35 on the formerly Roman-based calendar.

The final off-season private tests have been completed and now the 24 regular WorldSBK machines (and nearly that number of regular riders, as things stand with the injury list) are heading to Motorland Aragon for the first of 12 rounds - in old money. That’s a full 36 individual races - in new money.

Tempting to think that as 2022 looks and feels like the most normal season for two years, it has also been a particularly long winter. It feels like it at least, with no Australian start in late February, as has happened in most seasons except 2021.

Worth remembering that we finished up in late November last year, via a remarkable finale at the new Mandalika track. Our perspectives of time and place have just been pushed forward, and gently stretched a little, with this season starting on the weekend of 8-10 April. Two days of official pre-season testing, between 4-5 April, precede Round one in Spain.

This is by no means my first rodeo when it comes to predicting what may or may not happen before a new season. Every year it has been easy to look at the entry list and think, “Oh yeah, even these ones should go well too…”

Experience, however, reminds us (via a niggling whisper from the back of our combined memory banks) that there are never quite as many potential world champions in reality as there are projected be at this time of year.

That said, we start this season with a new champion that only really true-blue Yamaha staff or supporters ‘knew’ would come out on top in 2022. It was not a surprise that Toprak Razgatlioglu came good with the big title win, but it was by no means a certainty this time