WorldSBK Aragon: Whitham’s post-race analysis

It’s not often that seasoned pundit and former Superbike star James Whitham gushes with enthusiasm but ‘absolutely brilliant’ was his description of the World Superbike season opener at Aragon in his post race chat with bikesportnews.

“Everything about it was great,” he enthused. ”We knew it was going to be the Toprak/Jonathan show again and we’d suspected after what had been happening in pre-season testing that Bautista, at least on some circuits, would be very, very quick and it worked out really well with Bautista getting the best of it.”

Never afraid to mix it himself, Whitham was particularly impressed with Jonathan Rea’s determination: ”Jonathan was prepared to roll his sleeves up and while Aragon has never been a Yamaha circuit they came away with, at least, something to smile about - three podiums against one last year.

“It bodes really well for the championship because Bautista didn’t win by ten seconds or 14 seconds which he did in on Ducati in 2019 but by two or three seconds and actually got beaten by Jonathan who managed to get a win by passing him, rattling him and holding him up in places where the Ducati was going to be quick.

“I think it was a great start for Superbikes and one of the things I was pleased about was that the new formula Supersport looks like it’s finding the basis for an exciting next couple of years.

“These new balancing rules with the 800, the 765 triples and the 955 twins said that Scott Smart has done a fantastic job for a first attempt. The rules will be tweaked and one they get these triples and twins competing with the existing fours, the Kawasakis and the Yamahas, we are going to see a cracking championship.

“Also worth mentioning are the displaced Moto2 and MotoGP riders such as