2009 World Superbike Championship: season preview and predictions

Team Green has some of the most loyal fans around, but those fans haven't had much to cheer about in Superbike lately. The 2008 Kawasaki squad had a BEST race finish of 8th throughout the season, and took the wooden spoon in the constructor's championship by a country mile, with only 98 points against nearest rival Suzuki's 408.

Worse still, 2008 was a major model update for the ZX-10R, with a proto-traction control system and an overall bike that looked as promising as anything we've seen from Kwaka in years. That bike failed miserably to light any SBK fires, and it's the same base model as we'll see for 2009.

On the other hand, Kawasaki's decision to pull out of MotoGP this year might free up some cash to be put toward the SBK effort. But given Team Green's recent lack of financial commitment and a "winning culture" in racing it's hard to see much of a turnaround. You can hardly blame them; millions of dollars a year to prove that your bike is the slowest one going around is probably wearing down the patience of whoever's signing the cheques, so however good the rider feedback gets, new parts in response will be few and far between.

Broc Parkes and Makoto Tamada are the team's factory riders for 2009, with David Salom and Luca Scassa filling out the Pedercini satellite team. Supersport contender Parkes was best of the bunch at Portamao, struggling in 15th. He's used to good equipment, having come from the Ten Kate and Yamaha factory teams in Supersport - so he'll be in for a frustrating season.

Suzuki: 2009 GSX-R enough?

It wasn't so long ago that Suzuki won the World Championship - the barnstorming Gixxer combined with Troy Corser's talent to bring home the bacon in 2005. But the team has been distinctly off the boil in the last three seasons, culminating in a second-last place finish in last year's constructor's title with only three wins.

The team's best rider, the unpronounceable Max Neukirchner, returns in 2009 after a fifth place finish in 2008, teamed once again with the possibly spent force of Yukio Kagayama in the Alstare outfit. Satellite rides go to Karl Muggeridge and Roland Resch.

Neukirchner has proven himself able to ride above the level of his bike in the last couple of seasons - but the 2009 GSX-R1000 looks like a fairly minor upgrade to the bike Suzuki have been running without a major facelift since 2005. A 1cm shorter wheelbase and a slightly longer swingarm seem to be the meat of the improvements, and it's hard to see the Suzi measuring up to the dominant machines of Ducati and Yamaha, particularly given the stellar riders these two teams have brought in for 2009.

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