Australians love kick-offs and there’s no better start to a season than February at the Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit and the world launch of world superbikes.   While the 2016 season has just wound up, with adopted Aussie Jonathan Rea picking up title number two, everyone at the track is busily planning 2017 and a scorchingly hot, scorchingly fast World Superbike Yamaha Finance round. 

Look forward to world supers in the summer heat, next Feb 24-26 at your favourite track, Phillip Island.      

Now on a two week break, the teams start intensive winter testing next week in Spain.  They’ll get Christmas off…and then back on their bikes for more testing late Jan, before everyone boards the plane for Australia and summertime (hooray!!), the final pre-season test and our scorching opening round.

Tickets are already available on http://www.worldsbk.com.au (or Ticketek) and we’re promising another stupendous event.   There’s a cracker line-up forming with the return of Irishman Eugene Laverty and Italian Marco Melandri and 2011 Moto2 world champion Stefan Bradl joining the production-class championship for the first time.    
 

Eugene Laverty is set to reunite with Aprilia – the marque which took him to second place in the 2013 championship behind fellow Brit Sykes. During his WorldSBK career, Laverty has clinched 13 race victories and 33 podium finishes from his 104 race starts.

Laverty's team will be known as Milwaukee Aprilia, with promising Italian Lorenzo Savadori the second rider.

Thirty-four-old Marco Melandri, the former 250 GP world champion and five-time MotoGP winner, will return to WorldSBK after two years, partnering Chaz Davies at Aruba.it Racing Ducati.

Melandri competed in the WorldSBK title from 2011-14 for Yamaha, BMW and Aprilia, claiming 19 wins from 49 podiums in 100 races. He replaces fellow Italian Davide Giugliano in the factory Ducati team.

Laverty and Melandri have already enjoyed some epic battles around Phillip Island, the last time in 2014 when Laverty just got the better of the Italian in a titanic scrap that also included Frenchman Sylvan Guintoli. A year earlier, the same trio also went at it hammer and tongs, with Laverty leading home Guintoli and Melandri in race two.