You’ve got to love Italians, they are never happy even if they win and when you’ve got two Italian manufacturers facing off against each other and bickering becomes the name of the game.
The first round of the World Superbike championship at Phillip Island saw Aprilia and Ducati divide a win a piece, with Max Biaggi dominating the first race and Carlos Checa doing the same in the second, but both riders weren’t really pitted against each other as Checa DNFd in race 1 and Biaggi had to furiously fight back after being relegated to the last spot after a runnning off track.
So you’d think that their team managers would be more than satisfied, but you’d be wrong.
Gigi Dall’Igna and Biaggi have taken to task criticizing the rules that allow the twin cylinder bikes to race against the four cylinder bikes, and have branded the the current six kilo handicap a joke and that Checa will be still favoured to win the title.
The pitlane reporter of the LA7 channel went to interview Genesio Bevilacqua of Althea Racing to talk about his rider’s victory, instead the Italian manager indirectly talked about Biaggi’s remarkable second place.
We already know the Italian manager’s position on the extra weight, he hates it, says it’s a disadvantage and constantly harks on it and today wasn’t any different, “I was disappointed to see that there are riders that can start from last position and finish second, while we are penalized with six extra kilos of weight.
It will be hard to overcome this difficulty this season, even with a rider, a champion, of Carlos’ caliber”.
Naturally Bevilacqua is another member of that club that says that the Aprilia RSV4 is really a MotoGP bike masquerading as a Superbike.
We’ve just started the season and it looks like it is going to be very long, but not the way we want it to be.