Due to Jonathan Rea’s injury, Augusto Fernández will make his WSBK debut during the second round of the season to be held in Portugal. The Spanish will join, in this way, the pilots who have gone from competing in MotoGP to do so in the Superbike World Cup. Although there has been everything and it has never been easy to move from the queen category to motorcycle races derived as standard, the truth is that some managed to surprise.
One of them was Marco Lucchinelli. The Italian, who achieved the title of 500 world champion in 1981 and was, until the title of Álex Crivillé in 1999, the last European who had achieved it, debuted strongly in the WSBK in Donington. Lucchinelli arrived at the WSBK in the first season of the championship (1988), and signed a second place in the first race and won the second fighting with a “Tal” Davide Tardazzi.
It also wreaked havoc on the John Kocinski grill. The one who, without a doubt, has been the American with more talent since Rainey and Schwantz, did not achieve great objectives in 500, but debuted at the WSBK in 1996 after a sabbatical year. He did it in Misano, he took the pole and the two victories. In 1997 he was world champion and in 1998 he returned to 500 to remain a headache there where he passed.
What to say about Max Biaggi’s talent? Little or nothing can be said about the Roman pilot who treasured as much quality as excess self -love. After its four titles of 250 and being one of the best of the moment, in 500 first and MotoGP later, it looked to the point with Honda that it ran out of place in the championship.
But the big figures are able to get out of the abyss, and debuted in the WSBK in 2007 in Qatar. In the layout of Losail he did not achieve Pole, but he did win the first race to make a podium in the second and finish the third year. Then the 2010 and 2012 titles would arrive, to put the touch of gold to a spectacular race.
When Álvaro Bautista arrived at the WSBK from MotoGP he did it with the clear purpose of becoming world champion, and that worked from the first moment. In full harmony with Ducati, he was the master and lord of the first WSBK event in Australia. He classified third, but then he took the victory in the two long races and the Suerpole Race that, curiously, was the first in history.
Unlike the cases we have mentioned, Andrea Iannone arrived at the WSBK from MotoGP yes, but after several years retired from the competition. Perhaps that is why he achieved in the category a second place in the superpole and then lead the race to end up stepping on the podium had a lot of redemption. Then he added four other podiums in the season, including his victory in Aragon.
Other historical debuts that MotoGP pilots had
One of them is not strictly a debut from MotoGP. We talk about Marco Simoncelli in his stage with Gilera. It was the last year of Marco in 250 before passing to MotoGP and revolutionized the chicken coop. With his self -confidence and talent at the controls of the Aprilian of Nakano, injured at that time. He did not respect (as usual) to anything or anyone and, although the title of 250 was playing, it was with everything. Despite not having had much contact with the motorcycle, he went from less to more during the weekend to achieve a podium, fighting controversially with Max Biaggi and Ben Spies.
To these names we must add other great pilots and champions such as Carlos Checa, Nicky Hayden, Regis Laconi, Alex Barros, Scott Reeding and one that attracts attention: Michael Doohan. Yes, Doohan competed in the WSBK, but unlike the rest he did it before reaching 500 (such as Spies). The Australian ran in 4 WSBK races and won three of them, showing a brushstroke of what ended up being the last great dominator of 500.
