BMW

Michel Fabrizio was beaten by his teammate for the first ime in a long time in Superpole at Miller

Rough and tumble: the story of Troy Corser's Superpole

A suitable boy: Leon Camier has done extremely well on the Aprilia RSV4, despite dwarfing the bike

The volcanic ash cloud that caused the cancellation of the Motegi MotoGP round has had only a very limited effect on this weekend's World Superbike round at Assen. With nearly all of the material already in Europe, and most of the riders being based here as well, the World Superbike field will be nearly complete at the historic track of Assen.

Nearly, but not quite. Two teams will be missing from the start line at the Dutch track, one regular team and one wildcard. The missing wildcard is a victim of Eyjafjallajökull: In the flight chaos which ensued after the Icelandic volcano started spewing out clouds of ash, the Yoshimura Suzuki team was forced to cancel their travel plans from Japan to Europe, and skip the Dutch round of World Superbikes. The trip would not have been a problem for the rider, Yukio Kagayama, as the Japanese ex-WSBK man is currently racing in BSB and was in Europe already, but the team could not get the material or the personnel from their base in Japan to Europe in time for the race.

Although the loss of the live video feed from the World Superbike website is greatly lamented, Infront Motor Sports has some small consolation. On the World Superbike Youtube channel, IMS have put up highlight reels from this weekend's racing, showing the best of the action from both World Superbike races and the World Supersport races at Portimao. What better way to start the week than with a quick recap of the races?

World Superbike Race 1 highlights:

World Superbike Race 2 highlights:

Despite it being nearly four weeks since the World Superbike paddock last convened at Phillip Island, the weekend - and the runup to that weekend - is having knock on effects on the rider lineup of the series. Before the weekend had even started, Australian rider Broc Parkes broke a tibia during training, and was replaced on the Echo CRS Honda by fellow Australian Josh Brookes. Parkes is still not fully fit to race, and so will be replaced by South African Sheridan Morais at Portimao.

Morais was a substitute rider last year, taking the place of Makoto Tamada in Paul Bird's Kawasaki World Superbike squad. The South African has switched manufacturers this winter, and is currently campaigning an Aprilia RSV4 in the South African Superbike series.

Ruben Xaus' 2010 World Superbike campaign got off to a tumultuous start, with four crashes during practice for the first round at Phillip Island. After a final error during the morning warmup, which saw Xaus slam into Noriyuki Haga and end the session badly shaken up, the BMW Motorrad team elected to sit Xaus out for the opening two races, considering it too much of a risk to allow the Spaniard to race.

That decision triggered a wave of speculation about the future of Ruben Xaus at BMW. Rumors seeping out of the World Superbike paddock suggested that BMW were tired of Xaus' continuous crashing, which all too often forced Xaus to either ride injured or miss races while he recovered. It was said that BMW were actively seeking to replace Xaus, even though the season had only just got underway.

There was much disappointment around the world when it was announced, shortly before the first round at Phillip Island, that the 2010 World Superbike season would not be shown live online on the World Superbike website, as it has been done in previous years. The reason was simple: TV companies - who had paid sizable sums to Infront Motor Sports to screen the races live - were fed up of losing their audiences (and therefore their advertising income) to the website of the company they had handed their money over to.

Fortunately, the World Superbike series can lend at least some succour to racing fans. For Infront has placed highlight reels of both World Superbike and the World Supersport race up on the World Superbike series' Youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/sbk. So fans who have missed the races can at least get a taster of the action from Down Under before their local TV stations show the races - if they are being shown in those territories.

Just three more days to go before the World Superbike season kicks off in earnest, and to further enhance your already over-stimulated anticipation of the new season, the Italian Superbike TV has another short video on their website. The video was shot on the second day of testing at the final WSBK test, and contains a brief summary (in Italian) of how the riders performed at Phillip Island. See all of the 2010 World Superbike season's protagonists in action, and get ready for Sunday. Enjoy!

If there was any doubt that Ducati has set its sights on reclaiming the 2010 World Superbike title, then the last test of the preseason before racing starts in earnest will have put those doubts to rest. After allowing Leon Haslam and Suzuki top honors in the first session on Sunday, a Ducati has topped the timesheet ever since, ending the session with five bikes in the top six. Fastest over both days was Michel Fabrizio, the factory Xerox Ducati rider shattering Troy Corser's race lap record on Monday morning, after the track had dried and before the wind picked up too strongly.

Photo copyright Andrew Gosling