Breaking news

World Superbike

World Superbike season start pushed back to May

The start of the 2021 World Superbike Championship season has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the opening Dutch round has been pushed back to July.

Lewis Duncan

Edited: Mar 9, 2021, 10:45 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Alvaro Bautista, Team HRC, Leon Haslam, Team HRC, Michael Ruben Rinaldi, Team Goeleven

WSBK was one of the only international motorsport series last year to get its 2020 campaign underway as scheduled in February with the Phillip Island round before the first European lockdowns came into force.

When racing got back underway again, seven further rounds were scheduled in a truncated calendar.

Due to COVID-19, the 2021 season already had a later start date than normal, with the traditional season-opener in Australia currently subject to contract – though this appears unlikely to take place at all.

The campaign was due to begin on the weekend of 23-25 April at the iconic TT Assen circuit in the Netherlands.

But due to a ban on large scale events taking place in the Drenthe region where the circuit is situated until the start of June due to the virus, WSBK organisers have had to postpone the Assen round to July 23-25.

The Portuguese round at Estoril – where the campaign ended last year – will now serve as the new starting point on May 7-9.

Further revisions to the 2021 WSBK calendar are still likely, with the Indonesian round at the under-construction Mandalika Street Circuit set for November still to be homologated.

Due to travel restrictions, last year’s Finnish MotoGP round couldn’t go ahead as no FIM officials could travel to the circuit to homologate it.

Revised 2021 World Superbike calendar:

Date Venue May 7-9 Portugal Estoril May 21-23 Spain Aragon June 11-13 Italy Misano July 2-4 United Kingdom Donington Park July 23-25 Netherlands Assen September 3-5 France Magny-Cours September 17-19 Spain Barcelona September 24-26 Spain Jerez October 1-3 Portimao October 15-17 Argentina Villicum November 12-14 Indonesia Mandalika TBC Australia Phillip Island TBC TBC

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Lowes injures shoulder in crash, will miss WSBK test

Next article World Superbike postpones Estoril opener, adds new track

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Honda confirms Diogo Moreira for factory team in 2027; David Alonso heads to LCR

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP 1 h

Honda confirms Diogo Moreira for factory team in 2027; David Alonso heads to LCR

Vincent Biard: “The Maserati GT2 was thrilling in 2026; next year we want continuity and progress”

Sponsored

Sponsored

Portimão

1 h

Vincent Biard: “The Maserati GT2 was thrilling in 2026; next year we want continuity and progress”

Barcelona set to host IndyCar race in 2027 under multi-year deal

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 13 h

Barcelona set to host IndyCar race in 2027 under multi-year deal

Winners and losers from a Chase-altering NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

15 h

Winners and losers from a Chase-altering NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts