World Superbike News

Brendan Roberts 2008

Brendan Roberts the new Superstock 1000 FIM cup champion for 2008, who rode the Ducati 1098 for the Ducati Xerox Jr team, has made World Superbike news, having been signed up for WSB 2009 by the Italian based Ducati team Guandalini.

The Australian rider had been linked with the North West Ducati, British Superbike team, since winning the Superstock title in the last round at Portimao, the new Portugese track.

At the penultimate round at Magny Cours, disaster struck after Roberts‘ machine developed a gearbox problem, leaving him unable to finish the race and dropping back down to fourth place in the championship table.

The 23-year-old Adelaide rider, had to win the final round of the European superstock championship to win the title and he did just that.  He claimed pole position, the fastest lap of the race, race win and championship win-you can’t do much better than that.

Roberts already has an impressive history after coming second in the Yamaha R6 Virgin Cup in 2005 while competing in Europe.  He went on to win the British Superstock title in 2006 at Croft, with three rounds still to run while simultaneously completing six races in the European category.  In 2007 he suffered a pre-season wrist injury which took months to heal and he was warned that the he was unlikely to ever regain full movement in it.

His 2008 season has seen him return to form as he took the victory at the first round in Valencia for the Ducati Xerox Junior team, despite only having ridden the bike a few times prior to the race.

The Guandalini team, ran a single machine for the World Superbike 2008 season, ridden by Czech rider Jakub Smrz, who rewarded the team with three sixth place World Superbike results, at Donington Park, Assen and Miller Motorsports Park.  He finished the season in thirteenth place overall and was classified as the second best privateer of the year.