World Supersport

The FIM Supersport World Championship is now getting into its 15th edition and showing again the competitive level of these mid-sized production-based racing bikes, proved by the increasing interest of Manufacturers in this series – six this year (Honda, Kawasaki, MV Agusta, Suzuki, Triumph e Yamaha) – and the huge number of permanent riders on the starting grid (35 in 2013).

Turkish triple Supersport Champion Kenan Sofuoglu will race this year to defend the current title for the first time. The race bike #1 shows up after three years and it’s the ZX-6R of MAHI Racing Team Kawasaki, a new project started less than one year ago, once the season had already started, to build up on 2013 with ambitious goals - the Team also hired 2002 World Supersport Champion Frenchman Fabien Foret.

Performance Technical Racing, better known as PTR, does not sit back and goes for an all-new five rider line-up with an average of 21 years of age. Sheridan Morais will be leading PTR’s World Supersport assault after a positive rookie season in the series and a 6th final place.

Former PTR rider Sam Lowes moves to Russian Team Yakhnich Motorsport to join confirmed rider Vladimir Leonov. Pata Honda World Supersport Team’s Lorenzo Zanetti and Michael van der Mark will both embark in their first WSS season, as the Italian stepped down from Superbike class and the Dutch rising star promoted after winning the European Superstock 600 title. 2011 runner-up David Salom and multiple race winner Luca Scassa make their comeback to the series after a year. Both of them will be part of Josef Kubicek’s Intermoto PonyExpres Kawasaki Team.

The MV Agusta F3 is set to make World Supersport debut thanks to the partnership made by the Italian motorcycle maker with Giuliano Rovelli’s ParkinGO Team. Roberto Rolfo and Christian Iddon are the ones chosen to race the 675 cc Italian bike. Suriano Racing switches back to team owner’s beloved Suzuki and put the GSX-R 600 in the hands of Mathew Scholtz and Roberto Tamburini.