Nurburgring, Germany

After already having staged the first race, the World Superbike calendar has finally been updated and lost its provisional status. Today, the FIM issued an official, finalized version of the 2013 World Superbike calendar, confirming the changes we reported on yesterday.

The Silverstone race has been confirmed, and the Subject To Contract status has been removed from the Portimao and Imola rounds. The round originally scheduled for June 23rd has been scrapped, and a new round scheduled for Istanbul Park on September 15th. The replacement of Istanbul Park for the 23rd June round, for which Brno had originally been penciled in, means that the Superstock calendar is reduced by one round, from 10 races to just 9, while the World Superbike calendar now has 15 rounds planned, including two races in the UK, at Donington and Silverstone, and a trip across the Atlantic to Laguna Seca.

Below is the official press release issued by the FIM containing the updated and finalized calendar:

FIM Superbike, Supersport World Championships & FIM Superstock 1000cc Cup

New round on the 2013 calendar

The FIM today issued a press release confirming the news that the Indian round of World Superbikes has been moved to November 17th, as we reported earlier today. Below is the official press release:

FIM Superbike, Supersport World Championships & FIM Superstock 1000cc Cup

2013 Provisional calendar, updated 15 January (Change in bold)

The World Superbike race in India has been moved from the 10 March to the 17 November due to an insufficient period of time to properly finalise the training of the marshals and medical staff around the racetrack. FIM representatives will be at the Indian track on 19, 20 and 21 this January, in order to carry out the final racetrack homologation and provide the relevant seminars about the different aspects involved in the sporting organisation of the event.

FIM Superbike, Supersport World Championships & FIM Superstock 1000cc Cup

New round on the 2013 calendar

A new round will be included in the FIM Superbike & Supersport World Championships. It will be held on the circuit of Intercity Istanbul Park near Istanbul (Turkey) on September 15, 2013. The 2013 updated calendar is the following:

Press releases from the WSBK and WSS teams, as well as the organizers, after the German round of WSBK at the Nurburgring:

The Nürburgring gave us an exciting weekend of surprises, twists and turns. Hopes were raised then dashed. Dreams were broken and made true. The championship looked to be going in one direction then another.

With as many thrills and spills as race one, the second race brought an unexpected finish and championship consequences.

In a race that would be vital for the championship, a fast pace was set by the race leader, ensuring that there would be few overtakes in the earlier stages, and that the fast men left the slow far behind.

Race one was held on a dry, warm and windy track with quite a few DNFs due to front end crashes.

The Nürburgring in Germany is an iconic location. The famous 13-mile Nordschleife attached to the GP track is a mecca for motorsports fanatics wanting to test their bravery and car factories wanting to test their latest models. The GP-Strecke is the GP track that the Superbikes race at. It was completed in 1984 and is used for Formula 1, DTM, World Superbikes and others. It was built on the site of the old Sudschleife, the south ring to the Nordschleife's north ring, and connects to the larger track at the tight Coca Cola curve that leads on to the start/finish straight. The first corner is a bowl-shaped hairpin, a scene of many comings together in the past, and the rest of the track is comprised of many different corners and few straights, so don't expect high-gearing slipstreaming to feature here.

Press releases from the World Superbike and World Supersport teams after Saturday's qualifying sessions at the Nurburgring in Germany:

The front row of the World Supersport race was separated by under a third of a second. 

Germany gave us a dry superpole, with three sessions whittling down the top sixteen to their final grid positions.

Early on, Tom Sykes set a blistering 1'54.996 and the rest of the session everyone set about trying to get close to it. With five minutes remaining, Max Biaggi put in two laps within a tenth of a second but even this couldn't topple the qualifying king. Jonathan Rea continued his good form ahead of the BMWs of Marco Melandri and Leon Haslam and the rest of the top ten were within just over a second of Sykes. 

Will Carlos Checa's outright qualifying record of 1'54.144 fall when the qualifiers go on?

Results: