It’s midway through the WorldSBK season so the game of musical chairs is well underway with riders, including Remy Gardner, vying for the remaining available seats for the 2023 season.
For a championship with almost every factory ride filled there was still a lot of pegs trying to find 2023 WorldSBK holes in many other strong efforts.
As well as the reigning Moto2 world champ’s very likely switch to the WorldSBK paddock, Michael Ruben Rinaldi looks like he will stay inside the Aruba – Ducati squad, which would confirm him alongside Alvaro Bautista. Danilo Petrucci apparently wants too much money for Ducati to take him on seriously.
Underneath the top teams, Garret Gerloff is heading to the Bonovo Action BMW squad. GRT Yamaha will seemingly take Remy Gardner from MotoGP, but who will be his teammate is still the subject of debate. For those who see Rinaldi as definitely out at Ducati, then GRT would be a great fit for him.
If Kohta Nozane is also out of the GRT Yamaha squad for 2023, Tarran Mackenzie, Jake Gagne, Bradley Ray and other names have been mentioned to partner Gardner. GMT94, aiming for WorldSBK in 2023, have also been linked with Mackenzie.
The big question is still Axel Bassani. If he does not head to Aruba Ducati, then MotoCorsa may not be out of the question again for him. Puccetti looked like signing an ex-Moto2 rider, with Dominique Aegerter seemingly heading for the same bike that made Toprak Razgatlioglu a star before he joined Yamaha. The talk later in the weekend was there was as serious approach from Tom Sykes to rejoin WorldSBK.
Only time will tell as we look forward to the next round at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya over 23-25 September, where we hope to get further confirmation of the 2023 rider line-up.
