Phillip Island (Australia), Sunday 24 February 2019
 
The first round of the 2019 Superbike World Championship concluded today at the Phillip Island track in Australia. For the Althea MIE Racing team, it proved to be a challenging race weekend, Alessandro Delbianco making his debut in the Superbike category with the Honda CBR1000RR SP2.
 
After a brief warm-up this morning, the Italian team was back on track for the Tissot Superpole race at midday, a 10-lap sprint race introduced this season. Eighteenth on the grid, Delbianco was able to hold his position through lap one but a crash on the very next lap, at turn 10, prevented him from continuing.
 
In the second Superbike race, which got underway at 3pm local time, Alessandro started from nineteenth position. Unfortunately, though, his race was brought to an immediate end when a crash at turn 2 forced him to retire.
 
At the end of this opening round, Alessandro Delbianco has still to score points but the experience he has gained during his first races will serve him well during the next championship rounds.

ALESSANDRO DEL BIANCO

Our first race weekend hasn’t gone as we’d hoped of course. Unfortunately, I made a mistake this morning that didn’t allow us to finish the sprint race and then, in race 2, a crash in the initial stages prevented me from reaching the line. Luck was not on our side here, but it’s all experience that we will take with us to the next rounds.