David Salom will return to World Superbikes on board the second factory Kawasaki this weekend at Laguna Seca. The Spaniard will stand in for Loris Baz who is yet to fully recover from the back injuries suffered at the Nurburgring and will now focus on recovering in time for his home event at Magny Cours on October 6th.
Salom has been riding for the Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpres team in World Supersport this season and will return to the class in France but is eagerly anticipating his return to SBK action in the United States.
“I am very happy that the decision was made to allow me to ride the official Superbike at Laguna Seca. This is a new opportunity for me and for sure it will be difficult. The track is new to me and this machine is not the same as the one I rode last year. So I have a lot of learning to do, even though this is a great opportunity for me.”
Kawasaki team manager Guim Roda fully expects Baz to be back in time for the penultimate weekend and expects Salom to prove a capable substitute.
“Loris should be OK to ride at Magny-Cours because he will have had a few weeks of recovery from his vertebra injury. We had expected he would ride in Turkey so we had no time to make a replacement for him there. However, because Loris’s recovery is so important we have considered it best to keep him at home again, just to ensure that he comes back 100% fit and ready to race at his home round. He knows that track well and can help Tom in his end of season push for the title. We have asked David Salom to ride the official KRT Ninja ZX-10R in America alongside Tom and he has accepted the chance – and the challenge. We know him well as together we were second in the Supersport World Championship in 2011. We are well aware of his value as a rider. It will also be a help to him to grow, to let him go back to his regular ride on the Ninja ZX-6R in Supersport sharp and operating at a high level.”
“It will not be an easy challenge for him in America – a new bike, a new track to learn – and the best riders of modified street bike machines in the world to compete against. We will give him all the tools and support we can. There will be at least a couple of other substitute riders in different teams at this round, so our aim for David is to try and beat them.”
