WorldSBK's tallest man Loris Baz is circumspect in his approach to a ride for next season and seems genuinely happy to either remain where he is in the Ten Kate Yamaha squad or move into the official team.
The questions of who goes where was an early topic of conversation with Baz at Motorland Aragon given that he has already shown podium pace – in the sprint race at Portimao in round three – and has been linked to the vacant seat inside the Pata Yamaha factory team alongside Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Staying put, given that he can beat both factory Yamaha riders on occasion even inside his privateer Ten Kate outfit, is not the end of the world either.
“I do not know yet but for sure we are talking with the factory team, and talking with Kervin (Bos, his team manager), Ronald and Gerrit (Ten Kate) but I have not spoken with my manager about that for more than a week," he told bikesportnews.com
"It is not fake talk when I say that it is the job of my manger, it is fully his job. I try to focus on doing the best job I can on the bike and we will see. But for sure there is some discussion and I would be happy to stay with Ten Kate and happy to go back in a factory team after a long time also.
"There is always positive and negative in the balance and I think I will know by next week, or Barcelona, I do not know exactly.”
Baz said the most important factors in his personal preferences are a balance. “It is hard to say no to a factory team. You work all of your career to get to the best bike and the best team and also the factory team is always the one that can offer you – normally – the best combination.
"I do not think I will ever find a team with a relationship like I have with Ten Kate. It is like being in a family when I am in the box. But it is the combination, so I don’t know.
I tell you, it is hard to say no to a factory team but also I told the guys in Ten Kate if the offer is the same and I have the guarantee that I have exactly the same bike as the factory team, I am not scared to stay and try to win with this team.
"I know we are able. The people in the team are good enough or maybe better than anyone. But then it is not easy as a private team to find the budget to close a season on all those things. And - it is not in my hands!”
Baz had his work cut out for him last Friday at Aragon, having never tested with Ten Kate at this circuit, nor raced there last year on the 2019 version of his R1.
Baz would go on to finish an amazing second in Superpole qualifying, but maybe show the negative effects of that lack of testing and full distance setup most of his rivals had in pre-season and mid-season Aragon sessions, with a 7-9-DNF record race record over the weekend.
“It is the hardest track on the calendar to set up a bike,” he told bikesportnews.com after FP2 at Motorland, “and it is the only track we have no info from last year. I think we were good on Friday morning but on the afternoon I was not happy with the feeling I had on the bike.”
It was curious, however, to note that Baz thought that Motorland was also the hardest track to setup for - not a comment that many other riders have made.
“For me, yes,” said Baz. “First of all it is a ‘two-minute’ track, with slow corners, fast corners, changing directions, closing corners, opening corners, up/down. You have everything here.
"It is not for nothing that all the teams come here to test a lot. When I was in Kawasaki we spent our winter here. Sometimes we did five or six days of testing here. For me it is one of the hardest to set up the bike.
"You have a long straight but also slow corners, so you have to find everything. It is always easier when you can test because the good thing about Superbike is that you have a race on Saturday but the bad thing is you have only Friday and two-times 50 minutes to set-up everything. For me it has always been one of the hardest places. Honda come here to test a lot and not only because they live close.”
