It looks like WorldSBK is turning into a two-horse race and it also looks like Jonathan Rea has the upper hand at the minute. That’s not to say that it won’t swing the other way at some point.

We’ve seen it swing and then swing back again like a outhouse door in a force eight already this year. The championship lead changed three times this weekend and there’s only 10 points in it, 189 to 179, So at the minute the championship is as tight as a Yorkshire bloke that didn’t qualify for furlough.

The worrying thing for Scott Redding is that Jonathan definitely seems to be back in his usual groove. He’s got everything working properly. If he can’t win, he finishes a good second. Nobody else is dominating.

The next most reliable rider and most effective is definitely Scott. He’s really impressive. He’s a quick learner. He’s definitely not finished yet, but it does look like things are slightly swinging in favour of Rea at the minute. But you can’t really call it and that’s a good thing for the championship.

What’s happened to wonder boy, Toprak, you might ask? He had a bad weekend and he’s lost a lot of ground, now on 124 points, 75 behind the leader. So, without absolutely dominating the rest of the season, which I don’t think he’s going to do against two reliable pedallers, Redding and especially Jonathan Rea, he has a mountain to climb.

I do feel the Yamahas weren’t best suited to Aragon this weekend for some reason. The worrying thing is that they’re going to have to race there again this coming weekend. The same circuit, likely in the same weather conditions giving the same track temperature, you’re more or less bound to think the same people are going to be running at the front. So, unless Yamaha have something up their sleeve they might be in for another tough weekend.

It’s true that van der Mark had good ride in the sprint race. But none of the Yamaha riders seemed able to fight that well. Loris Baz, on the Ten Kate Yamaha went well but only for a few laps and I reckon that could be down to one of the key differences between the Ten Kate bike and the Pata factory machine.

Ten Kate have the option of using most of the factory parts used by the works squad, some they choose to use and some they don’t in favour of stuff they prefer of have developed themselves.

Ten Kate run Nissin instead of Brembo brakes and a Suter swing arm instead of a Yamaha factory one, they are now tuning their own engines and they are, in the words of Mick Shanley (Baz’s crew chief), making improvements for their team with their tuning, but the biggest difference between Baz’s bike and the two Pata machines is one that’s more difficult to spot.

The Pata Yamaha squad uses the factory electronics package that’s (as yet) not available to anyone else. Ten Kate have little choice but to run a Yamaha kit electronics package and I think it may be this that’s making a difference.

Baz has really good one lap pace with a qualifying tyre and ran strong at the beginning of the races last weekend (even though he didn’t do the recent test there) but then seemed to struggle as the tyres lost grip later in the races.

To me this could be down to the electronics. If the team can get Loris as comfortable on the 15th lap as he is on the 2nd lap he’ll be stood on the rostrum before the season is done.

What was really interesting was the speed of Honda and the ride of Bautista to get on the podium in the second feature race. Quite a contrast with BMW who had a complete nightmare.

I know that I’m only going off one race weekend and I also know that Bautista and Leon Haslam had a few technical issues over the three days, but Honda might have had something like a breakthrough.

It would appear though that when they are running correctly, the new Blade certainly looks quick enough. In the last feature race on Sunday Bautista looked to be able to ride the bike like we know he can, and Haslam managed to force his way to the front of that group and place seventh. The first podium with the new bike was very encouraging for Honda.

The encouraging thing for us in the championship, when you look in the garage and you look at the staff and you look at the equipment they’ve got, it really does look like a factory effort. It isn’t Honda fielding a couple of bikes and a spares package to an existing team, this does look like the full-on, Japanese factory effort, and that’s encouraging.

BMW signed Michael Van Der Mark some time ago and have now announced they are to keep hold of Tom Sykes for 2021. Van der Mark is well thought of in the paddock, but he made his decision to go to BMW really, really early. So, for me, this could only be for one of two reasons.

Either he’s been offered a silly amount of money, and he couldn’t turn it down, or BMW have promised him that they are going to put a massive effort into it and give him a bike that’s capable of winning the world championship. I can’t see any other reason why he would have gone so early in making a decision. It was a bit out of the blue to most, even Yamaha was taken by surprise apparently.

The other thing that’s a bit odd is that when BMW signed VDM they said the other rider would be one of their existing riders and the decision between Tom Sykes and Eugene Laverty would be based entirely on their respective performances in this year’s championship. But we’ve only had half a season.

Both BMW boys had their woes last weekend, but Laverty was particularly unlucky. He had a mechanical issue on the sighting lap of the second feature race (looked like a brake issue to me) and had to lay the bike down, not ideal not ideal for a rider’s confidence. But there’s talk of a BMW supported satellite team next year so maybe Eugene can pick up a ride there if that happens, he has a bit of experience with the bike now, so it’d make sense.

Talking about luck, you might say that Alex Lowes was lucky to avoid being hit by a following rider. But he was Also unlucky coz he so nearly caught it. It was a really scary situation. He was really unlucky in the first place because the bike let go in mid-corner, right as he cracked the throttle open, which is the only place in world Superbikes these days that the electronics might struggle to react to a slide. Once you get the bike past the apex and you sit the bike up slightly and get the throttle open the electronics nine times out of ten will prevent a high-side. We know how well the electronics work on the Kawasaki.

We’ve seen it work really well for years. But unfortunately for Alex the bike let go at almost maximum lean angle where there is so much centrifugal force acting on the tyre. Normally this would mean a nasty (and generally painful) high-side and Alex would’ve exited stage left and ended up in the relative safety of the gravel trap.

In this case though Alex reacted almost instantly to the slide and closed the throttle slightly meaning the rear tyre didn’t slide out enough to grip again for ages, so that when it did it sent Alex straight down the track so he ended up right in the middle of the fast lane with following riders pinging either side of him, an horrendously dangerous situation.

A quick word on BSB at Silverstone this weekend. Glenn Irwin is a clear leader of the championship after Snetterton. He’s got 118 against Bridewell 95. I have to say Glen and his brother Andy’s pace this season has come of something of a surprise to most in the paddock and I think most on the BSB grid too.

Both Irwins have won BSB races in the past but nobody that I spoke to before the season started had either as a championship favourite, especially as they’re riding a brand-new bike. Honda have hit the ground running with the new blade.

BSB has more restrictive technical regulations than WSB. The bikes in BSB are more basic, especially in terms of electronics. I think this has helped Honda be competitive in BSB with that new Fireblade right from the get-go.

Also, the BSB grid is having to use new profile Pirelli tyres this year which seem to be taking some getting used in terms of set-up for some the teams. This means a lot of the data gathered in previous seasons for most teams is null and void, so Honda don’t have the usual disadvantage you get in this area with a brand-new bike. That’s my theory anyway.

I do think that Andy needs to calm down his riding a bit but overall I’m really pleased for the Irwins and for Honda.

And a quick word for Christian Iddon on getting his first BSB win. It’s taken a long time coming but I don’t think it’ll be his last.