What a start to the WorldSBK season. Six different race leaders and five Brits topping the leaderboard in race one. There hasn’t been anything as good as this since Carl Fogarty’s time. And there is surely more to come with Alex Lowes joining the list of legitimate title contenders along with Marco Melandri proving that whether you love him or loathe him, he has still got it.

Of course, it is still difficult to see beyond Jonathan Rea and Chaz Davies for the title. A game of two halves in 2016, Rea won the first and Davies the second. If there had been such a thing as a Showdown as in BSB then Davies would have been World Champion.

The Kawasaki and Aruba Ducati teams have huge factory support and are still ahead. WorldSBK is the only championship Kawasaki fully support - in other words a works team - whereas Ducati are stretched across both championships with MotoGP being the most important.

But nothing is certain and former world champion Tom Sykes certainly does not see himself as the number two Kawasaki rider. The closest racing last year was often, indeed mostly, provided by Sykes and Rea, team-mates but rivals.

At Phillip Island, three became four and five. Marco Melandri, parachuted into the Aruba squad at the behest of - it would seem - TV company Mediaset on the promise of free-to-air coverage, showed he is still fast enough to compete with the best Superbikes has got but a little bit of ring rust caught him out in the first race. The second, however, was a masterclass in dealing with traffic but the cost was a cooked rear tyre.

Alex Lowes promised a change of attitude this year and promptly delivered. No trips to the gravel in Australia, two fourth places, 26 points and joint-third in the title chase prompted team boss Paul Denning - not one for pointless platitudes - to call his charge a ‘legitimate contender’.

As it appears now, there is a mix of five riders who can win. The list of riders under the ‘potential’ heading is much longer.

There is no doubt that Eugene Laverty is capable of winning races on the Aprilia as he has done so in the past. Shaun Muir’s Milwaukee squad are getting to grips with the fickle RSV-4 so the Monegasque will have to wait for Buriram to see what fixes the factory have come up with. It is known the Aprilia can be as hard the BMW to get right on the electronics front while Laverty is still getting used to a bike that works not very much like the one he rode in 2013 to great effect.

Honda have a lot of work to do with the new Fireblade and it’s doubtful they will bother the podium for a couple of months but with two ex-MotoGP men in the saddle, it is inevitable they will challenge. Michael Van Der Mark is another still getting used to a new way of working but his class has been visible since he stepped up from WorldSSP.

Unsung hero in this championship is Leon Camier. If ever a rider deserved better machinery it is the former BSB Champion. The MV team’s shortage of readies last year was so extreme that practice laps were often restricted to give the bike a chance of finishing the race. Maybe they will get it right this year but Camier is a podium class rider and deserves better. His fifth in race one is an example.

Much has been made of the reverse grid. A majority of riders have said, through gritted teeth, that it is OK because it is good for the show. The fast riders came through, so it doesn’t make a huge difference right now. It might when everyone barrels into the 90° first corner at Buriram and the likes of Rea and Davies are trying to weigh up where they are braking compared to those in front who will certainly be earlier on the anchors…