Michael Ruben Rinaldi will remain on the World Superbike Championship grid for the 2020 WorldSBK season after penning a deal with the Team Goeleven on its Ducati.
The Ducati protégé raced in his second season of WorldSBK this season, getting a full campaign with the Barni Racing team after competing in the European rounds with the factory Aruba.it’s junior effort in 2018.
Despite a positive campaign that yielded a best finish of fourth position in Jerez, leading him to 12th in the overall standings, it was announced Barni would replace him with Leon Camier for the 2020 WorldSBK season.
Nonetheless, Rinaldi will still be on Ducati machinery in 2020, signing with Team Goeleven, where he will replace BMW-bound Eugene Laverty.
“It is a pleasure and an honour to have this opportunity with Team Goeleven. I am happy because thanks to them, who have wanted me, we managed to find a good agreement.
“My goal remains to continue to grow because it will only be my second consecutive year in World Superbike. We can get good results and we will be able to have a better consistency than last year.
“I thank Denis Sacchetti, Gianni Ramello and all the sponsors for giving me this opportunity. I can't wait to start in January, in the tests, to get ready for the first race and take away a lot of satisfaction!”
2020 WorldSBK grid continues to take shape
With the confirmation that Team Goeleven has signed Rinaldi for the 2020 WorldSBK season, it should assure that every team that competed in 2019 returns for next year.
It was a tough year for the Italian outfit after being hampered by the injuries that afflicted Laverty, though two strong rounds in Argentina and Qatar at the latter end of the year showed what the team is capable of.
For now, the only question mark among the full-time 2019 teams is the role Moriwaki Althea plays in Honda’s new set-up, having been effectively replaced as its factory-backed effort by HRC.
However, it is expected that the Italo-Japanese team will still be on the grid as Honda’s satellite team running the new CBR1000RR Fireblade, with Alessandro Delbianco and possibly Ryuichi Kiyoanri on the bikes.
