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Paolo Flammini positive about the season ahead

Tuesday, 26 January 2010 12:52 GMT
Paolo Flammini positive about the season ahead
As the 2010 Hannspree FIM Superbike World Championship was seeing its first track action over the weekend at Portimao with three days of intensive testing for the WSBK and WSS teams, CEO of Infront Motor Sports Paolo Flammini was illustrating the key points of this year's series to the media, in the traditional meeting with international journalists.


Paolo Flammini firstly expressed his predictions for the outcome of what promises to be an even more exciting season than 2009: "Following the departure of Ben Spies I believe that there are at least ten riders now who have a chance of winning races this season, and many of those can be fighting for the title. This confirms the validity of the Superbike championship formula, which continues to look good even in this moment of crisis, with 26 permanent riders on the grid".


One of the key topics on the agenda of the meeting was the calendar, which had shortly before been confirmed by FIM as having 13 rounds, but which now includes Silverstone in place of Donington. "The choice of Silverstone to host the British Round of the championship cannot come as a surprise. We have excellent relations with the circuit and this allowed us to resolve very quickly the problem created by the closure of Donington. The accord is for 2010 only but it may become soon a long-term agreement. As for the Czech Republic round, there have been a few issues recently but we have now concluded an accord directly with the Brno circuit so I can confirm that it will go ahead 100%".


Flammini was also positive about the Supersport World Championship, which will have a total of 21 entries in 2010. "We had been a bit worried about this category since the end of 2009, so the number of entries, which will also be boosted by several wild-cards, is an excellent result considering the lingering effects of the crisis in this segment of the road-bikes market".


And finally Paolo Flammini confirmed that 2010 will see a major increase in the television coverage of the championships, through the new three-year agreement with Eurosport. "We are counting a lot on the accord with Eurosport in terms of the number of broadcasted hours, the coverage of the different classes, which will also be in HD, and the editorial quality".


Giorgio Barbier, Racing Director for Pirelli Moto added: "2010 is the seventh year for Pirelli as the sole tyre supplier for the Superbike World Championship and the first year of a new 3-year partnership. We continue to focus on what we call "the three I's": Identity, meaning to keep the same rules that identify each of the four production-based classes and our continuous tyre development; Investment, as Pirelli and Infront Motor Sports continue to invest in the visibility through TV and have implemented a new prize-money structure for the riders in each race; and new Ideas, like the introduction of the long-lasting DIABLO SUPERBIKE PRO slicks which bring user friendly technology from this championship to our end consumers who seek value as well as performance."