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Stepping over from the Formula One paddock to the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championsip with Yamaha, Herbie Blash speaks to website Crash.net about his thoughts on the paddock and series as a whole. With over 20 years spent in F1, he brings a wealth of experience and is pleasantly surprised by the levels of fan interaction seen in WorldSBK; not to mention the respect he has for the riders and teams.

“In all honesty, racing is racing and it doesn’t matter if it is karting, F1, Indianapolis 500 or whatever,” begins Blash. “When I look at the Yamaha team the mechanics work so hard and they are what I would call true mechanics because they deal with every aspect on the bike and work non-stop compared to F1. The mechanics have an easier time now especially with the various curfews in F1 and the parc ferme situation after qualifying. The World Superbike guys work a lot harder than the F1 guys do. It is great to see the passion as well.”

“As for the riders, I just think they are so brave. Of course, it is a totally different world to our car drivers. When you look at the precision of a motorcycle rider when the contact patch is so small and how they can be so consistent with one-tenth of a second it amazes me. The championship is very professionally run and they do some really good things for the fans which we haven’t seen yet in F1. The fan zone here is something F1 is looking at now and trying to do more with which I think they should.”

“Seeing a paddock with fans inside which we haven’t seen for maybe 20 years in F1, it is extremely exclusive and dare I say it too exclusive, WorldSBK is fan-friendly and everyone wants to help one another which is how F1 used to be years and years ago.”

Blash goes on to discuss the highly topical subject of regulations as well as the family aspect of the racing world as a whole, and the rest of the interview can be found here.