News

With less than two weeks to go until Round 1 of the 2022 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship at the MotorLand Aragon circuit in Spain, there’s been big news from Pirelli. The Italian brand’s Motorsport Director, Giorgio Barbier, confirmed that the new-for-2022 SCQ tyre will replace the Q tyre in Tissot Superpole, starting from Round 1.

Previously, the Q tyre – officially named the SCW – would be used exclusively for Tissot Superpole on Saturday morning, giving riders one flying lap to determine their starting position for the races. However, the ethos and ideology behind the development of the SCQ tyre is that it will be able to be used in the Tissot Superpole session, whilst also in Sunday morning’s 10-lap Tissot Superpole Race, introduced in 2019 with the top nine positions determining the grid for the final race of the day. The introduction of the SCQ was announced at January’s Jerez test, but will now replace the Q tyre.

Speaking at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya circuit during WorldSBK testing, Barbier confirmed the change for 2022: “The Q tyres will disappear from Aragon Round 1. It will only be the new SCQ. You will see some riders using the old Q tyres here but that’s because they had them left over from other tests and just to make lap time. We are quite confident that the new SCQ will be faster than the SCX, so fast enough for the guys.”

Talking about the evolution of the SCQ tyre, Barbier said: “We know the target is to reach the level of the Superpole Race, ten laps. For the moment, the results we achieved in the winter tests just achieved two, four or five laps. The first target for us is to be faster than the SCX in order to give the riders a chance to make the Superpole properly. Then, when the tyres will be developed enough, we will make them for the Superpole Race. At the moment, we saw this in the winter tests, and we prepared a new version that will be available at the test in order to, maybe, change the spec for Estoril. For the first two races, the SCQ will remain what it is now.”

Barbier touched on the development of the SCX tyre, with last year’s SCX ‘development’ tyre – the SCX 0557 – now becoming the ‘new’ standard SCX, whilst another development and variation of it will take place throughout 2022: “The SCX 557 will become the standard SCX. Last season, in WorldSBK, we developed the 557. It was so good that I was convinced that, by the end of last year, we changed and put the 557 as the new SCX. Making the SCX last most of the race, we have to work on something new. That is the reason why we’re thinking to test something different. We already tested something at Misano and we are testing in these two days a new SCX as well. That will be introduced probably in the summer, to enlarge the working range it has.”

Barbier’s final comment was regards to a specific ‘Catalunya front tyre’ which Pirelli announced at the Misano test. He said: “In the front, we have a range that’s SC1 and SC2. Actually, the SC1 is working well in almost every place. But there are some circuits like this one, Mandalika and Assen where the SC1 suffers a little bit because of the wear of the tyres. The thing that we saw last year is the SC2 is not the solution because it could give you more life but the grip you lose is too much from the riders’ point of view. With these two new tyres, we tried to have more durability but the grip very close to the SC1. We succeeded with that yesterday in the test.”

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