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Race on Sunday, sell on Monday. When the FIM Superbike World Championship started in 1988, motorcycle sales in Europe and North America were still dominated by sportsbikes. Back then winning machinery on the track translated into the sales of bikes on the roads. The world is different now but the challenge facing manufacturers is to find a way to showcase their speed and development. No-one in WorldSBK disputes that the resources Ducati has ploughed into the WorldSBK programme deserves success but is it what’s best for the series?

MINIMUM COMBINED WEIGHT AND FUEL CHANGES: two major headlines for 2024

Solving a problem of a dominant team and rider isn’t a new challenge in WorldSBK. With Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) all but confirmed as a double WorldSBK Champion, the series has made moves to create a more competitive field in 2024. The new technical package for 2024 – set out by the FIM, Dorna WSBK Organisation the MSMA and wider members of the SBK Commission – is headlined by the introduction of a combined bike and rider minimum weight limit, similar to what we already have in the Supersport and Supersport 300 classes, but there is also a collection of other technical regulations which should help. In a bid to increase the importance of fuel consumption and reducing performance there has been a reduction of three litres to fuel capacity. Combined with the introduction of E40 fuel (40% Ethanol) it will be an interesting engineering challenge for teams to maintain performance for the full race distance.

NOT ANTI-BAUTISTA: moving with the times and needs

It’s easy to view the changes in a vacuum and think this is an anti-Ducati or anti-Bautista shift in ideology. It would also discount what we’ve seen in the past. This is just the latest in a long line of such changes. When Kawasaki had the dominant bike, from 2012 until 2018 the green machine was the best bike on the grid, the attention they faced was on par with Ducati now. With the dice rolling slightly differently, Tom Sykes could have been a triple World Champion before Jonathan Rea started his run of six consecutive titles.

For Sykes, the changes – which saw limits to development of the crankshaft, fixed gear ratios and lower revs – hurt him. He moved from being the top dog in the series to a supporting cast member. That Rea could still win showed his talent and speed but year on year the ZX10-RR was restrained more and more. It was subtle and gradual rather than the new raft of changes.

PREVIOUS SPORTING CHANGES: not just different on the face of it

Whilst the technical changes were gradual, the sporting changes were where the real teeth of regulation changes were made. For 2017, the podium finishers from Race 1 had to start Race 2 from the third row of the grid. Coming through the pack would, in theory, make for more exciting races and make it harder for one rider to dominate. It didn’t quite work out that way and as a result, the Superpole Race was introduced with an extra 12 points available each weekend. It has helped to maintain a title race for longer. The 10-lap race has been a great success and something that has genuinely been met by enthusiasm by teams and riders.

LOOKING AHEAD: testing starts immediately after Jerez

Hopefully the new technical package for 2024 will be met with similar success. The goal for manufacturers in the series is to sell more motorcycles. If you aren’t winning races and showing your speed it’s harder to sell bikes. The new package should maintain integrity, create a more competitive balance front to back and still see the best team and rider winning. We might have one round to go in 2023 and a World Champion to be crowned but I’m already excited for 2024. With two days of testing coming immediately after the race it will be interesting to see the testing plans for manufacturers. It’s highly unlikely that teams will bring full specification of machinery for 2024 but they’ll use the test to evaluate some new parts and gear up for the full winter testing which starts in earnest in November.

Read the full regulations update here, whilst getting further clarification with WorldSBK Executive Director, Gregorio Lavilla, here.

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