To balance performance and make the championship more interesting, the rule makers at the WorldSBK series set maximum rev limits for all the entered bikes at the beginning of the season.
This usually isn’t much of a newsworthy event, but with the recent crop of superbikes hitting stratospheric numbers in their homologated street form, it is causing some interesting issues in the WorldSBK Championship.
According to Ash on Bikes, BMW has added a firmware patch to the S1000RR that will set the bike’s rev limit to 9,000 RPM during the first 600 miles of use. This limit is reportedly being put into place because of excessive wear on components being used by race teams. As such, BMW thinks it fit to guard against similar wear on its street-bound machines, although there has been no indication that this has been the case.