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Alvaro Bautista

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Last week, the debate over the role of rider weight was reignited by a post on Instagram by BMW WorldSBK rider Scott Redding, comparing his own weight to that of Aruba.it Ducati’s Alvaro Bautista, and asking whether there needs to be a minimum combined rider/bike weight in WorldSBK.

To back up his claim, he posted some video clips and sector analysis from the San Juan Villicum circuit in Argentina. “I just think it should be as fair as possible for all of the riders,” Redding wrote.

Though the sentiment is admirable, the thing about motorcycle racing is it is fundamentally unfair.

Somebody else’s bike will always be better than yours. Some other rider will be lighter, stronger, have it easier than you in one way or another. That is of little comfort to those racing in a particular class at a specific event, but it remains true nonetheless.

The way this has traditionally been dealt with is through what is usually called “the package”. The combination of bike, team, and rider is different for each competitor, and rule makers have attempted to create space in each class to allow riders and teams to find multiple ways to be competitive.

The first piece of Ducati’s World Superbike puzzle was revealed today, as the Italian brand is welcoming back Alvaro Bautista to its ranks for the 2022 season.

Alvaro Bautista is set to replace Scott Redding (who is headed to the BMW Motorrad squad for more money), and all signs point to Chaz Davies also leaving the Italian brand at the end of the season (Davies is currently 10th in the WorldSBK Championship).

There are many tragedies to the disruptions coming from the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, the loss of motorcycle being one of them (though certainly at a much lesser scale of importance to many of the losses we are suffering right now).

But for the purposes of being a daily motorcycle publication, not being able to see the new Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP on the WorldSBK stage is certainly a disappointment for us though.

This is because theHonda CBR1000RR-R represents HRC’s great inline-four hope for a production-class world championship title, most notably because the Japanese racing outfit has finally built an all-new racing platform for the superbike market.

It had been known unofficially for weeks, but today, the Aruba.it Ducati team announced that they have signed Scott Redding to ride for them in WorldSBK for the 2020 season.

Redding has had a very strong season in BSB since losing his ride in MotoGP with Aprilia, and is currently second in the standings behind Be Wiser Ducati teammate Josh Brookes.

It’s currently the long WorldSBK summer break, which means that the superbike paddock has more than enough time to wheel and deal…and then of course gossip.

There are a number of rumors coming for 2020, but none of them are nearly as good as the talk about Alvaro Bautista jumping ship from Ducati, to the factory-backed Honda squad.

That news comes along with the rumor that Honda will have a new superbike for the 2020 model year, which is something we have seen speculated about for some time.

With the three overseas* races out of the way and MotoGP back in Europe, the thoughts of the teams, riders, and series organizers are starting to turn to the future.

At Le Mans, there was much discussion in team trucks and among the organizers. And as a consequence, there was a stream of paddock rumor, interviews, and news articles on what’s coming up for the future. Here’s a round up of recent news.

The Ducati Panigale V4 R is the newest bike on the Superbike block, and as you’d expect it is the most advanced bike on the WorldSBK grid. 

The Italian manufacturer has developed a tremendous package over the winter, to immediately vault to the top of the pile in the production based series, and with Alvaro Bautista having been undefeated in the opening two rounds of the championship, he has laid the foundations of a very strong title challenge.

This is a production based series, and Ducati has developed a so-called ‘homologation special.’ While the rest of the grid comprises of heavily developed machinery, the Ducati was developed as a no holds barred, pure bred racing machine.

This is a throwback to a bygone era when the likes of Honda would develop their Superbike machinery with the sole goal of winning the title.

No compromises are made with a homologation special. Other than costing a maximum of €40,000, there is very little that isn’t maximised on the machinery.

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“There’s no replacement for displacement” in racing but what about power? In particular what about peak power and where a bike reaches it?

For WorldSBK purposes, the peak power of an engine is defined as the rev limit on the production machine, plus 3%.

Calculating this takes a little bit more math, as it requires you to average the rev limit from both the third and fourth gears, and then once this has been established, the FIM typically add an extra 3% to that RPM figure.

The rev limits are defined at the start of the championship season, but they aren’t set in stone for the duration of the championship. They can be changed at the discretion of organisers as the year progresses.

Having been introduced to much fanfare 12 months ago, the new limits are of interest again in 2019 because we have new bikes on the grid. The most newsworthy new machine is the headline grabbing Ducati Panigale V4 R, but it should be noted that  Kawasaki, BMW and Honda also have newly homologated bikes, and thus also new rev limits.

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And so the season ends for WorldSBK. The weather finally behaved at Jerez, and the four WorldSBK teams and three WorldSSP teams got a full day of testing in at Jerez.

Or rather, nearly a full day of testing: the track opened at 10am, but the riders didn’t go out for about 45 minutes, as cold track temperatures made it a perilous undertaking in those early minutes.

But the sun soon did its work, heated the asphalt, and away they went.