2023 World Superbike - Round 4 - Catalunya

World Superbike gets back to racing this weekend at Catalunya. Relevant info regarding this weekend's events

Alvaro Bautista Has Extended His Contract With Ducati Through 2024

Pirelli Brings New Soft SC0 Front Tire To Catalunya

We'll see what happens this week, but let's be honest. Alvaro is the favorite to walk away with this weekend's events. Catalunya has several hard braking areas so maybe Raz or Rea can keep it close. Hopefully some other teams will find a way to decode the balance of performance rulebook because right now Ducati have got the series on lock with Bautista, and now that he's signed for another year, it will surely dim the viewership prospects a bit.

From Roadracingworld.


FIM Superbike Balancing and Concession updates

At the conclusion of the 3rd round of the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship the concession points scores see the top two manufacturers Ducati and Kawasaki at the top of the table. Due to the gap of only 7 points (20-13) neither will be allowed a concession parts upgrade during the season. The remaining manufacturers will all be allowed one upgrade.

The calculation is made considering the results of the full distance races (Races 1 and 2).



REV LIMITS:

The DWO and FIM in consultation with their performance analysis partner have concluded that the following updates will be made to the manufacturers rev limits:



Ducati – reduction of 250rpm

Honda – increase of 500rpm

Special consideration has been applied in the case of BMW – the German marque, after declaring their concession parts, chose to compete in the first two events using a standard engine. This is compliant with the regulations and therefore the weighting of the calculation has been biased towards their performance during the third event where the concession specification engine was used.

The changes must be in increments of 250 rpm and the Honda’s performance indicates that two steps should be applied at this point.

From Round 4 – Motul Dutch Round (Assen) – the rev limits will be:

Brand Rev-Limit

Aprilia 14,700 rpm

BMW 14,950 rpm

BMW 2019 14,900 rpm

Ducati V2 12,400 rpm

Ducati V4 16,100 rpm

Honda 15,050 rpm

Kawasaki 2018 14,100 rpm

Kawasaki 2019 14,600 rpm

MV Agusta 14,950 rpm

Suzuki 14,900 rpm

Yamaha 14700 rpm


Link

Barbedwirebikerr said:

Brand Rev-Limit

Aprilia 14,700 rpm

BMW 14,950 rpm

BMW 2019 14,900 rpm

Ducati V2 12,400 rpm

Ducati V4 16,100 rpm

Honda 15,050 rpm

Kawasaki 2018 14,100 rpm

Kawasaki 2019 14,600 rpm

MV Agusta 14,950 rpm

Suzuki 14,900 rpm

Yamaha 14700 rpm

Click to expand...

So Ducati still has the highest revs and that's by a 1,050

Superbike FP2 Results:
1. Alvaro Bautista - SPA - Aruba.It Racing Ducati - 1:41.486s
2. Michael Ruben Rinaldi - ITA - Aruba.It Racing Ducati - +0.350s
3. Jonathan Rea - GBR - Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK - +0.529s
4. Garrett Gerloff - USA - Bonovo Action BMW - +0.749s
5. Dominique Aegerter - SWI - GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team - +0.819s
6. Toprak Razgatlioglu - TUR - Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK - +1.154s
7. Axel Bassani - ITA - Motocorsa Ducati - +1.169s
8. Scott Redding - GBR - ROKIT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team - +1.226s
9. Andrea Locatelli - ITA - Pata Yamaha Prometeon WorldSBK - +1.264s
10. Danilo Petrucci - ITA - Barni Spark Racing Team - +1.267s
11. Iker Lecuona - SPA - Team HRC WorldSBK - +1.325s
12. Xavi Vierge - SPA - Team HRC WorldSBK - +1.450s
13. Loris Baz - FRA - Bonovo Action BMW - +1.578s
14. Alex Lowes - GBR - Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK - +1.633s
15. Remy Gardner - AUS - GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team - +1.716s
16. Philipp Oettl - GER - GoEleven Ducati - +1.948s
17. Oliver Konig - CZE - Orelac Racing Kawasaki - +1.952s
18. Hafizh Syahrin - MAL - PETRONAS MIE Racing HONDA Racing - +2.116s
19. Eric Granado - BRA - PETRONAS MIE Racing HONDA Racing - +2.145s
20. Lorenzo Baldassarri - ITA - GMT94 Yamaha - +2.416s
21. Ivo Lopez - POR - ROKIT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team - +2.828s
22. Bradley Ray - GBR - Motoxracing Yamaha WorldSBK Team - +2.877s
23. Tom Sykes - GBR - Puccetti Kawasaki - +3.000s
24. Isaac Vinales - SPA - TPR by Vinales Racing - +3.506s
25. Gabriele Ruiu - ITA - Bmax Racing - +5.225s

Well, whatever BoP changes they made don't appear to be having any affect at Catalunya. Gerloff in 4th is interesting, though some riders reportedly pushed for hot laps towards the end of the session. Unclear if Gerloff was one of them.

Ducatis in control as usual.

Surprised by Petrucci. He had no trouble adapting to the V4R in MotoAmerica on Dunlop tires. The Ducati is supposedly optimized for WSBK Pirellis, but Danilo can't find a way to make it work. Maybe he doesn't care. He's on his way back to GP for at least 1 round as Enea continues to recover from injury.

Bummer, not much to see at Catalunya. The balance of performance adjustments had no impact on the racing. Bautista slowly and methodically walked away in all 3 race. This is an unfortunate situation for WSBK since they just emerged from 6 years of Rea domination, and it looked like the addition of Bautista was going to finally add the rider talent to have a multi-polar balance of power between riders and factories. Alas, Ducati have cracked the BoP source code with Bautista. Rea and Toprak are fighting for second best. I wonder if bike-rider minimum weights will be introduced. Could be the same problem as MotoGP, since WSBK should have just started a new 5-year contract this year.

The only interesting event, in my opinion, is the brewing rivalry between Bassani and Rinaldi. In Race 1, Rinaldi barged Bassani out of the way at Turn 3. When Rinalid failed to yield later in the race, Bassani knocked him down and out. Bassani leads Rinaldi in the championship so it's obviously a bit chippy as they both vie for the 2nd factory Ducati seat. Bulega may spoil the party for both of them.

Good news is that WSSP is putting on an interesting competition, and the bikes are getting slightly faster as the teams adapt the bikes to the tires. B Sofuoglu won a barn burner in Race 2 at Catalunya. Somehow, it seems balance of performance is working better in WSSP, with a much wider variety of bikes, than in WSBK.

mylexicon said:

Bautista slowly and methodically walked away in all 3 race.

Click to expand...

Bautista / Ducati are killing it...............obviously. How in the heck can he win a 17 lap race by over 10 seconds? Bassani must have really overcooked his tires in race 1 because he fell off a cliff in the closing laps. Same thing seemed to happen to Rinaldi in race 2 as Toprack took gobs of time out of him and clipped him for 2nd. Rinaldi seemed to give a bit of a gesture towards Toprack, not sure why.

The rev handicapping is an interesting one. Back when Rea was walking it over and Kawasaki kept getting rev cuts we saw privateer teams on Kawasaki's end up at the back of the race as their bikes got less competitive. I get the impression that Ducati looked closely at the way rev handicapping worked and put out a bike with a ridiculously high red line so to knobble the handicapping rules for years. Currently the privateer Ducati's are doing reasonably well so it may be a while before we see handicapping put them to the back of the pack like the privateer Kawasaki's ended up.

mikesbytes said:

The rev handicapping is an interesting one. Back when Rea was walking it over and Kawasaki kept getting rev cuts we saw privateer teams on Kawasaki's end up at the back of the race as their bikes got less competitive. I get the impression that Ducati looked closely at the way rev handicapping worked and put out a bike with a ridiculously high red line so to knobble the handicapping rules for years. Currently the privateer Ducati's are doing reasonably well so it may be a while before we see handicapping put them to the back of the pack like the privateer Kawasaki's ended up.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the danger of the balance of performance system. It was adopted to allow all teams access to the same production racing parts, rather than the old-lock-and-key system for factory support. However, if you're not the reference team (factory team), and the reference team is having a great season, you get detuned with the reference team.

Tough way to make a living, though, as you point out, the satellite Ducati teams are not too badly affected at the moment.