The recently announced decision from WSB that the two races this year will be split over Saturday and Sunday, rather than both ocurring on Sunday, must be good news for WSB rookie Nicky Hayden. Hayden has already said that racing on both Saturday and Sunday will help him, particularly at unfamiliar tracks (MotoGP does not race at all of the WSB tracks), because he can “sleep on” the experience from race one, and also gather more track time overall.
Another rule change that could help Hayden’s new team would allow Honda, and other manufacturers, to homologate WSB race bikes by selling at retail half as many units as previously required. Additionally, mid-year homologations will be allowed, potentially permitting Honda to introduce a new WSB race bike mid-year should it begin selling a production 2017 superbike early enough.
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Honda and Dorna sittin in a tree…
Hopefully Mark Marquez doesn’t join in to try and slow him down, oh wait a minute, their on the same team…
Marquez is a team of one. After all that went on I became an “anybody but Marquez” guy. kind of sucks because I thought he was alright.
I am keen on watching the Davids compete with Goliath. It’s happened before (ie. Aprilia used Rotax engines in the RSV1000}. The more the better. I don’t think they will affect the outcome but a full field is a better spectator draw. WSB is beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals. The vast majority of watchers can only dream of performing at this level. WSB is not that far off the pace of MotoGP and theoretically less expensive to compete. IN the US, Indy cars crush the lap times of NASCAR but are a dead spectator draw. That’s where the money is. My guess is that’s what sells sportbikes here. Only the majors can afford massive upgrades each year (or maybe not, Honda hasn’t done anything in years and Yamaha has been out of the series just as long). Damn, if you open this series up to more of the boutique makers, we might just see some real competitive racing.
re: “Another rule change that could help Hayden’s new team would allow Honda, and other manufacturers, to homologate WSB race bikes by selling at retail half as many units as previously required.”
reduced to 500 from 1000 which itself was a recently reduced number. a suspicious number that I was immediately critical of because it didn’t go far enough, and conveniently NOW it gets changed only AFTER the “backs” of both EBR and Bimota have been “broken”. failure only cost those 2 brands gazzillions.
Personally I’m not that keen on seeing Bimota run a BMW engine racebike under their brand name.
Eh, once you get used to F1 cars running another company’s engine the motorcycle becomes less hinkie. Bimota is a chassis builder like McLaren and others. OK, so they may run a Duc or BMW or god knows what else. They play with the electrics, chassis, and produce something people used to buy for that je ne sais quoi… Eh, no real harm done. If they can crank the things out and enough people have the money for them so what. Bring Gobert out of retirement and he’ll win Phillip Island on a wild card, like the good ol’ days.