WSB officials have announced that there will be no weight penalty for the factory Ducati 1200cc World Superbikes, because despite Troy Bayliss racking up a 44 point advantage over second place Fonsi Nieto, the average points difference isn’t quite enough.
New technical rules and a handicap system introduced into the World
Superbike Championship, to allow 1200cc twin-cylinder machines to race with the existing 1000cc four-cylinder bikes was introduced this year after concerns that the extra cc would mean an unfair advantage for the Italian marque.
Big twins started this year carrying six more kilos than the fours (168 against 162), and running air intake restrictors of 50mm diameter, although the weight of the machines and the size of the air intake restrictors can be changed by the FIM - depending on a pre-agreed points comparison between the twins and fours, to be made after every three rounds.
The championship’s first three-round stage was reached after Valencia, and according to WSB organisers the series has played out exactly as they though, with the twins and the fours evenly balanced. The ‘event average' would have had to be more than five points difference between the combined points tally of the top two 1200s and top two 1000s for the current handicapping levels to be changed. After Valencia it was only three, in favour of the twins.
So no weight penalty for the boomers because it’s all pretty even stevens out on track.
