The 2022 World Superbike Championship gets underway this weekend, and today (7 April 2022) Pirelli have announced the tyre allocation for the season opener.
WorldSBK will kick off its 2022 season this weekend at the MotorLand Aragon circuit in Spain. The circuit is characterised by its undulations, and mix of low- and medium-speed corners, as well as the long back straight. Additionally, many of the corners in Aragon involve long periods of time where the rider will be on-throttle with maximum - or close to maximum - lean angle.
Also, the surface in MotorLand - despite being quite old now - offers a lot of abrasion, and the temperatures can differ through the weekend significantly, with high temperatures in the afternoon, but sometimes extremely low temperatures in the morning.
In Aragon, the WorldSBK riders will have three front and three rear tyres to choose from.
At the front, two standard tyres - SC1 and SC2 - are present, with the SC1 of course being the softer of the two. In addition, a development tyre (coded A0674) will be present. It is a development of the SC1 that was present in Jerez and Portimao in 2021, which Pirelli says was “appreciated by the riders,” when it appeared last season.
The development SC1 (A0674) tyre differs from the standard SC1 in the construction, which Pirelli says will improve entry and mid-corner support.
At the rear, there are again two standard tyres, and one new development tyre. The standard options are the SC0 and SCX that have become the standard tyres for the series over the last year-and-a-half, while the development tyre is the SCQ, which is designed for Superpole and the Superpole Race.
The SCQ offers a much softer compound than the SCX, and replaces the qualifying tyre of years past. Pirelli says that the SCQ offers “a considerable improvement in lap times compared to the SCX compound.”
The Aragon race will be one of the most anticipated season openers in recent WorldSBK history, with not only Pirelli’s new SCQ tyre, but also the #1 plate now being attached to the Yamaha R1 of Toprak Razgatlioglu, who kicks off his WSBK title defence this weekend.
