Changes and differences

WorldSBK is shaping up to be a boom-or-bust rollercoaster. Gordon Ritchie spreads out the maps for the new campaigns shortly before the first high-speed manoeuvres are launched

By Gordon Ritchie

Photos by Chippy Wood/Gold and Goose

Long before race officials switched on the starting lights at Phillip Island, I imagined enticing possibilities for this year’s WorldSBK championship—little green shoots of hope popping through the topsoil all but guaranteeing a surefire harvest of classic races.

OK, I have done this many times before, staring blissfully into the unexplored canyon of a grand-looking new season. But even as I embark for the season-opener in Australia, my cold journalist heart is skipping a little. And my grey-haired head is in agreement.

Here’s why: We knew changes were coming to the series well in advance of Álvaro Bautista wrapping up a dominant, second-consecutive title on his Ducati V4 R. There are two ways to look at these changes: 1) All change is good; and 2) all change is pure cost.

The cost thing is minimal, even with new rules bringing greater tuning freedoms for some and a few more kilograms of handicapping for others. In short, the new regulations are not some dry, bureaucratic, box-ticking exercise to keep the Swiss blazerati in jobs.

The manufacturers thrashed out the rules with Dorna and the FIM, finalizing the basics at the last round. Ducati representatives needed extra sugar in their espressos to swallow the headline combined-weight rule, which will turn out to be almost meaningless, mark my words.

This year, the lightest riders will carry some extra weight. Not much, and most of them very little or none whatsoever. In return for that possibility, Ducati gets the 500 rpm lost last year. All because Bautista is too good and weighs too little. No wonder Ducati finally agreed.

Next up is a tectonic tech shift inside the engines, with the ability to add or subtract 20% of crankshaft and balancer-shaft weight. Kawasaki can finally take advantage of the 500 rpm the Japanese manufacturer was awarded in 2023 but could not use.

Kawasaki also got another concession late last year that allows a near-full, top-end overhaul of its aging inline-four with which to start Phillip Island. KRT should have slightly more potent engines, with certainly more over-rev capability.

There is a reduction in fuel-tank size to 21 litres, no more peak-rpm balancing rule, results-related concession checks every two rounds (down from three), and a loosening of the pre-notification rules for any Super-concession parts earned by qualifying manufacturers.

New fuel-control measurements, readying for real fuel-flow controls in 2025… We’ll skip that to get to current changes that really count. (I nearly got sucked into tech-speak quicksand there, but I am back on terra firma for some truly disruptive and exciting 2024 pot-stirring.)

At the top of the rider list, Bautista stays with aruba.it Ducati. He is still somewhat injured, so thus far in testing, his new teammate, aruba.it Ducati 2023 WorldSSSP Champion Nicolo Bulega, has been melting the timekeeping computers.

Bulega was fastest in three of the four days of combined European winter testing.

Not so much a one-off, a three-off. In this field, that’s simply wild, and nobody quite expected this kind of non-racing winning WorldSBK debut from him.

Next, championship runner-up Toprak Razgatlıoğlu. A one-time indie icon for Kawasaki Puccetti, then world champion and clear lead rider for Yamaha, Razgatlıoğlu and mentor Kenan Sofuoğlu have made the ambitious leap to well-resourced, super-concession street urchins BMW.

Toprak has done Toprak things already and even overhauled Bulega’s fastest time at Portimão. The BMW has an engine that may even come close to that of the Ducati in a straight fight, which is the main reason Razgatlıoğlu left Yamaha.

Razgatlıoğlu also has tamed some of the M 1000 RR chassis gremlins, probably by setting his longtime crew chief Phil Marron loose on them, and then Toprak simply ignoring any of them that remain when it’s go time.

The oft-injured Michael van der Mark, now seemingly fully fit, stays in the official Rokit BMW team. An extra-motivated Scott Redding has been sent to help tune-in, turnon, and help out the satellite Bonovo BMW squad alongside late-season 2023 force Garrett Gerloff.

Third in 2023 and winner of only one race, six-time champ Jonathan Rea has defected—openly and honourably—to the official Pata Prometeon Yamaha team to join with last year’s fourth-placed championship rider and podium-regular Andrea Locatelli.

With Rea, ambitious as ever, taking ex-WSS champ Andrew Pitt from Locatelli to be his crew chief, spice has been sprinkled on the half-British/half-Italian official Yamaha team’s breakfast tea/espresso emulsion. Tom O’Kane, one of the best crew chiefs imaginable, is with Locatelli.

Yamaha will run four more YZF-R1s: Remy Gardner and rookie-season podium rider Dominique Aegerter in a strong second-year GRT rider lineup; Motoxracing retains ex-BSB titlist Bradley Ray, and GMT94 will compete with former Ducati-runner Philipp Öttl.

Kawasaki, now without the GOAT in its verdant green yard, continues with Alex Lowes as the most experienced rider in the official KRT squad and twice Independent Rider Champion Axel Bassani in his first-ever factory WorldSBK season.

This is an important career stage for both Lowes and Bassani for different reasons. Versatile former Moto2 champ Tito Rabat and his Kawasaki Puccetti Racing team will get a full-factory Ninja this year, direct from KRT. Expect only three Kawasakis at Phillip Island.

The factory Honda squad retained Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge as its riding duo but lost Leon Camier as team manager, replaced by José Manuel Escamez. Honda debuted a new CBR1000RR-R, but so far it has not been better in testing than the previous model.

There will be a completely new-look rider lineup in the Petronas MIE Honda team this year, with Taz Mackenzie and Adam Norrodin, the recent WorldSSP pairing, on their new WorldSBK Hondas. They should have all their new kit for Phillip Island but will be playing catch up.

Last, and probably best-placed of the independents, are the Ducati hordes. There are as many Yamahas as there are Ducatis, but it feels like there are swarms of angry desmos in WorldSBK. And every single one of them looks like they could dent some podium foundations at least.

Established forces first. Danilo Petrucci is a versatile talent, and the MotoGP winner made a podium debut season in 2023. He’s back for year two on a Barni Spark V4 R that will have 500 more revs again. He should be in the main mix—and often.

Michael Ruben Rinaldi had to make way for Bulega in the factory team, but the 28-year-old Italian won a race last year, and he is on the same Motocorsa Ducati that his big 2023 rival Bassani has just left behind.

Now to two very experienced WorldSBK rookies: Andrea Iannone has served his doping ban and come to WorldSBK with the maverick GoEleven Ducati team. He has been fast and not-so-fast in testing, so who knows? But MotoGP race winners are MotoGP winners for keeps.

Sam Lowes, identical twin brother of KRT’s Alex, is no stranger to the WorldSBK paddock, but the 2013 WorldSSP champ (on a Yamaha) left a race-winning Moto2 career to compete in WorldSBK for the very first time.

With a strong, new branch of the Marc VDS tree of racing life supporting Lowes, and riding a Ducati he has already lapped quickly on in some test sessions, we just need to see is how he keeps his Pirelli tyres in shape for all 20 laps of the longest of the three weekend races.

WorldSBK is, like MotoGP, not all about one category. We will see the WorldSSP300 riders later in the year, but right now the massed ranks of WorldSSP pilots are ready to start alongside their liter-class brethren in Australia.

The third year of the “Next Generation” WorldSSP championship rules has already started with the scorecards more or less reading 10 for 10 for expanding the franchise beyond 600cc Japanese bikes and some not-much-bigger-capacity European triples.

In “Next Gen” year one, a 600cc Yamaha still won the championship, but the 955cc Ducati Panigale V2 was the bike to be on last year, especially if you were inside the not-quite-factory aruba.it Ducati team. Federico Caricasulo also won a race on a privateer Althea Ducati.

But bear in mind that even in a record-breaking walkover season for Bulega, with an incredible 16 victories to his credit, Caricasulo and a further four other riders—Stefano Manzi, Taz Mackenzie, Can Öncü, and Bahattin Sofuoğlu—also won WorldSSP races.

Ducati won 17 races, Yamaha four, with one each for Honda, Kawasaki, and MV Agusta; Triumph had a victory in 2022. No fewer than 14 riders took at least one podium, representing all brands. You can see why the new-ish WorldSSP already gets a full-points score.

Bulega, so fast on his official WorldSBK Ducati V-four this winter, played a major part in all those Ducati WorldSSP wins last year, even if the Panigale V2 was liberated a little more by some early 2023 season rules tweaks.

With Bulega gone and new chassis “kit part” rules introduced for this year, the possibilities are widening again. There will be one race-kit spec per manufacturer, at a set cost of 1,000 Euros. It will comprise upper and lower triple clamps, a steering stem, and a rear suspension link.

As usual, the greatest performance aids of all will be the very best riders. If it all comes to pass as planned, there will even be a Chinese entry in 2024, joining Ducati, Honda, Yamaha, Triumph, MV Agusta, and Kawasaki.

The QJ company, with its GSR 800, has hired Renzi Corse Racing and proven race-winner Raffaele De Rosa for its debut campaign. QJ will compete in the WorldSSP Challenge class, which means European rounds only—no early race at Phillip Island.

Who is going to win WorldSSP? A rider from at least any one of three manufacturers, and maybe more. Not much more can be asked of any championship than three red-hot factory possibilities and any one of six or seven riders being truly championship-capable.

Prospects for a mega-season in both WorldSBK and WorldSSP classes? Firm to excellently good.