Q&A: Colin Wright, Airwaves Ducati.

I love the comment
"The problem is that nobody – Ducati or the factory team – has tested the bike with this sort of weight added and therefore we can't guarantee the safety of either the parts fitted or the weight fitted and we don't know about the stability of the bike, the brakes, or whether it is going to stress the engine more."

Brakes, engine, safety ??? so there has never been a rider that weighed 10 kg's more than the heaviest BSB/Ducati combo? or 4kgs more than the current WSB/Ducati combo? hmm

Makes poor reading as an engineer. Soapbox stuff.

Well now that we have Airwaves' version, maybe we can get the response from Stuart Higgs at MCRCB, from Colin Wright's point of view it does seem pretty unfair, as he says if Crutchlow hadn't fallen off so much he'd be a handful of points behind Shakey.

Will be interesting to hear Stuart Higgs' response, suppose he's just Jonathan Palmers mouthpiece these days, go on Crash get the low down and well done for great reporting.


We're trying to speak to Stuart Higgs of the MCRCB, but so far he's been 'unavailable'... we'll keep trying - Crash.net.

Such a shame that politics makes an appearance yet again to ruin a decent championship like BSB, can't we just have a straight clean fight between the best in the business?

Can't wait to hear CRCB's reasons for changing their minds yet again, who the hell is running the show, MCRCB or the teams, will be fascinating to find out, although I doubt it from Higgs.

You're right, as an engineer, it is poorly thought out reasoning.

You would think a clever team intent on winning the title with
the posiible threat of added weight during the season sometime,
would have been testing with added weight, just to be prepared.

I'm sure Ducati Corse has tested the Xerox WSBK bikes with the
maximum weight and smallest restrictors just to see what effect
they would have.

I still think they do have an advantage, but in this
circumstance, Airwaves have been hard done-by.

You could never rightfully expect such a late decision
by the organisers to be made, but I think Airwaves, with
the title in mind, could have been better prepared.

Airwaves should have been prepared for this (I'd be surprised if Ducati hadn't already tested this), and the MCRCB should have clearly stated the calculations they would use and when they would look at imposing the additional weight as they have done in WSBK.

The most annoying thing about the domestic superbike classes is that they don't just use the same rules as WSBK. It would be great to see wild cards back at the "local" WSBK meetings and the same ruleset used across the championships. The AMA championship is taking yet another route to all the others.

Airwaves must have known that this penalty MIGHT have to be implemented if they had an obvious advantage,why have they not tried the bikes with some weight added so they have some data to work with?
When the season started i thought "great control tyres,level playing field & close racing" but it hasn't turned out that way.For a start Ducati have 1200cc engine & (WSBK) also quite a lot of Pirelli experience too.
The biggest example of the advantage they had was at Oulton when Shaky missed his braking,dropped back to 12th,then sailed back up through the field to win.
If they must add weight better now than when Shaky has already won the championship,which on current form will be JUNE!!

Safety issues aside, it seems very unfair to give any team 4 days notice of a change designed specifically to handicap them. If HM Plant then take over as the dominant team (which is most likely), will they get the 10Kg penalty in a months time? That will probably hand an advantage to Tom Sykes, will he alone get the 10Kg penalty as his team mate is still learning the tracks?! It'll become more like BTCC rules but without any written regulations determining when, why or how penalties will be administered.

Let them go. It is long known that Ducati is fully controlling tailoring regulations for WSBK and other championships. BSB should go on at least with extra weight and show the way to WSBK. Obviously WSBK FIM Dorna are trying to misguide public opinion by posting that so far in 5 races they had so many different winners!! But they are not saying that Bayliss and Sunky are gathering points in every race. Show them the door or restrict the inlets as they did to the 1000cc few years ago. Extra weight is not limiting the bike but the rider, obviously Bayliss will bead my ZX10R 08 even if he rides a Harly..

Just a thought,but what would happen if Shaky or Camier had to miss a round of BSB & they had to find another rider to stand-in,however the rider they wanted weighed 10kgs more than them! What would they do?

Each time you bend the rules, you end up with this kind of crap.

The Superbikes series have been suffering of this disease since the very first time the Flammini brothers decided to help Ducati by granting the Italian factory a specific set of rules, instead of just setting a fixed weight and capacity for every make. what if Guzzi wanted to race and asked Flammini to have the right to add a turbocharger because their engine is weaker and their shaft drive a drawback? This is endless! The rule should be 1000cc, whatever number of cylinders one believes best. If Ducati's desmo twins are better, they shall prove it on the track, not with bent rules like diesels at Le Mans!

I suggest a 5 kilogram weight in each rider's boots so they can kick ass even harder!

All this is crap : the rules shold be the same for all manufacturers: if Ducati believe their desmo twins are better, they should win with the same capacity. Weight should be a percentage of the homologated stock bike's weight.

Although I can't watch BSB the situation reminds me of WSBK. Who Cares put it very well. Once you start issuing specific rules to each make you're nevero going to find a balance. Rules should be universal and everyone do their best following those rules.
I think that MotoGP have the best set of rules: A pre-set capacity and minimum weight according to the number of cylinders. If Ducati isnist in racing a V-2 then they should do with all pros/cons this configuration has instead of asking for extra capacity allowance. Otherwise, they've been racing a V-4 for years, I'm sure they could homologate a V-4...

Funny how Colin Wright is complaining about the "other teams", but isn't it always Ducati who is complaining about needing compenstation engine wise? Is that what they claimed with the 999, "we are stressing our engines......" Sorry I don't feel sorry for Colin aside from the fact the it appears to have been done last minute.

This whole situation between twins, fours triples or whatever, needs to be addressed because the formula has never worked when based on engine size. I think they should either have a horsepower limit and let people run whatever size motor they like, or they just need to seperate the twins and the fours.

Ok, am probably lining myself up for a fall here, but is it just the two Airwaves bikes being penalised, or the other two Ducs as well - NW200 of Micheal Rutter, and the Buildbase one?

It does seem unfair to do this mid season, and less than a week before a race. Don't know the politics behind it, and don't really want to know! Am a racing fan, not a politics fan. As every one else has said, its not Shakeys fault he's way ahead, eveyone else keeps dropping off!! Consistency is the key - look at the results for the Hydrex of Ellison, now that is a surprise, but he's consistent!

Will be a great shame if the Airwaves guys aren't there at the weekend!

This is absolute rubbish. For one, the results certainly don't look like the Ducatis have a huge advantage. Shakey is the only one who has won a race, and Cal Crutchlow probably would have won 2 more races had he not crashed out of the lead. Ducati has been testing their 1098R since late last year, that's why they're going well now.

And the problem with adding 10 Kilos of ballast is finding a safe and secure place to mount it where it won't break anything. Then you've also got to make sure the balance of the bike is correct. Note that some particularly evil handling bikes of the past had their problems because the weight was in the wrong place (ex: 07 RC212V, Eddie Lawson's NSR500).

Ducati has a reputation for using rules for it's own advantage but any team will give themselves the best chance to win. Didn't Suzuki also ask for race pistons to preserve engines, post-Brands?

I can't pretend to understand all the engineering principles but I thought a 2 cylinder 1000cc will be down on power but up on torque against a 4 cylinder version, giving it a handicap on straights but an advantage out of corners. I also thought that raising the capacity made a 2 cylinder 1200 more or less equivalent to a 4 cylinder 1000.

On a slightly off-topic note: is anyone complaining about Triumph 675cc bikes running (and doing well) in a 600cc race series?

srj999 ... the thing in Triumphs favour is the similarity to last years STK1000 races. Glen & Hudson were neck & neck at 100% of their ability, & this year seems to be much the same, just in the Supersport class.
If anything, I've been surprise by the STK600 Triumph.

I've generally kinda accepted Ducati having some small advantage in Superbikes, purely because they tend to still make customer race bikes (RS models) that are capable of winning in the right hands ... a great option for up & coming riders.
The Jap manufacturers have traditionally had a much bigger gap between factory machinery & customer bikes. However, this 1200cc rule isnt good for the sport at all.

Arron Danson, if you are an engineer you will realise that a rider 10kg heavier is a huge difference than fitting 10kg of lead ( or other such ballast ) to a motorcycle.
The rider moves around a lot during racing, the ballast they are being asked is to be attached to the chassis at some point which will alter the feeling of the motorcycle completely.
The teams issue is more to do with the timing of the penalty rather than the penalty itself imo, they need to test so they can find the best place to put the additional ballast so that it has the least effect on the motorcylces handling etc.
It's not rocket science if you think about it or indeed ride a bike ?

I find this 'safety' excuse comical.

Ducati want us to believe that we must buy their road bikes if their race bikes win ... since the 2 are so closely related.
So similarly, are all Ducati owners now to believe the message that any model they own weighing more than 168kgs, is to be considered unsafe?