All CBR600 Hondas banned from racing?

The entire crop of Honda CBR600RRs could be banned from racing following a controversial judgement by the WSBK technical director Fabio Fazi.

Apparently the CBR600RR rear spindle is 40 grams too light for it to comply with the FIM homologation rules, rendering all CBR600RRs illegal for FIM motorcycle racing.

Curtain leads the WSS field into Honda corner.
Curtain leads the WSS field into Honda corner.
© Gold and Goose

The entire crop of Honda CBR600RRs could be banned from racing following a controversial judgement by the WSBK technical director Fabio Fazi.

Apparently the CBR600RR rear spindle is 40 grams too light for it to comply with the FIM homologation rules, rendering all CBR600RRs illegal for FIM motorcycle racing.

The WSS paddock were stunned after the racing at Germany last weekend when the WSBK technical director ruled the CBR600 rear spindle illegal, instantly disqualifying the six CBRs that had just finished in the top ten.

The heart of this conflict is the homologation rule which dictates that certain components on a race bike should be the same as the road going version.

The spindle weight Honda gave the FIM when the CBR started racing was 561grammes. The tested weights of the six WSS CBR's spindles were 40 grams below this. However the technical drawing used to find the tolerances was a fuzzy photo-copy of the actual document.

Instead of double checking, Fazi decided that the tolerance limit was 20 grams, even though it was difficult to read the exact value, thus rendering the Hondas illegal.

Honda have replied by saying that if the spindle is found to be illegal, they will not undertake the homologation process again, whereby the complete manufacture of the spindles has to be corrected and the production line altered, costing millions of pounds.

This will see the end of the CBR600RR in top level racing across the world.

There are two possible reasons for this error. Either Honda supplied the wrong technical drawing in the beginning or the actual tolerance on the drawing is in fact 40 grams.

A judgement on this issue is pending.

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