Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Paolo Flammini Suzuka is really the symbol of the World Endurance Championship, and we also found the Suzuka organizers had a better understanding of our aims than some others, so we felt we must include it. We hope that, in the future, as the permanent teams taking part in the full series grow in stature, more of them will be able to take part in this important race. This year's calendar does not, however, include a round in the country with the strongest National-level endurance culture in the world, which is the USA. Why not? We wanted to include this, but the problem is that you do not have another circuit in the USA besides Laguna Seca which has international safety homologation. They are building two new tracks, one in Alabama and the other in California, which should have FIM approval for World Championship events, so we hope very much that, by 2004, we will be able to add an American round to World Endurance - this is a strong objective for the series. How many permanent seeded teams will you have in the series, and what commitments does their registration entail? Previously, we had 16 permanent teams, but for 2002 we have raised this to 20. But we had more than 30 applications for this status, from 14 different countries including Australia, the USA and China, so it's a true world series. And we have riders from 21 different countries registered with the permanent teams. These 20 have committed to taking part in the whole series, except for Japan which is optional, and in return will receive some limited but beneficial financial reward from us as a participation allowance, which we plan to increase on a yearly basis as the series grows, just as we did in Superbike and Supersport. Consider that, over 12 years, we have increased the money paid to the teams in World Superbike by 25 times in real money, and you will understand our strategy for World Endurance. What steps are you taking to attract spectators to each round, in the same numbers as at the better-supported World Superbike events or the Bol d'Or? We will have a crowded race program of support races, up to three in total for a 200-Mile event like in Italy or at Silverstone. For the longer races, we will plan a concert on Saturday night, with various other spectacles taking place off-track - the paddock will always be the focus of attention, so that anyone spending a weekend at one of our race meetings will always be able to feel involved with the whole activity. An important element in Endurance racing is the pitstops. Do you plan to make it incumbent on each race organizer to have a giant TV screen in the spectator enclosures so that the public can follow these as they happen throughout the race? TO do that, you need quite a significant financial commitment, but we do plan, as the series grows, to have mega-TV screens at each round so the public can follow the action better. To rent one of these giant screens can cost up to $25,000 per weekend, and to buy one can cost up to one million dollars, so this is a very big cost that can only be justified if we are successful in increasing our gate revenues for the series. But this is one of our objectives; especially as our TV production will of course be focusing closely on what happens in pit lane. Let's talk about the bikes themselves. What is the formula for machines taking part in the 2002 World Endurance Series? We have fully-tuned racebikes respecting the current Superbike rules, plus Superproduction bikes up to 1000cc irrespective of the number of A A Q A 52 MAY " 2002' U U c I e n e _ s cylinders, with what is essentially a Superstock level of tuning for the engine, in a Superbike frame. For the next two transition years, before the 1000cc Superbike rules come into effect for 2004, these two categories will compete together for a single World Championship title - not like in 2001, when there were separate categories and separate titles as part of our "soft landing" policy. Then, from 2004 onwards, World Endurance will run to the same technical regulations as World Superbike - no difference. Why no separate category for prototypes, with the same capacity limits but on a nonpoints-scoring basis, to allow manufacturers to develop their next-generation superbike products in the challenging arena that Endurance racing represents - just as Ducati did in 1986 with the first desmoquatttro, Honda with the RVF750 series, or as MV Agusta did last year with the F5 prototype? Or do you prefer that they must use MotoGP for this purpose? We discussed this - but we feel that we must reject the chance to have prototype bikes run- •••so we hope very much thatl bV 20041 we will be able to add an American round to Wodd Endurance - this is a strong objective lor the series. I I II ning in a system which is geared to production machines. Until now, there was no properly constructed World Endurance Championship with its own identity, so individual organizers in Japan or France could spice up their entry list with categories like X-Formula or Formula Xtreme or a prototype class, without affecting the integrity of the series as a whole. But now, we have established a championship which is being run as part of the Superbike system, and prototype machines do not form part of that production-based philosophy. The development of prototypes should be reserved for GP racing, and if as we hope they respect this differentiation, there could be a good combination of the different roles and philosophies of each championship. Okay, but as Suzuka has proven in running the X-Formula class for modified production bikes like the TSR-Honda FireBlade, or outright specials like the Sundance Harley, this formula works in providing variety to the grid for a long race, without such bikes ever challenging for outright victory. Since it works well there, and presumably will be retained for the immediate future, why not adopt it for other races? We respect the right of individual organizers to hold a race within a race for a separate category they deem important - but, personally, I don't think it would be proper to extend this formula to other races, because what would ineVitably happen is that everybody would dedicate the biggest resources to the prototype class, in order to have A the chance of challenging for outright victory in the shorter races. This would betray the Superbike concept of World Endurance, raise costs significantly, and impinge on GP racing's role as a prototype class, as well as confusing the spectator. He or she must be able to understand that the bike they see leading the race is the one in contention for the World Championship, not some specially prepared prototype running outside the rules. The spectacle of the series would suffer as a result. Will it be each team as a whole which is competing for the World title, or each individual rider, as in the past, which sometimes meant that the third rider of the most successful team who was dropped for two-rider races like Suzuka didn't get to share the crown? The winner of the World Endurance Championship will be the team which scores the most points throughout the season, not their riders. It's the only fair solution which also makes it easier for the spectators to understand the fight for the title. Have you created any special conditions regarding tires and fuel, the two most significant budgetary elements of taking part in endurance racing? Will you have a control fuel or control tires to reduce these costs? No, at the moment we do not. The problem of tires is clearly becoming a very big issue in motorcycle racing in general, and we will consider solutions which will limit the number of tires used in World Endurance events - not necessarily next year, but it's something we are carefully monitoring. One of these is not the imposition of a control tire, like in the European Superstock series we run alongside World Superbike, because World Endurance is an important test category for all tire manufacturers, so we must respect this. But a tire rule with a limit on the number used in a race of given length is one possibility we are examining for the future. I don't think fuel is such a big problem any more, though, after the very strict specifications the FIM introduced seven years ago for Superbike and other production-derived classes, which has held down costs quite well. In the list of permanent teams published for 2002, there are no factory teams. Would you care to comment on this? I would only say that, at the moment, the manufacturers have the chance to compete in two major series with their works teams - Superbike and Grand Prix. World Endurance is an important series, but can't yet be considered at the same level as these two. Our commitment is to make the series so important that the manufacturers will feel obliged to come back to it with their works teams, as an important means of sales promotion and product development. But already I would say that there are some extremely professional teams which may be considered satellite operations closely linked to a manufacturer, with strong backup from them in materials and engineers, and good budgets, so the result is effectively the same. But is it not important for the overall success of endurance racing in the future to have full factory teams competing against each other to raise the whole level of the category, rather than private teams, however professionally structured? ll's true that the involvement of manufacturers is one key to the series' success. If we take this excellent example - and by the way, I consider endurance to be the most spectacular and beautiful form of car racing - you must go back to the '60s, where you had those incredible duels between Ford, Porsche and Ferrari until 1973, then you had a blackout which lasted all the '70s. Then came a renaissance with Jaguar, Lancia and others in the '80s, then again blackout - and now in the '90s Q A

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