Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

mence a dialogue with us whenever th ey want. D oes it ma tter if the Wo rld Superbi k e Cha m pio nsh ip is co ntes t ed primarily , even un iquely, by sem iworks de aler or importer teams , rat her than full fa ct ory te ams? Lo o k , j u st study th e evo lutio n of any street bas ed cham p io ns h ip , wh eth er o n two o r fo ur wh eels. It's a cy cle . To st art with , you have quite a low lev el of participant, usu ally bec ause it's seen as affordabl e ra cing, often o ne ste p up from amateur. But th en, if it' s a success, some manufacturers start to giv e it som e support fo r promotional reasons , and th en th e l evel i m p ro ve s - until you reach a point whe re it all be comes too expensive , and so you have to cha ng e the rules to bring it back to an afford abl e e xe rci se - and th en th e cyc le sta rt s again . This was th e case in W or ld Superbike - but fo rtunately, it res ulted in SBK be coming th e most successful street-based ser ie s in the history of c ar o r bik e racing , and while 2003 has cle arly been th e leas t successful year in the life of Wo rld Superbike , in o ur o p inion this is th e bottom of th e curve , and the c ycle is about to start building ag ain - not just with p ri v at e te ams , but with go od private t eam s, good importers teams , and some good t eam s from exiting manufacturer s, kn owing th at othe r m anufacturers not in the MSMA are co m m itted t o enteri ng in one or two ye ars . So we see a good level o f part ici pation alread y in 20 04 , but an eve n stronger one in vi ew fo r 2005, as the SBK cycle sta rts to bu ild up again . Given that the new 2004 technical rules were only published on October 4 , le ss than five months before the start of the new season, wou ld it not have been appropriate to delay formulating them and run one or even two se aso ns under the M SMA's restrictor ru les, as orig ina ll y env isaged? Firstly, th is was wha t the m an uf acturer s purported to want , so it wou ld presumably ha ve kept them onside, and it wou ld also have given you a chance to see if maybe the re st ric t ors did wo rk in prac t ice, with no t only t he fou r s ca rrying them as they have don e th is se a son , bu t also t he twins and trip les, wh ich did not wea r restr ictors in 2003. Plus i t would h a ve gi ven you an extra year's breathing space t o come up with the new rules , and the manufacturers more time to develop t he bikes accordingly. T hat wo uld have p lac ed us co mpletely o ut of ste p w ith th e AMA , BSB an d ot he r nati o n al cha m pio nshi ps , wh ich wo uld ha ve adde d furth er to th e cost of wh at'd al rea dy be expensive m ot orcycles to bui ld and dev el op , becau se of th e restrictors. But in any c ase , wh ile the Al st are Co ro na Suzuki team ce rt ainly did a lot of wo rk on restri ct ors, there 's a question mark over w hat an y other m anufact urer m ay ha ve done - on twins , as we ll as fo urs ! T ak in g the ro ute we ha ve fo llowed is the m ost co st -effec tive on e for th e team s and m an ufacturers - as we ll as th e best for sp ec tators , bec au se tog eth er wi th our co ntrol tire rule, we believe it will p rod uce the closest racing , by eq ualizing th e performance of the rel at ive bik es. Okay , y o u men t i on ed it - let' s lo o k at t he contentious issu e of the Pir elli cont rol ti res ! Why do t his at all - and wh y do it no w , whe n you al re ady had enough on yo ur plat e as promote rs t o get the new SBK te chni cal ru les accepted? Aga in, we need to schedul e a littl e bit of a his to ry less on to exp lain that, because the pro b le ms with tires first surfaced significantly a co uple o f ye ars ago. W e sta rted to see a situa tion aris e wh ere some tea ms which, wh il e ce rta inly not poten tia l race winners , were for sure c apa ble of finishin g in the top t en , and th ey were co m p lete ly un abl e to Q A Q A perform to their target level because of the la ck of availability of good tires and the huge gulf be tw een what the tire co mpanie s' best t eams w ere getting , and th ose of even th e next level of supported te am , let a lo ne c ustome r t eam s w ho must p ay f or th eir tires. So there was a very big g ap th ere, even before taking into acc ou nt th e specificatio n o f th e bikes. But t he n i t got w o rse - beca use w e st a rt ed t o understand that th e co nti nued p arti c ip ation in the c h a m pio n shi p o f som e t e am s w a s under threat becaus e th ey sim p ly co u ld n ot g et a t ire serv ic e co m mit me nt f ro m anyo n e o f the co m p a ni es . In Supe rb ike , this was perha ps m ainly du e to th e fact th at on e compan y was on ly interested in supplying fac to ry teams at th e head of th e grid , and another was forced into th e po sition of sup plyi ng m ost of th e rest of the fi eld , argua bly to th e detriment of its race operat ion , which m eant it rea ched a saturation le vel wh ere it had to turn down new team s that c ame to ask for a tire service , even on a pa id basis . I rece iv ed ca lls at the beginning of this season fro m teams who told me they were in trouble because th e tire co m pany h ad told them th at ti res were avail able , b ut it c ould not gu arantee a full service at th e track - so , bu y th e ti res and fit the m yo ur selv es, bu t we c an' t help yo u if yo u do. T ha t's not eve n c onside ring the fa c t that the pric e was q uite h igh , and th ey would anyway never k now wh at level of quality of tires th ey coul d get . Wh en o ne tir e co m p any [M i ch e lin - ACI an no unc ed at lrn ola, in the final ra c e of 2 0 01 j us t ove r five m onths before th e start of the ne w season , th at it wo ul d not be supporting th e Worl d Sup ersp o rt category in the coming yea r, this rang a lo t of alarm bells. So th is wa s an issu e we raised in J une , 2002, in a meeting with the ti re manufactu rers, where we told them that there must be an ag reed , wider com m itment from eac h tire co m pany to ensure the ongoing via bility of th e series , and that thi s co m m itm ent t o th e t eams and ra ce o rga ni zers, as we ll as t o us as promoter s, must be formal ized co ntrac t u ally. W e present ed a p ro po sal t o them whereby there wo uld be a minimum co m mitm ent le vel fro m each ma nu fa ctu rer w ho w ants t o participa te in the seri es, in terms of the number of teams serv ice d in term s of a propo rtion of the g rid, p rices, qu ali ty and timi ng , an d tol d the m we wa nted to discuss this serio us m atter with them in m o re detail. Unfortunat ely , I have to t ell yo u th at thi s was not possi ble - we had zero reaction from an y of th e three m anufactu rer s w e gave th e p rop o sal to [Mi chelin , Dunlop and Pirelli - AC] , so we had then to c ons ide r what means we cou ld ado pt that wo u ld g ive us a un i form quality of tires as we ll as a firm co m m itment from at least one m anufacturer ens uring th e longt erm via bili ty of th e series , fai r co nd itions fo r eac h tea m t o b e treated e q u a l l y , f ixed pr ices w hic h allowed t eam s to budg et fo r the season - and rea lly, th e co ntrol tire solution, wh ic h we had been fo llowing successfu lly w ith Sup ersto ck for th e pas t five years , was the obvious solution. One can understand that ratio na le - but in that case , why choos e Pi re lli up f ront? Having decided to go t he c on trol tire ro ute, why not invit e all th ree existi ng tire c o m panies in SBK to pit ch for th e busines s by sub m itting a c om pet itive proposal t o you , rat her t han simp ly nominating Pirelli in what app ear s to th e world o utside to be an und er hand ed way? Is it beca use they're Italian, li ke FGSport? No , no - l ook : Pirelli w as c hosen because it 1 co ul d give us the best g uarantees to provide us wi th a quality of servic e in lin e w ith w hat we requ est ed . When yo u ha ve o ne tire m anufa cturer decl ar ing pub licly that it's th inking of pulling out of the series co m plete ly, that doesn 't seem a very positi ve basis eye to start ta lkin g together about somethi ng as m aj or as this . O k ay , that's Mi c he lin , wh o o ne p resumes m ight not have been interested in fu rni shi ng control tires fo r bo th Wo rld S uperbik e and World S upe rsport bec ause of its comm itments in MotoGP an d Formula 1. But that still leaves Dunlop, which this sea son has shod ove r 75 percen t of th e Superbike grid and aro und 40 percent of the Supersport te ams an d has never once sug gested pulling out of SBK - indeed, it' s p ro vided good enoug h tires for w ild cards like Sha ne Byrne t o do the double ov er the facto ry Ducat is at Brands Ha t c h, or Ma t Mladin t o g rab pole at Laguna Seca . Did n 't you feel you owed it t o Du nlop to at least ask it t o m ak e a competitive bid fo r the cont ro l tire, at t he same tim e as Pirell i? It m ight even ha ve got yo u, and the t eam s, a be tter fin ancial deal. Look , we started th is discussion in 2002, an d we fo und no awa reness o n the part of the tire com pani es to the issues we presented them with. T he only one tha t , later on , ca me around to sharing our concerns and was prepa red to interact w ith th e ser ies in a different wa y was Pirelli - and that's why w e chose it to ex pl o re th e c ontrol ti re solution w it h. Be f ore esta blishing t his agreeme nt wi th Pirelli, d id you seek the FI M 's appro val - or di d you present it wi th a fait ac co m p li? We indeed did ab solutely co nsult with th e FIM from th e ver y beginning, and of c ourse we had t o seek it s app rova l bef ore we c o u ld ap p ly suc h a r adi cal so luti on t o a W orld Ch amp io ns h ip we a re co nt racted to p romote on its beha lf. It appro ved o ur strategy fo r th e series comp let ely , eve n whe n it was still o nly a c o ncept , and long before we signed any ag reement wi th Pirelli . How long will that contract ru n, and is there an option t o ex t e n d bui lt i nt o it? In other words , w ill ot her ti r e manufa ct u re r s have the chance to bid on it when it ex pir es ? A t th e m om en t it is a two- year ag reem ent , w ith o ut any sp ecific option clause. How mu ch is Pire lli paying FGSport for the exclusive rights to supply the control tire? T his is a commercia lly co nfide ntia l figure which we cannot disclose to you - but we can te ll yo u so met hi ng t ha t is mu ch m or e importa nf than th at. Pirelli is one of the biggest in dust ria l co m pa nies in Eu rope, and its sales o utlets are visited by o ver 10 million customers eac h ye ar. A s part of our agree · m ent, it will pu t thes e outlets at th e disposal of the World Superbi k e Ch ampion ship for pro motio nal purposes, and th is is one of th e thre e co rners to nes fo r mutua l coope ra tio n within the ag reem ent we have co ncl uded . The othe rs are that it wi ll develo p a suitab le ra ng e of tires specifically fo r Superb ik e and Super sp ort rac in g and th at all of these tires will be availa ble to all of th e pa rticipatin g tea ms thro ug h the service it will p ro v id e at ev ery round , with ou t any favo ritis m o r spec ia l treatme nt, as in t he p ast by other co mpanies. We ther efor e believe that, wi th thi s sup po rt , we have th e cha nce t o lift th e pr ofi le of SB K in the c oming tw o y ea rs, and tha t thi s in turn will work t o the ben efit of th e individual teams, wh o will have the chance t o attract outside sp ons ors whos e awareness of World Superb ik e is heightened by th e series ' promotion al link s with Pireil i, as part o f the contro l tire supply ag ree me nt . Why mu st t he ind ivid ual t ea ms pay FGSport for thei r supply of c o nt r o l t ires , rather th an Pirelli? Tha t is p u re ly f or ad m inistrative purpo ses Pirelli wants to fo c us on develop ing and suppl y in g ra ce t ires , n ot c o llecting money from a ll th e tea ms ind iv idua lly . Q A A I e n e vv S • NOVEMBER 19 ,2003 !. 15

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