Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128332
World Superbike 2004 Half Season Report Shinkansen!" says one reliable source. That's probably true (do bullet trains go faster than 200 mph?), but hyperbole apart, it seems very unlikely that Kawasaki will sit still and allow Honda and Yamaha to steal a march on it in this vital area, and the same goes for Supersport racing, where according to sources inside Kawasaki Europe, the withdrawal from the class this season when in the new ZX-6RR, it had a bike capable of w inning the World Championship, is now seen as a major strategic mistake. Which leaves Suzuki, the one japanese manufacturer out of sync with Superbike model development, currently leading the AMA and BSB National series with a bike one year older than its j-rivals and suffering thereby under the new rules from having too small an airbox as stock (can't be changed for AMA races) and lacking a sec ond injector per cylinder, as all the others have. But Suzuki will launch a new vers ion of the GSX-R I000 at Intermot in September, which will resolve these issues the major importers want Suzuki back in World Superbike, but they're prisoners of this MSMA agreement, which they're the only ones who really suffered by signing none of the others had done any development work on the restrictors, only Suzuki. "2004 was their year, and ours, to make a serious bid for the World Championship, but in the spirit of japanese unanimity, they signed up for the boycott and now find that others who did so too have since found a way to ignore it. I cannot believe that Suzuki won't come back again to SBK in 2005, but in that eventuality I would have no choice but to consider changing marques , because my sponsor demands representation at the highest level." Corona boss jose Ramon Monasterio confirms this. "Globally, World Superbike has been losing steam, and I don 't like that," Monasterio says. "Part of the reason that Corona is the fastest-growing beer brand in the USA and UK is due to Superbike. We are known in Britain as the Superbike beer, as well as being more powerful, more compact, lighter and even prettier than the current model , in an effort to put it on a par with the RI both commercially and on the racetrack. It seems unthinkable that Suzuki wouldn't commission its established A1stare partners to run the new bike in World Superbike next season, especially with Honda and Yamaha certain to be making a big effort in the series. "We 've renewed our sponsorship deal w ith Corona until 2006, but I've made it clear to Suzuki we have to return to Superbike racing next season, because neither I nor Co ro na is satisfied with the current operation limited to the Supersport class," says A1stare boss Francis Batta. '~I and this means It's a vital part of our strategy. But Corona is used to winning, and while we've given Superbike a huge image for them to take advantage of, it seems this is being sacrificed because the two warring sides can't see sense and make peace. We have to be present at the highest level with factory machines , and I hope Suzuki and the other japanese manufacturers will realize that it's in their interests to put this behind them and come back to a category that benefits them commercially, just as it does sponsors like Corona in reaching out to the many Superbike racing enthusiasts around the world which buy our products - and the irs." However, the revised Suzuki won't be 32 JULY 14,2004 • CYCLE NEWS the only new 1000cc four-cylinder bike on World Superb ike grids in 2005 - because one of the most famous and historic names in motorcycle racing is set to return to the tracks for the first time in exactly 28 years : MV Agusta. The acclaimed new radialvalve F4 1000S is not only winning magazine comparison tests against its japanese rivals in terms of hard performance figures, but a factory-supported race version is also undergoing a development season in the German Superbike Championship, ridden by former World Supersport champion jorg Teuchert. The commercial success of the Mille and its 750 Brutale naked sister means that MV has turned a corner, and whether the present period of administration ends via the proposed takeover by Proton o r a deal with a TPG-style equity house, there is no longer any doubt surrounding the company's future. Long-time Ducati satellite team NCR is known to have been in discussions with MV boss Claud io Castiglioni about running a factory supported but outside-financed MVAgusta team in World Superbike, and a 2005 Xerox/Nortel-sponsored team comprising Garry McCoy and Teuchert would be a potent contender for Victory Lane - especially with the variable-intake technology of the forthcoming Tamburini version of the F4, which is speciflcally catered for in the revised SBK regulations . But that's not all, for there' s a strong possibility that a sec ond , British-based MV Agusta team with its own proven R&D capability will also be on the tracks next season, with james Ellison likely to be one rider after his successful st ints aboard the development F4 Mille in 24-hour endurance racing . These greatly impressed MV Agusta's technical boss Andrea Goggi, a hard ened veteran of 500cc GP racing after his days as the Cagiva team's race engineer, who's called the young Brit "the best development rider I ever worked with - he gives fantastic feed back. " Ellison could well be joined by TTwinner john McGuinness, who just one week after setting a new outright lap record in the Isle of Man finished third in a BSB round on a guest ride for Hawk Kawasaki. Two men to watch . As well as the Foggy Petronas team, which is working on a new 1000cc version of its distinctive three-cylinder forward intake engine, Ducati's commitment to World Superbike remains total, even w ith the current huge workload imposed on its race shop by the doubling-up of its MotoGP responsibilities at Dorna's behest, 40th Anniversary with the provision of last year's Desmosedici V4s to the cash-strapped Spanish D'Antin team. However, this will diminish in 2005 with a severe reduction in the number of SBKsatellite teams running the Italian V-twins - in spite of which company president Federico Minoli remains a firm adherent of SBK. "They tried to get me to sign the MSMA boycott, but I to ld them World Superbike was fundamental to Ducati's business plan and had no intent ion of jeopardizing th is," Minoli says. "Supe rbike and Ducati go hand-in-hand, and we'll be trying to keep winning there for the foreseeable future ." Expect an intensification next season of the factory's support of the privateer Renegade team, which has won races with Haga and put Leon Haslam on the rostrum this season, while also ramping up the works Fila Ducati squad , and don't expect the Italian company to make it quite so easy for its Superbike stars to swap to MotoGP racing in future, either - not on a Desmosedici, anyway. Losing both Hodgson and Xaus to the Grand Prix class is recognized inside Ducati as be ing a strategic mistake it won't have the luxury of repeating in the future , with the current desmo dominance under such increasing pressure from japan . And that's before the arrival on the scene of Austria's dirtbike king KTM with its small, light, innovative RC8 75-degree V-twin, which will start testing next year and may even appear in a couple of wild card races before embarking on a full SBK season in 2006 . Or the new vers ion of the Aprilia RSV-R, which has not yet seen the racetrack since its debut in the marketplace last year. In fact, it turns out that Aprilia's becoming the only non-japanese manufacturer to sign up for the MSMA boycott was in fact a convenient face-saving way of disguising the fact that the Italian company was flat broke and actually had no money to spend on going Superbike racing! If, as is widely expected, Piaggio ends up adding the Aprilia name to its portfolio, we can anticipate a return to the tracks in 2006 of the historic Gilera marque, with the RSV-R rebranded as such. And then there's the new 1000cc fourcylinder Superbike being developed by Zongshen of China, the former World Endurance champion that is currently getting ready for going racing with its own bike by running a pair of Suzukis in World Superbike this season for Pierluigi Bontempi and Warwick Nowland. And another Chinese manufacturer that's com missioned a IOOOcc V4 from a European des ign house , and... But you get the picture: Superbike's dead in the water, totally washed up , relegated to its deserved status as a second-level privateer feeder series for eN MotoGP. Not!!