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/1521442
Some predictions I've seen will have the MotoGP bikes slowing around two to three sec - onds per lap, which is a monu- mental drop in performance. I feel this will happen in the begin- ning, but MotoGP's ludicrously smart tech boffins will find a way around this conundrum, and the bikes will be as fast as ever by the end of that first 2027 season. Companies like Ducati don't go racing to go slower than they did last year, regardless of what the rulebook says. This poses the question: what's going to happen to Super - bike racing? Not just Superbikes, but all of production racing? The entire food pyramid of world racing would be turned on its head and MotoGP's value as a series would be ripped to shreds if Alvaro Bautista and Toprak Razgatlioglu were suddenly significantly faster on bikes you and I could buy from our local dealer. Prototype bikes should be the fastest things on the track, so the only option for rule makers across the globe will be to slow Superbikes down as well. But how are they going to do that? Recently I've had a number of off-the-record conversations with people in far higher technical places than me on this topic. None of them would stick their neck out and go on the record, so I guess I'll have to preface the rest of the column by saying this is just what I think, rather than any actual fact. 1000cc Superbikes have seriously fallen out of favor with Japan, the country that built them and created the movement more than any other. The bikes have gotten so expensive and the de - velopment has largely ground to a halt. Yamaha isn't making the T he worst-kept secret in racing was revealed a few weeks ago when MotoGP announced it would go to 850cc engines for 2027, plus reduce the much hated (by spectators, at least) holeshot devices and minimize aero, which has abso - lutely no use in modern street bikes—trust me, your commuter doesn't need winglets. MotoGP's rule change had been on the cards for a while as the top speeds of the world's fastest racing motorcycles are just too fast for many of the iconic tracks that make up the calendar—Phillip Island, Mugello, Silverstone—and having those drop off the season would be a body blow to a champion - ship that, if new owners Liberty Media play their cards right, could be about to ride into a new purple patch. P142 CN II LOWSIDE BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO SUPERBIKE? 1000cc Superbike racing at a national level— things are certainly going to change in the next five years. PHOTO BY BRIAN J NELSON