VOL. 50 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 15, 2013
P69
An
EVO
HOR I Z O N
DORNA'S WORLD SUPERBIKE BOSS OUTLINES THE FUTURE
BY GORDON RITCHIE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
J
avier Alonso, the managing
director of Dorna's World
Superbike interests, was
at Magny-Cours for the French
round of the series where he
answered questions about the
future of the World Superbike
class. With the confirmation that
there will be an all Evo future beginning in 2015 - albeit not quite
the same as the Evo bikes that
will race in the championship in
2014. Alonso explained what has
to change in World Superbike
racing in the near future.
Many people are quite down
about World Superbike racing, but some say that Evo will
raise the championship. What
is your view?
In 2015 all the bikes will be
Evo. Now it is agreed. Now we
are discussing with the manufacturers to find a way by which the
manufacturer that has a product
with a longer life – for example
maybe the BMW is better than the
"
BY HAVING THIS
EVO CLASS IT IS
ALSO IMPORTANT
BECAUSE WE
WILL BE CLOSER
TO THE NATIONAL
CHAMPIONSHIPS.
"
– JAVIER ALONSO
Honda, but the Honda has been
in the market for some years.
We are trying to find a way that
the manufacturer with the older
bikes can be closer to the ones
in front, so all the manufacturers
can be happy to participate in
the championship. This is really a
very important step. Because it is
not only to have a lot of manufacturers - although it is important to
have everybody on board - but it
is also important to let everybody
have the possibility that they can
be in front one day or another.
Today the top teams are at the
top and will always be there. If
one day there is one of the teams
that are not normally in front, but
are able to make top three in
qualifying or Superpole, or can
be top five in the race results,
then that can help them to get
more sponsorship to run in the
championship. Today that is very
difficult because today they can
only aim to be 15th.
What about links between
MotoGP and World Superbike?
One other thing we are trying
to pursue is – and you can hear
some rumors of riders going from
here to MotoGP – we believe
we should have several different
easy paths to arrive in MotoGP.
Probably in the past, okay we
had [Cal] Crutchlow and [Ben]
Spies coming in, but it was not
a river but a trickle of riders. We
want to push for this type of situation and for people to understand
that if they come the way of World
Supersport or World Superbike
there is also the possibility of run-
