Cycle News

INTERVIEW WORLD SUPERBIKE'S SCOTT SMART AND GREGORIO LAVILLA P70 the same amount of money. The cost across the year is not the same. You have the logistics of it because you have to haul around another 300kg [661 pounds] of bikes per rider. The realistic situation is that if you already have enough staff on your team and you are a compe- tent team, you can accommodate one more bike without any extra staff. If you are already running a skeleton staff then you do have to look at another member of staff to manage it. As soon as the sec- ond bike does even one more lap then there is more work. If you consider having a second bike that is not used, then you get to the point of saying "well, we have a second bike, we should use it." Then you will need more staff to manage it, because there is more workload in the garage in any giv- en session. It is a real balancing act. The cost saving across the season is a logistical one, mov- ing less equipment, moving less people. That is a big cost consid- eration and a massive amount of money. From a technical point of view if we can get a level that is more achievable without needing a lot of man-hours in the garage - i.e. once you have built a good pack- age you do not need to have four computer guys, three technicians per rider to the race meetings - then you get to a point where you would make considerable cost savings across the year. It is the knock-on technical cost savings that we are calculating and trying to be as accurate as we can. The approvals list for suspen- sion, for example, is not just a fi- nancial thing it is an accessibility thing. If you had a lease contract for factory suspension they were very big numbers, but even then it was not available to everybody. So even if you had a big budget private team you did not want to come and play because you could not get the elec- tronics, the suspension. You might get the staff and potentially the rider but you would get neither if you did not have the other. We have opened the door so teams can say, "right, I could have the same brakes, same suspension, same electronics, same tires" and suddenly it's worth coming again. The 2014 calendar is quite disjointed and I think everybody expect- ed a little more coher- ence in the calendar. There are a lot of long hauls, which goes against the original idea of going more in Europe to re- duce costs. GL: I never heard that we would be going more in Europe… We are helping the teams more; especially the new teams to go to Superbike and the resources are abroad now. In Europe there are too many sports. We do not want to see the gaps, such as the one from Phillip Island to the next round in Spain, but we were not able to fill this gap with a track that was ready to race or accepted the race because they had many other major sports events close to the proposed World Superbike date, which means it would not be good for the interest in World Superbike. This is something we will work on for the future as well. We are working on 14 rounds for 2014. CN The goal is to cut costs and add more manufacturers, but maintain the elevated status of a World Championship.

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