WORLD SUPERBIKE
WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 5/MAY 25, 2014
DONINGTON PARK/DONINGTON PARK, ENGLAND
P70
A STOP AGE
With Brembo being almost ubiquitous
in the Superbike World Championship in
many seasons past, there has been one
combination that has taken a different
way forward. Nissin supplies brake cali-
pers and Yutaka provides the brake discs
for one half of the Pata Honda team and
Jonathan Rea used this combination to
win three races in a row - in both wet and
dry conditions.
Has something changed in the bal-
ance of braking power games under the
new regulations of costs capping for
brakes in 2014?
It's an intriguing prospect as the other
rider in the Ten Kate camp, Leon Haslam, is using Brem-
bos and is still trying to get back to his best form.
According to Nissin they have made better brakes for
2014, yet kept the costs limited.
Ten Kate technical coordinator, Pieter Breddels
explained what has changed. "The basic discs are the
same, Yutaka items, but the Nissin calipers have been
changed in the past half a year," he said. "The master
cylinders too, and different caliper mounting points. They
have done quite
a lot of work on
them and it was
also partly due to
Leon's feedback
on the brakes. Why
the Nissins work
better for Jona-
than than for Leon is just down to their
braking styles. Jonathan is a classic hard
braker initially then towards the corner
he releases the brakes and keeps a
lot of corner entry speed. Leon initially
does not brake so hard but he is still
squeezing with quite a lot of pressure.
That is why Leon still prefers the Brembo
brakes."
According to Tomo Saeki from Nissin, 2014 has
brought improvements in performance, due to a more
forgiving caliper design.
"We made them even better despite the costs cap, as
this is our racing activity. Basically, it is now easier for the
rider to control the brake pressure and control the flexibil-
ity. The rider has more feeling under braking. Compared to
before the caliper has less stiffness, to provide this feel.
Jonathan Rea
is using a
combination of
Nissin calipers and
Yutaka calipers on
his factory Honda.
Alex Lowes (22) leads Baz
(76) and the rest of the World
Superbike pack in race one
at Donington.
