WSB - what's hapening??

Being an Ozzie I had full FoxSports coverage of the the WSB & SS races
from Phillip Island.
A couple of queries:
Why were there no wildcard riders in either class?
What happened to the traditional Champagne spraying? - local
restrictions or Series sponsor' Corona's requirements perhaps?

Baffles me.

 

One theory I heard on the wildcard issue was that the Pirelli control
tyres don't allow (local) competitors who have set up bikes on Dunlops,
Michelins or Bridgestones, for local series, wouldn't be able to adapt
to Pirellis quickly enough.

Any thoughts?

Bummers

 

Well have you got any local riders who use Pirelli tyres? Because if not
that's a big show stopper. IMHO that's probably the worst effect of the
spec tyre rules. Especially as it also means we don't go to Sugo any
more.

Beats me.

And what happened to the rostrum interviews?

And what's happened to Toseland? And Haga?

And wasn't Laconi's crash amazing.

And didn't Max Neukirchner do well.

And doesn't Kagayama look like he's out of control the whole time.

And Walker? As he took the lead in the second part of the second race, I
said "I bet he stacks it". He lasted, what? 2 corners?

 

The local distributor lists "Race Tyres" on his site but i don't think
they are used in National competition, though I could be wrong.

Because if not

Yep, it's a pity for local riders who want to show their abilities to a
world audience.

Beats me.

Reminded me of one of Mamola's many years ago, when he kissed the front
mudguard with body over the bars, was then flung off the bike but still
managed to hang onto the bars, with the bike upright & "reined" it to a
halt.

Man he is going places! Very impressive!

But generally gets away with it - doesn't he?

A little silly!

 

Who knows? They did all throw a fit about the Pirellis but now they're
all back again even if it is at arms length.[1]

Who owns Sugo anyway, isn't it Yamaha?

 

This was posted on an Aussie newsgroup where I asked the same questions:
erm - Andrew Stroud was a wildcard.

It was a round of the Australian Superbike/Supersport Championships so
points were on offer for the domestic championship.

No local can afford to use the Pirelli tyre package of EU$4000 for the
meeting for all competitors!

 

The worst thing about the spec tyre rule was that handing the contract
on a plate to Pirelli pissed off a lot of people, including the
Japanese factories. The best thing about it is the level playing
field - I'll gladly put up with a couple of seconds off lap times if
it means more people have a chance of battling it out up front.

Cheers,

 

The "smokies" Andrew Pitt was laying were pretty cool too.
Bummers

 

It's really hard to get this stuff right. Any sort of control tyre or
mandated supply rule could be just as unfair as what we have now or what
we used to have. What we really need is for Michelin, Bridgestone,
Dunlop and Pirelli to all be involved equally seriously in MotoGp, WSB,
BSB and AMA. Ain't going to happen though. And meanwhile individual
championships and individual teams will be able to get an advantage from
getting better standard tyres than the standard ones being given to
other teams.

Do Pirelli own Metzeler or is it the other way round?

 

The true world championship is MotoGP, WSB is just for fun

I think you'll find that's Motocross.

As I said above, it wasn't very well handled. That doesn't mean that
having a spec tyre is necessarily a bad thing. Yes, the issue was only
a very few riders getting the best tyres, and maybe there are other
ways round it.

Cheers,

 

I later found out for your Pirelli tyre package of EU$4000 you get:
26 Tyres
10 Front & 16 Rears for the weekend & no you can't keep them or test on
them
beforehand.

 

Arguably that's exactly what happened in WSB. Ducati and Honda got the
good Michelins and the rest of the Michelins were sh*t. And Dunlops were
0.5s slower or 10s slower over a race. Which meant that Edwards and
Bayliss ran away with it while Hodgson could do a single competitive lap
but couldn't get near them over race distance. And the following year
with Honda out, nobody could get near Hodgson.

Something had to be done. IMHO it would have been better to get
Bridgestone involved than to ban everyone else but Pirelli. But there
you go. Let's see what happens at the end of the year when Pirelli's
contract is up.

 

I don't know if anyone here follows F1 but over there Michelin has done well
by supporting all their teams equally while Bridgestone favors Ferrari so
much that all the teams jumped left for Michelin except for a couple
stragglers who never even test.

 

If the rules are the same as last year I guess it's a boycot. As wildcard
you pay about $2400 for the tires alone for the weekend.

/MBE

 

This was up for discussion last race and the common agreement was that
Bridgstone/Ferrari was the best combination under the long lasting previous
tire rules. They could taylor the tires to the ferrari cars. Now with new
rules, Michelin have a lot more testing time and info through all their
supporting teams and lead the tire race, for now.

/MBE

 

There was one, Andrew Stroud from New Zealand was a wild card in the
Superbike class (yes, the guy who used to race the Britten...)

There were 2 big reasons why there weren't any Australians running as
wildcards:

1) the meeting was also the opening round of the Australian Superbike
(and Supersport) Championship. Anybody with a competitive bike was
likely to be shooting for points in the local championship rather than a
single appearance in a WSBK round. I'd guess there aren't too many local
riders who'd have what it takes to qualify for the WSBK race who weren't
already entered for the local championship.

2) the control tires. For locals on tight budgets (and who _isn't_ on a
tight budget?) the ~ $4000 tire _lease_ package (yeah, Pirelli don't
even sell you the tires, you've gotta give them all back on Sunday
night!) is prohibitively expensive.

big

 

I more or less follow F1 and I'm afraid of the rise of Alonso. F1 spend much
more money than MotoGP and the famous spanish money could switch from MotoGP
to F1. It would be dramatic for our favorite sport.