2018 WSBK silly season

Rea needed a bike to shine. He made that CBR look faster than it really was.
Kawasaki needed a rider to dominate. The ZX10 was a championship winning bike already but Johnny took it to a whole new level.
I'd say it's 50% Johnny - 50% Kawi

 

That's not what I meant. Kawasaki literally has put ALL of their racing resources into WSBK. They don't support anything but Rea and Sykes.

 

If Kawasaki is interested in marketing their bikes in racing through superbike, supersport and superdirtybikecross, they hit a freakin' home run.

The people that follow racing will see their shit in these series and know. Why waste resources in motogp that has nothing to do with streetbikes and why waste money in motoamerica or BSB if they are dominating in WSBK?
As for club racing and contingency, that money is just a tiny percentage of what they'd be forced to spend in motogp on beer in their hospitality area.

 

Glad this is working out.

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news...rea-under-race-lap-record-in-fp3-in-thailand/

 

Not so well in race 2

 

1100 rpm down, 10 wins and a 92 point lead in the championship later ...

https://www.motorsport.com/wsbk/news/rule-changes-control-rider-talent-smart-1063133/

 

Yawn, stating the obvious on that one.

However, at the end of that article, there was also some talk about the new Ducati V4. Is it going to be limited to under 1000cc like the rest of the 4 cyl bikes? I believe the stock motor is 1103cc? If they don't have to be limited to 1000cc, when does the the R1.1 or GSXR1100 arrive? Aprilia already has a nearly 1100 cc motor in the Tuono they could start using in the RSV4 pretty much immediately. So is this the next Ducati initiated arms race?

 

I might be wrong but I believe I read that there will be two versions of the Duck V4 and one of them being 1000cc's.

Edit....looks like the 1000cc bike is a 2019 model.

 

Was it not obvious at the beginning of the season as well?

 

R version will be 1k CC's. Street bike cc's are larger for usability in the torque/hp wars. Aprilia would still have to produce a 1k cc bike to race with and meet homologation numbers. I'd assume they'd leave the RF 1k CC's and maybe RR would bump to 1100.

 

WSBK/Dorna should have paid half of whatever Rea wanted in a MotoGP deal just to keep WSBK from dying. The series is getting seriously boring and WSBK used to be some of the best racing you could watch.

 

Got it thanks. I was just thinking Aprilia might be the first to be able to respond if there was going to be a displacement war since the motor is already in use and would fit in the frame. I am glad they are sticking with the 1000cc limit. If they busted it they might start being faster than the MotoGP bikes.