2018 WSBK silly season

Camier has already signed, so not sure if Bradl is bringing the bigger Red Bull $$$ to the table.

 

My guess would be Bradl and Camier.

 

We need some Gagne replica helmets......

 

So I've seen three articles regarding the second Red Bull Honda seat recently.

Two of the sources are ones that I deem unreliable; one said that Gagne got the seat and the other said Bradl got it.

The third source, which I consider to be a lot more reliable, says that the seat belongs to Jake as soon as he signs on the dotted line.

Hey Ten Kate, will you mofos make an official announcement already? My heart can't take much more of this suspense!

 

If Nicky couldn't make that thing work....

Good luck to Jake.

 

They just need a few (more) years to figure out the new bike!

What they really need is HRC to step in and fix the fuggin thing!

 

Don't worry, they get more revs next year. That should do it!

 

rumors that Takahashi said his Japanese SBK is at a higher spec and better than the TenKate bike are pretty telling. TenKate isnt the powerhouse they used to be.

 

I'm guessing he just hopes to beat his teammate for a year and then see if that can move up to a better ride, like Johnny Rea did.

 

so...PJ got a WSBK ride....?!

http://www.speedweek.com/sbk/news/1...Team-Triple-M-Honda.html#.WgWnVTmBV68.twitter

 

Dude we're in America can't nobody read that

 

Triple M is moving from STK1000 to SBK.

PJ will be riding for them with a contract through Honda Europe.

'Murica.

 

and getting motherf@ckin' PAID by Honder 'peeon.

 

I guess this beats going to Moto2 with a sub-par team. Shouldn't be too much of a career killer given Honda's rep

 

I'd don't know, if Honder gets serious and decides WSBK is worth their time they could turn that thing into a weapon. Shit, they did it with the RC45 and RC51 and those were both hopeless square wheeled shit carts pulled by a two legged donkey.

 

Honda will throw plenty of money at the project, what more do u want? oh ya, they need technical support from HRC and that just aint going to happen.

from the article, this is really good news: "The electronics will come in 2018 from Magneti-Marelli". i know that TenKate was using Cosworth electronics on the old CBR and wouldnt be surprised if they tried to continue w/ them on the new one. running a proven product like MM seems like a great idea.

 

I’ve made similar comments for years.

From the stands or on TV, nobody can see the electronics or engine builds or $20k forks. 200mph on the straight looks exactly the same as 180mph on the straight.

But what they can see is that short of a crash, it is the same 4 bikes up front all the time and the lack of good battles (same goes for MotoAmerica).

The only people who benefit from seeing the unobtanium are people who are actually at the track, and are able to get close enough to the bikes to check it out. But in the whole scheme of things, the people who are able to get within 5-10’ of the bikes make up what, 0.0001% of the people that will see the race?

 

If parity is what they are after, then they should really just apply this to the Factory bikes.

Like Guintoli was saying at Qatar, his bike (Kawi) works well, but it is lacking the engine punch to reach the top speeds needed to run up front. Hampering his bike (and all other non-Factory bikes) even more isn't going to help anything.

It will be exciting to see if Rea still dominates the same way. Disallowing the split throttle bodies, grid reshuffles, RPM rules, etc...all of that shit might as well be call the “Rea rules”.

At the end of the day, they are essentially trying to make it harder for Rea to dominate the field every weekend.

 

They tried to make go to MotoGP, didn't they?
It seems like the "Rea factor" is very strong. If you look at his team mate's results, the bike does not look that dominant, does it?

 

Yes.

Look at what happened when Rea came over from Honda. It wasn’t like Rea magically gained a ton of skill during the few weeks off between the end of the regular season and pre-season testing.

He immediately went from battling for top 5’s to being damn near unbeatable.

Also look at what it did for Sykes. When he was on the Yamaha he was essentially an “also ran”. Jumped on the Kawi, started setting Poles and winning and won a Championship.

Some of the announcers think the Panigale is (potentially) the best bike in the field, but it has a smaller “sweet spot”. The Kawi is more balanced and works great everywhere.