WorldSBK tech boss Smart believes Supersport ‘is in a good place’

WorldSBK technical director Scott Smart has had endured ‘a lot of sleepless nights’ formulating the balancing rules for this year’s WorlsSSP regulations but believes the class is now in a good place going forward.

Even though Dominique Aegerter is ‘doing a Jonathan Rea’ at the top of the series, manufacturers have shown their competitiveness and that was reflected in race two at Most, when all five were inside the top five – this was just the second time in WorldSSP history that it had happened, after Monza 2007

So far in 2022, four manufacturers have achieved podiums – Yamaha, Kawasaki, Ducati and Triumph, with only MV Agusta missing out, but they had a rider injury in Niki Tuuli since Estoril, as well as undertaking rookie Bahattin Sofuoglu, who gave them a top five at Most.

“What you’re seeing on track is a culmination of a couple of years of hard work and a lot of sleepless nights,’ said Smart.

“There are still plenty of sleepless nights, but we’ve been quite satisfied and pleased with the performance and the level and balancing of the bikes. Obviously, we take a massive amount of time to analyse the data from each weekend and we’ve actually got a little bit of a ‘Jonny problem’ as we label it.

“Dominique Aegerter has got experience of the tracks now and is riding phenomenally well and is winning races, whereas we’ve got to have a look at the raw performance of the motorcycles and an average performance of all the Yamahas and actually, I think we’re in a really good place.

‘Obviously, Bulega is riding well on the Ducati but it’s a brand-new bike and it’s never been raced before, so it’s taken them a few events to get the chassis and everything working to how it needs to. Also, he hasn’t known all of the circuits, so