WorldSBK weight limits being discussed by riders and rule-makers

After the evidence of quite how potent the combination of Alvaro Bautista and his Panigale V4R are becoming in the overall WorldSBK Championship fight, there are high-level and serious discussions ongoing about the potential for a combined bike and rider weight limit coming into WorldSBK.

This may not happen in 2023, as many desire, but it is a much more serious prospect in 2024. The top three riders and manufacturers in WorldSBK are incredibly closely matched in 2022, but the one obvious difference is in how much mass the highest revving and most powerful WorldSBK machine, of this or any recent year, has to accelerate down the straights in real racing mode.

Watching Bautista use that one obvious advantage to pass even riders like Rea and Razgatlioglu as if they were standing still, has been impressive but also painful for many of the neutrals to witness in 2022.

It was the same in 2019, much worse in fact, until the entire Ducati challenge collapsed for a variety of reasons. But, here we are again, with a very even championship three-way this time, and only one thing seeming to be making an unassailable difference.

Last year the much taller and naturally bigger-built Scott Redding had not the same acceleration advantage on the works Ducati, even with more peak revs like Bautista has against his rivals. So the relative weight of each rider must make a difference, and clearly it does. But the ‘one-factor’ argument has to be tempered by the fact that Bautista is only a little smaller and lighter than his current team-mate Michael Ruben Rinaldi. Yet Rinaldi’s results are not at the same level - so let’s not leave Bautista’s abilities and experience out of the equation.

Even Bautista’s hardest rivals understand he is riding