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Less than a week away from the last pre-season tests at Phillip Island, the Superbike Commission has approved some updates to the sporting regulations, precisely in view of the season that will start at the end of the month in Australia. What immediately catches the eye is the decision to give continuity to SBK, leaving the technical regulations unchanged. The Commission has therefore rejected the idea of introducing a minimum bike/rider weight as early as 2023, excluding, as we anticipated some time ago, the possibility of ballasting Alvaro Bautista's Panigale V4 R, the subject of discussion because of the advantage of the Spanish rider in acceleration, due to his weight.
The technical regulations of the Supersport and Supersport Next Generation classes have also remained unchanged, to allow manufacturers to prepare for the performance balance that will be established at the end of 2023 and introduced in the following season.
Test restrictions and flag-to-flag races
As regards the sporting regulations, it was instead decided to prohibit the riders and teams of the Supersport and SSP300 World Championships from carrying out tests, trials or races in the same place where a round of the championship will be held, in the 11 days preceding the first free practice of the event.
As is already the case in the two higher categories, SSP and SBK, flag-to-flag races will also be introduced in SSP300 in 2023. In the event of rain, the riders will therefore have to return to the pits during the race to change tires or make adjustments, effectively preventing a race from being interrupted for non-exceptional climatic reasons, in any of the categories.
In line with all FIM disciplines, the yellow flag with red stripes will indicate that: “grip on this section of the track could be affected by any reason other than rain, resulting in unexpected surface conditions. This can include isolated patches of moisture on a dry track, oil, gravel, grass or other debris.”
Finally, to increase the safety of the riders and improve their equipment, the FIM has also decided to admit only FIM homologated helmets with deadlines up to 12/31/2025 for the FRHPhe-01 and FRHPhe-02 homologations and starting from 01/01 /2026 for FRHPhe-02.
