WSBK: Yamaha calms things down on the new fairing seen at Misano

Yamaha aroused curiosity in WSBK during the Misano tests by presenting a modified fairing on the R1 of its rider Toprak Razgatlioglu. And for good reason: the series is devoted to machines from the series, which offers fairly limited possibilities for development. We are not in MotoGP where the fairings are now the subject of all the research and attention of the engineers. As a result, the brand's representatives in the category calm things down by putting the event into perspective...

Yamaha worked with a new fairing on the R1 when World Superbike test in Misano the past week. An area of ​​effort which has aroused curiosity since the regulations leave little room for maneuver in this area. In WSBK, motorcycles must be similar to production machines. The requirement in the Superbike World Championship consists more of authorized optimizations than of developing ideas in terms of aerodynamics which flourish on the prototypes of the MotoGP.

The brand's Superbike officials are Toprak Razgatlioglu and the Supersport World Champion Andrea Locatelli, and the two GRT drivers Garrett gerloff et Kohta Nozane, completed numerous laps on the Misano World Circuit with an R1 equipped with a black fairing. Which attracted attention. An interest which led to this comment Yamaha  : " This is just a modification to the fairing in the air intake area, as we wanted to see if we could improve the intake and we wanted to give our taller riders better protection behind the fairing ", has explained Andrea Dosoli, director of Yamaha Racing. .

The Italian assured that there was nothing extraordinary, because the possibilities of the Superbike World Championship are limited: “ maybe Toprak will have its own fairing screen, but in the rules there are not many possibilities » he said on speedweek.

Yamaha reminds the rules

The World Superbike Championship team Yamaha is a cooperation between the technical development department ofAndrea Dosoli and the Cresent Racing team from Paul Denning of Great Britain. Denning has described in more detail what can be changed in the series on the fairing compared to the production model in order not to violate the FIM rules. “ Overall, the fairing and outer shell of the motorcycle must correspond to the homologated parts, the headlights must also be represented, with a tolerance of 15 mm. So we didn't bring a new aerodynamic package ».

« There is a slightly modified design so that the rider is better protected. The upper front part, i.e. the upper fairing above the front wheel area, can have a front surface up to 30 mm wide, and the screen can have a different size ", explained the team director Yamaha who concludes: “ there are no big changes and it is in the range of the current model, only slightly modified for racing ».