In the 2023 Supersport World Championship, there will still be concessions to the regulations for Triumph and Ducati who will be able to adapt the gearbox. Is Yamaha's dominance about to end?
About Paolo Gozzi de Motoracing
Yamaha has won the Supersport World Championship for six years, but the YZF-R1's technical supremacy could be in its final moments. Last season, Triumph, MV Agusta et Ducati have paid their dues to very strict regulatory limitations, adopted to balance performance between motorcycles of different displacements. But of the three manufacturers “over 600 cm3”, only the Italian missed the victory. From mid-World Championship, the regulatory constraints relating in particular to the degrees of throttle opening were relaxed. Yamaha nevertheless maintained its leadership thanks to the talent of Dominique Aegerter. However, the trend is that in 2023 the technical challenge will be greater than ever. Also because the challengers have just received very substantial aid….
Before getting to the heart of the matter, a necessary premise. The Supersport adopted the Next Generation formula, intended to revive a World Cup which was suffering from disinterest. This means that motorcycles with very different technical characteristics can race: 600s with four cylinders of Yamaha, Kawasaki and from 2023 also Honda, against the three cylinders MV Agusta (800 cc) and Triumph (765 cc) as well as the Ducati V2 955 cm3. To standardize performances, the FIM stewards intervene on a series of parameters. The main ones are precisely the opening of the throttle valve and the limitation of the engine speed, via the electronic control unit, only in certain speed ranges. In the history of motorcycling, engine capacity has always been the main factor determining the possibility of racing in a given category. It is therefore a revolution which scandalized the purists. But you have to admit that it works.
WSS Supersport: “ the continual concessions granted, are always made in the greatest secrecy«
But there is a huge black hole: the rules, that is to say the determination of concessions, are modified almost in secret. Everything is in the hands of Scott Smart, the former driver who, on behalf of the FIM (and Dorna…) decides if and when to increase the performance of a specific brand. The problem is that no one knows. There is no official press release and teams notice the changes when their respective drivers realize that their on-track opponents have made the jump in quality. Absurd. Let's hope that in 2023 the situation changes, that is to say that each time the parameters change, everyone knows it: the adversaries and even us enthusiasts.
But let's get back to where we started. Next Generation brands (i.e. Triumph, MV Agusta and Ducati) will be able to modify the internal gear ratios, approving a single configuration usable during the season but perfectly adapted to the engine speed authorized by the regulations. This is a very important concession, potentially capable of radically changing the cards on the table. Last season, the three competitors of Yamaha found themselves racing with the wrong gearbox for much of the World Championship. In fact, they had approved the speed reports taking into account the maximum allowed speed, but then the regulatory bottlenecks arrived. Hence a substantial reduction in power which required pilots in particular Ducati et Triumph to run all the races with gears that are too long.
While waiting to know the potential of the Honda CBR-RR, it is easy to imagine that the performances of Ducati et Triumph will fly away. Since mid-season, the English brand had been running with 100% throttle, so once all possible power was back, the change in “phase shift” became the biggest limitation for Stefano Manzi. MV Agusta, for his part, had already achieved good performances during the last races and had become an increasingly insidious opponent for the Yamaha , by virtue of continual concessions granted, always in the greatest secrecy... In short, even if there are aspects to correct and make clearer and more "readable", there is no doubt that Supersport will be able to entertain us.
