An adult Cape Barren goose is roughly 4kg in weight and they either don’t notice or don’t care much about what’s going on around
them. Oh, and there’s a lot of them on Phillip Island in February.
Had race control broken out the red flags every time a goose strayed within a metre or so of the track surface, then the whole event
could have been disrupted quite badly as they were very regular visitors to the edge of the track.
As it was, race control did a great job of only calling the riders back in when one of the bricks with wings posed a direct danger and
no red flags had to be waved during the races. These two were camped out at the crest of Lukey Heights all the way through FP3.
All engines in WSBK have rev limits
mandated by Dorna to maintain parity
of performance and create close
racing. All brands except Ducati are
rev-limited to between 14,500rpm
and 14,900rpm but the new V4R was
allowed to spin at up to 16,350rpm
for the Phillip Island round which is a
significant difference.
It would be easy to cite that as the
reason that Bautista was able to walk
away with the two full length races, but
it’s also worth noting that the other
V4Rs on the grid did little better than
run mid-pack so the advantage isn’t
just in the engine.
The WSBK bike has benefitted hugely
from Ducati’s MotoGP experience
with the V4 format and Bautista is a
talented MotoGP refugee. Don’t forget
that he finished fourth, just 4 seconds
back from the winner, at the Phillip
Island Round of MotoGP 2018 whilst
filling in for the injured Jorge Lorenzo in
the works team.
That combination of V4 and Bautista
was always going to be strong in WSBK.
Will we see a reduced rev limit put on
the Ducati to rein in that advantage?