New season . New rules . And one is mostly because of one man . The dominance of the Aruba . it factory Ducati team in 2022 and ‘ 23 has , too often and by too many , been thought of to be solely a result of Alvaro Bautista weighing less than a leg of lamb , er … prosciutto , giving him a huge power-to-weight advantage over the opposition . Whilst there may be some truth to that , his diminutive size isn ’ t a one-way street . Superbikes take an immense amount of force and leverage to throw around and at some tracks , and in some conditions , his size plays against him just as much as it plays for him in others . Regardless , no one really wanted to see the 2024 season go the same way and change was needed , even if , perhaps , some of the changes would not have been embraced by Bautista or his team .
WHAT ’ S CHANGED A new rider / bike combined minimum weight has been introduced for 2024 , which certainly impacts Bautista more than anyone else . The basics are the minimum bike weight remains at 168kg , but a reference weight of 80kg is assumed for the rider wearing full race gear . If the gearedup rider is less than 80kg , 0.5kg ballast ( up to 10kg max ) will be required for every 1kg less than 80kg . And for Bautista , that means his bike has to
carry roughly 6kg to meet the new limit . Not only would it require significant testing to understand the impact on the dynamics of the bike but placement of the ballast to limit that impact would also be a factor . And preseason testing time is limited . It ’ s rumoured that Bautista ran with the ballast , although not required to do so , late in the 2023 season to get a head start on understanding the consequences of that additional weight . Ducati did get one positive concession , however , with their rev limit returned to 16,100rpm after having been capped 250rpm lower in the middle of the 2023 season . Other changes which affect all teams are related to fuel with tank capacity reduced to 21 litres and 40 % of the fuel is required to be sourced from non-fossil sources ( in line with MotoGP ’ s E40 spec ). None of these technical tweaks are obvious or visible to the spectators and from their perspective , the much more exciting changes relate to 2024 rider line-ups with some major movements .
HIGH PROFILE DEFECTIONS The highest profile defection was Toprak Razgatlioğlu who , after four seasons with PATA Yamaha , including his 2021 championship year , took a seat at factory BMW . This caused much scratching of heads as Toprak was Bautista ’ s main
Bautista tyre change
54 KIWI RIDER