In 2011 Carlos Checa won the World Superbike championship with an extraordinary fifteen wins and six podium finishes, however the 2012 season went backwards for the Althea rider who struggled with an extra six kilos on his 1098R.
Checa and other Ducati riders, besides Althea Racing’s team owner Genesio Bevilacqua, often complained about the issue during the season, but it fell on the deaf ears of the rule makers, with the popular opinion that Ducati would just have to suck it up because they had an extra 200cc compared to the four cylinder bikes.
Now that the World Superbike championship is being run by Dorna, Checa in a long interview with Spanish website motociclismo.
es has decided to speak out on the problem that saw him finish fourth in the 2012 standings and 70.
5 points from Max Biaggi, but with the same number of wins as Tom Sykes.
“The extra six kilos last season was not a technical issue, but a political one for several reasons: Ducati had officially pulled out from the championship in 2010, and we were coming from a 2011 where we had won the title in a dominant style, there was pressure from other brands, etc.
They were clearly against us – they decided that Ducati could not win the title in 2012 and that’s how it turned out.
Considering how fast Aprilia and Kawasaki were they should have added an extra 6kg to them,” said Checa.
Checa will be continuing on a Ducati next season and debuting the 1199 Panigale, but he’ll be riding for Alstare who picked up the racing effort from Althea when the Italian team’s 2013 negotiations with Borgo Panigale fell through and they decide to switch to Aprilia machinery (after dissing the Noale manufacturer for several seasons).
Since the Panigale is a new bike and just homologated for the championship it will not be encumbered with a weight penalty at the start of the season (however the 2013 rules do state that after a number of races the minimum weight could be increased twice by 3kg reaching a weight of 168kg and 171kg and if that proves to be insufficient, then an air restrictor handicap will come into play), but Checa believes that Ducati is now being penalized for their long and winning history (17 titles) in the series.
“I think now we are now paying for Ducati’s history in this championship.
Previously when a change was made, everybody always said it favored Ducati and everyone complained about, now it is just the opposite, and nobody says anything.
For example, the new tires [17inch] clearly favor the four cylinder bikes.
I understand that regulating championship with regular production bikes is very complicated, because there are no limitations on engine configuration.
Many say that that we have an extra 200cc, but Ducati has only two cylinders and it is clearly slower.
In 2012 there were five Ducati’s on the grid and taking away my victories no other 1098R won [actually Sylvain Guintoli did with Effenbert Liberty in the restarted Race 1 at Assen] while the second best Ducati rider was only 9th.
Balancing the benefits is very difficult, one day you have something and next time its taken away.
What if one day we should decide on a three-cylinder machine? Would it have a displacement of 1100 cc? Obviously in the past Ducati had some advantages but now it’s the opposite.
The easiest thing would be to make a four-cylinder bike, but this isn’t Ducati’s philosophy and I really like that about them.
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