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Airwaves Ducati team manager Colin Wright has sensationally revealed that the British Superbikes team will not be racing at Donington Park after mid-season changes to the regulations on weight carrying.

The rule change, which increases the minimum weight of the twin cylinder Superbike by 10kg to 175kg has in the opinion of GSE Racing been made without any supporting performance related reason or prior consultation with the team, which in their opinion is another clear demonstration of the lack of communication between the race organisers and teams.

Airwaves Team Manager Colin Wright told MCN:

We won’t be going to Donington this weekend. The race organizers have imposed this penalty without any supporting evidence. There has been concerns about the safety of other bikes and reliability, but adding 10kg of weight to our bikes effectively four days before a race weekend means we can’t do any testing and for safety reasons we are going to withdraw. I don’t know what MSVR will do as we may have broken the conditions of the championship by not attending and be kicked out. But Ducati hasn’t even tested the 1098R with an added 10kg either. We are prepared to go along with the new regulation as long as we get time to test with it. From tomorrow onwards the team and myself will look into how we can add this extra weight, but for us Donington isn’t going to happen.

Team Principal Darrell Healey said:

I am absolutely astounded that the changes have been introduced after only three race meetings and four days before the next event at Donington Park. We, as a team, have spent tens of thousands of pounds testing and developing the 1098R based on what we thought were fixed regulations, but it is now clear that under Article A5 MSVR/MCRCB can clearly change the rules as and when they please! This is not a situation that either the team or I are comfortable with, and whilst little can be done for this year, I would certainly require absolute clarity on a fixed set of technical rules if we were to compete in any future British Superbike Championships.

The bottom line is that we do not have the most competitive race bike performance wise, and that is clear for everybody to see, but both of our riders have been consistent over the first six races and that is why Shane leads the championship. Similarly, had our competitors achieved consistent race finishes, our lead would most probably be less than 5 points, which begs the question as to whether the organisers would have reached the same conclusion! However, the real joke here is that last October, we, on behalf of Ducati, requested the use of non-production pistons on safety grounds to use in this years BSB Championship, and that request was completely thrown out by ALL the teams racing four cylinder motorcycles.

This is a real shame for the fans of British Superbikes, for those that will be attending the Donington round they will miss two of the championships leading riders including championship leader Shane Byrne. You can’t help but feel that this may damage the championship in the eyes of many bike racing fans and cheapen the result of the Donington round itself.

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