We all know that the World Superbike Championship rules have always been framed so that they offer a significant advantage to 2 cylinder motorcycles over 4 cylinder motorcycles. For many years the absurd spectacle of 900cc Ducatis dusting off 750cc 4 cylinder “superbikes” was a “feature” of the championship. Nothing has changed, of course, with the current regulations again offering significant slack to Ducati, running a 1200cc twin against a 1000cc 4.
And we all know that the reason for this inequity, a sanctioned regime of cheating, is because the owners of the WSBK and the people who frame its regulations are Italian.
Less obvious, but just as perfidious, is the pervasive bias in the Grand Prix classes towards Spanish riders and teams exhibited by the Spanish-based controlling body of GP racing, DORNA.
This morning’s announcement that Ducati will be providing a 5th GP9 to a Spanish-sponsored team, run by Pablo and Gelete Nieto, of the legendary Nieto family (“Nieto” is Spanish for “God”) only serves to underline this contention. Fresh from the “3rd Kawasaki” fiasco where we were prevented from seeing one next year because of the insistence that it have a Spanish rider, we now see that Sete “Glass Jaw” Gibernau has been “lured” out of his 2-year retirement to ride the 5th GP9 for the newly-formed Onde Team.
Quite what this is supposed to achieve apart from feed respective egos and satisfy the rabid Spanish press, is quite beyond me. After Rossi’s demolition of the surly Spaniard’s GP career, one would have thought that he’d get the message, but, apparently not. And, it seems, if you’re Spanish, you can get the dollars and the organisers to pressure the factory to provide a bike to a rider who patently doesn’t deserve one.
If Ducati is determined to boost the ailing MotoGp grid (and good on them for doing so), then they should be looking at providing the bike to an up-and-coming young rider, not a has-been like Gibernau.
But, then again, he IS Spanish..
