The start of every MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship holds significant importance for many reasons, but the 2024 season has had some substantial talking points; from major rule changes, and switch ups on the grid, the Grand Ridge Brewery Australian Round had yet another curveball in the championship.
The recent full resurfacing of Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit has been a major talking point ahead of the already unpredictable opening round. And, with the recent announcement of the flag-to-flag races in both the WorldSBK Race 1 and Race 2, and flag-to-flag races in World Supersport Race 1 and Race 2, Pireli have announced their tyre solutions ahead of Saturday’s race day.
In World Superbikes, Pirelli have supplied their hardest compounds to use throughout the Australian Round due to the nature of the 4.445 kilometre fast paced circuit. In terms of specific tyre compounds, the 23 World Superbike riders have the front tyre choice of an SC1 and SC2 standard tyre. For their rear tyre options, they have two SC0 tyres available to use in Saturday’s Tissot Superpole session.
With the compulsory pit stop and flag-to-flag situation now in place, two additional sets of tyres can be used in comparison to their normal allocation.
In World Supersport, their allocation is very similar to WorldSBK. Their two front tyre choices are the standard SC1 soft and SC2 medium compounds, and only 1 tyre option in the rear of the SC1-A that was debuted at Phillip Island Circuit two years ago.
Due to the flag-to-flag race schedule, an extra set of tyres has now been made available to the 27-rider grid.
The change in the schedule has also seen a reduction in laps for World Superbikes Race 1 and Race 2 from 22 laps down to 20 laps, meaning the pit window will be open between Laps 9 and 11 for World Superbike riders to enter the pits to put in a fresh set of Pireli’s for the remainder of the race. In World Supersport, their races have remained the same in terms of race distance at 18 laps (80.1 kilometres in total), with their pit stop windows occurring between Laps 8 and 10.
Explaining the decision behind the race format changes, and Pirelli’s allocation, the company’s Motorcycle Racing Director, Giorgio Barbier, said: “We know this track very well, nevertheless every year it’s a whole other story because at Phillip Island the variables that can influence tyre behaviour are many and often unpredictable. This year the most critical element is represented by the new asphalt which has almost completely reset the references we had. I remind everyone that the tyres for this race were shipped from Europe at the end of November while the resurfacing of the circuit was completed only a few weeks ago. Therefore, in the absence of data on which to base ourselves, we thought it appropriate to rely on the racing solutions used successfully in the last two seasons.
“We have seen in the tests that the asphalt offers a lot of grip, to the advantage of the flying lap time, but on the other hand it is very aggressive with the tyres, especially at high temperatures, causing unusual peaks in tread compound temperature on the left side with consequent tyre degradation: we detected up to 160 degrees Celsius in pit lane which we estimate could reach operative peaks of more than 200 degrees. Considering this evidence, in agreement with Dorna, FIM and Race Direction, we have decided that for the races of both classes it will be mandatory to make a pit stop to change tyres. It was a difficult decision to take, also because, as always happens in these cases, some teams would have wanted to try racing over the full distance. However, Pirelli believes that the safety of the riders must be the absolute priority in such circumstances.”
You can catch todays live timing HERE
Friday 23rd February 2024 Schedule:
WorldSSP FP1 – 10:30am to 11:15am
WorldSBK FP1 – 11:30am to 12:15pm
WorldSSP Superpole – 2:55om to 3:35pm
WorldSBK FP2 – 4pm to 4:45pm
