The Factory Effect

Jonathan Rea's string of victories to start the 2017 season sparked a (predictable, it must be said) cry among some quarters of the roadracing community that the Superbike World Championship needed help. The racing was too boring, the results predictable, etc. Never mind how close some of the victories were, never mind how much effort Rea and team had put into winning. Never mind how hard Chaz Davies and Ducati have been pushing Kawasaki. Never mind that the points table masks just how close the races actually have been.

For a world with an ever-decreasing attention span and an insatiable appetite for greater and greater stimulation, changes were needed to keep WorldSBK a viable enterprise, the argument went.

And just as predictably, the same simplistic suggestions on how to "level the field" were trotted out - at least, some of them. Problem for the complainers is that some of the obvious have been tried - and have failed to solve the perceived "problem."

The spec tire rule in World Superbike has been a success and a failure, depending on which year you look at, in terms of the outcome of races and the closeness of the finishes. There are a lot of positives to a spec tire approach, and generally Pirelli has done a spectacular job with a very difficult task, but obviously there are other factors that play as great or greater a role in determining the closeness and variety of race results.

Another simplistic suggestion is the tried-and-tired call for "spec electronics." Many motorcycle road racers and Technology Prima Donnas share a common trait, which is, to quote Scott Adams, the creator of the "Dilbert" cartoon empire, "an obsessive preference for old technology." The motorcycle version of this is a comment that I've heard muttered in paddocks: "If it wasn't on a Norton featherbed it's no good ..."

For this audience, computers and electronics are witchcraft and sorcery, the racing world would be a better place if they never had been invented, and banning ECUs and throwing them all into Mount Doom would bring about Nirvana.

Enough people bought into this specious argument that MotoGP now uses specified hardware, software and sensors. The impact has been exactly what many people (including myself) predicted: Virtually none.

The difference between the races in the relatively unfettered ECU era of MotoGP and the current era can be found primarily in Michelin's struggle to develop tires for the class. This process means that the company is bringing a wide variety of rubber to the track, constantly changing the compounds and constructions, and the teams can't develop their bikes around the tires because they are a moving Michelin target.

Throw in some unpredictable weather, some tracks where the surface is dirty, and you get some unpredictable finishes. But to conclude that the spec ECU made MotoGP racing closer is to mistake causation for correlation, the same sort of logic that resulted in many, many virgins being chucked into volcanos to make sure the sun rose in the morning.

No reason to take my word for it. Here's what Ducati's Ernesto Marinelli told bikesportnews.com recently about the proposal for a spec ECU in World Superbike:

"In any case a control ECU in MotoGP has been applied over the last couple of years and it doesn’t really change much on the performance of the bikes or the diversity of the manufacturer,” said Marinelli, speaking to bikesportnews.com. “Of course, if you put the same platform on every team, you have the guarantee everyone has the same potential but in the end the performance on the track is not only the electronics but the dynamics of the bike, the performance of the engine, the ability to set up the bike and having the best rider.

"Honestly, I think little bit levelling the potential of the electronics will not be that effective on downgrading the high-performing teams or upgrade the lesser-performing ones."

So if it's not tires, it's not electronics, what makes the factory Kawasaki and Ducati teams so dominant in World Superbike?

Call it the Factory Effect.

In a recent podcast posted at roadracingworld.com, Jonathan Rea pointed out that the ZX-10RR sold in the dealership incorporates feedback from world-level racers, and very specifically himself. The bike is designed around the feedback from Rea and Tom Sykes, the winners of three of the last four Superbike titles. They test the machine, and they don't just bring it back into the pits to change compression damping. Rea and Sykes fly to Japan to talk to the people who draw the machine. Their feedback alters the fundamental design of the bike. That's not marketing fluff. To misquote Ricky Bobby, 'cause that just happened.

Compare that to the approach of Honda in World Superbike and elsewhere, where the development of the new CBR1000RR has been left to the race shops or the individual teams. Kawasaki is punching race-oriented ZX-10RRs off the production lines. Honda is making streetbikes (and CBR1000RRs are really, really amazing streetbikes) but the Honda race teams are trying to keep up on their own with the development of Kawasaki's factory.

The results that you see at the track are exactly what you'd expect, given that scenario. Kawasaki runs up front, Honda struggles at the back. Effort equals results.

One of the really fascinating things about this, though, is that it's not just in WorldSBK that Kawasaki does so well. Think about it: The closer the bike is to race-ready when it comes off the assembly line, the less there is to do to it and the closer a lesser-funded team can get to the front.

There's a reason that Tech3 runs Yamaha and LCR runs Honda in MotoGP. The bikes are good, close to front-line factory spec, so while the initial investment is significant, they have the ongoing financial capability of fielding a machine that is competitive. How much would it cost a satellite team to make the Aprilia or KTM competitive in MotoGP? Honestly, no one knows, because not even the factories there have gotten it right yet.

But you look at privateer Bobby Fong in MotoAmerica, racing a Kawasaki ZX-10 in Superstock trim with no support from Kawasaki and giving some of the Superbike teams absolute fits on the track. You look at the teams that run Kawasaki in British Superbikes, and given a machine that incorporates the feedback from riders as amazing as Sykes and Rea, they're also running at the front.

Two things to wrap this up:

The Factory Effect is so powerful that in two widely different configurations, the ZX-10RR is a race-winning beast. In WorldSBK, electronics are as unfettered as they are anywhere in the world. In BSB, there's a spec ECU with no traction control. In both series, Kawasaki riders sit 1-2 in the points table.

In both series, the two machines that are closest to race-ready from the factory - the ZX-10RR and the Ducati Panigale R - sit at the top of the charts. And if you want to really drill into the facts, consider the standings in WorldSBK and British Superbike as of today, June 21, 2017.

Chaz Davies and his Ducati Panigale R (with full electronic rider aids) sat in third place in World Superbike points, with 185, compared to the 296 points of leader Jonathan Rea on the Kawasaki ZX-10RR. Davies has 62.5 percent of the points scored by Rea.

Shakey Byrne and his Ducati Panigale R (with no rider aids) sat in third place in British Superbike points, with 90, compared to the 141 points of leader Luke Mossey on the Kawasaki ZX-10RR. Byrne has 63.8 percent of the points scored by Mossey.

Racing works in mysterious ways.