Why Ducati dominance is a growing concern

Last weekend’s Argentina round may have been a success, with a healthy weekend attendance of almost 80,000, but it also arguably marked the end of any remaining intrigue there may have been in the fight for World Superbike championship honours. 

Two straightforward wins for Alvaro Bautista in the two main races at El Villicum means the Ducati rider is looking near certain to win the title. His main rivals Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea, now respectively 82 and 98 points behind, would need an extraordinary amount of luck to reverse the tide in the remaining two events of the season.

It’s hard to criticise Razgatlioglu and Rea, as it’s clear both men are pushing at the limit in a bid to do something about Bautista’s dominance. Razgatlioglu’s crash in Race 1 in Argentina and Rea’s numerous minor errors under braking on Sunday show how hard both are having to push to counteract the straight line speed advantage Bautista has.

And this imbalance has to be regarded as a major concern for WSBK, which since the start of last season has been going through a purple patch of heightened public interest, spurred on by fantastic racing between three top riders on three very different motorcycles.

That has changed in the last few rounds as the combination of Bautista and Ducati has simply become too strong. Since last month’s Barcelona round, the Spaniard has won every feature race except one and hasn’t finished lower than second. 

Now, Bautista and his team can’t be criticised for doing a better job than everyone else, and a first title for Ducati since 2011 would be a just reward for both rider and manufacturer.

But as things stand, Bautista is set to get his hands on an upgraded version of the Panigale V4 R for 2023, while his main rivals will have to make do with minor updates to the Yamaha YZF-R1 and Kawasaki ZX-10RR. Will those tweaks be enough to allow Razgatlioglu and Rea to make the championship fight interesting? I have my doubts.

FIM technical director Scott Smart faces a major headache to address this problem. The recently announced package of ‘super concessions’ are unlikely to make a difference because both the Yamaha and Kawasaki are regular podium finishers. And in any case, the chassis is not the issue for the two Japanese brands.

One option would be to simply slow Ducati down again, as happened in 2019 when the V4 R lost 250 revs owing to Bautista’s early-season dominance. The Italian…