A number of Supersport competitors have asked M.A. to ban the Mectronik ECU
A number of ASBK Supersport competitors have made official representations to Motorcycling Australia requesting a ban on the use of the Mectronik ECU.
We interview the instigator of the movement, and also widen the conversation into other matters regarding Supersport competition into the future.
For some background on how we got here with the Mectronik ECU saga, we suggest reading this explainer first.
This request has been lodged under the ‘Performance Balancing’ clause in the ASBK Sporting Regulations.
Maurice Nahlous, father of current Supersport Championship leader Jonathan, has led the charge for the intervention, and we spoke with him recently to get across the issues at hand from his point of view.
Maurice Nahlous
“What triggered it was when I left the track after Queensland Raceway, my phone did not stop. I mean we drove for hours and hours and it just kept ringing, it was phone call after phone call after phone call, ‘something needs to be done about this’, ‘this is ridiculous’, ‘this is a joke’. Which to be honest, was largely mirroring my own thoughts. So with the backing of a number of fellow competitors in the category, I prepared correspondence to Motorcycling Australia, to ask for performance balancing, and stated the reasons why.”
Trev – You obviously consider the Mectronik ECU to be a significant performance advantage?
Maurice Nahlous
“I’ve heard from a couple of different sources now that it’s worth up to one second a lap.”
Trev – Cru Halliday ran the same Mectronik ECU on one of his two bikes when he won the Supersport Championship in 2018. While not exactly a scientific comparison, Yamaha tell me that on faster circuits the Mectronik had an advantage, while the GYTR ‘Kit’ ECU perhaps had its own advantages on tracks with slower corners. That is hardly a scientific comparison as to where we are at now, as a new version of the GYTR ECU was introduced the following year, that you are running now, along with updated firmware. Likewise, there is no way for us to know exactly which firmware edition Stop & Seal are running in the bike of Tom Toparis, but one would imagine it is superior to what Yamaha were running in 2018, when Yamaha nominated the Mectronik YMER6WSS as the Kit ECU for the YZF-R6 to be used in 2017 model bikes.
Maurice Nahlous
“Also, technically, we can’t put the Mectronik ECU on our bikes, and this is what I feel has been missed. As you mentioned, it is the nominated Kit ECU for 2017 model bikes, and you must be running a 2017 or early 2018 model YZF-R6 for it to be legal. But for those of us with YZF-R6 bikes newer than that, we must use the nominated ECU for our bikes, which is the BN6-8591A-A1 GYTR unit, or the standard ECU, which is what the rest of the field currently run.
“The key principle for us as a team is we don’t care what anyone’s doing around us, all we want to do is build a bike that’s equal to what is allowed, so that we can go out there and race them and then when we’re beaten, we can see where we need to improve, where does the rider need to improve? As a team, where do we need to improve? This way, what we’re doing is we’re building a rider that could potentially go overseas, or have a career in this sport somewhere along the line, somewhere in Australia, wherever.
“We do everything on the basis of that. What can we learn, where can we improve, right?
Trev – Let’s get your take on the advantages the Mectronik ECU offers.
Maurice Nahlous
“I don’t fully understand the Mectronik ECU, but my understanding is that it’s feature set are superior to what the rest of the homologated ECU’s that Yamaha, Honda and Kawasaki can use, which adds up to a tenth here and a tenth there.
“One of the things that we struggled with at Queensland Raceway in particular was engine brake control. The Mectronik ECU can adjust the engine braking parameters each 500 rpm, with our standard ECU and Woolich Racing set-up, we can only adjust it in 2000 rpm increments.“
Trev – I understand engine braking and how important the tuning of that is these days, and how it needs to be changed throughout the course of a weekend as a rider gets faster. When the rider starts entering corners faster, the rider might need the engine brake loosened up a little, or vice versa. And yes, I do understand the Mectronik ECU has a significant advantage when it comes to engine brake control.
Maurice Nahlous
“Basically, in short, I just want a fair and equitable series. I’m not saying we expect to turn up and win everything; that’s absolutely not what we’re expecting.
“We were actually quite shocked after the Phillip Island round, where Jonathan won the three races and he took out the lap record. We were genuinely quite shocked by that, but of course, It was a wonderful thing.
“We were, and are, expecting a tough season this year. Last time out at Queensland Raceway Jonathan qualified seventh, and was under the lap record… The top seven qualified under the lap record. This is what we were expecting this year, really good, tight, hard competition.
“Trawling through our data we could see that we could have achieved a 1.10.8 lap time, we didn’t, but we just couldn’t see the possibly of going faster than that achievable with our motorcycle.”
Trev – But Archie McDonald was running the normal ECU with Woolich on his Stop and Seal the same as you…
Maurice Nahlous
“Look, that’s what I’m told as well, I don’t know, but that’s what I’m told, yeah.
“I was really excited that Tom Toparis was racing Supersport this year, he’s the yardstick and someone like Tom racing in a series like this, you can learn a lot, you can see what’s possible.
“My interest spiked in parity at Sydney Motorsport Park as Tom was just so fast. All I just kept hearing at that point was Mectronik, Mectronik this, Mectronik that. So I started to ask questions, and I kept getting the same the same answers, you know, ‘it’s worth about a second’.”
Trev – Perhaps the rules haven’t really kept up with the times. A lot of people would suggest, well, just let’s just move to the future, and move to Next Generation Supersport rules. They are all clearly promulgated and proven, with components all readily available off the shelf, with the various different model bikes torque mapped for parity. Many suggest that this can actually produce a more affordable Supersport category, with it being opened to larger capacity bikes where their engines are effectively reduced in power; thus, the critical engine work going into our ASBK Supersport bikes, and the constant freshens, are not required.
Maurice Nahlous
“Look, I’ll answer that carefully. And I do it for this reason. In Australia, we don’t have the market that they have overseas in the motorcycling world. Therefore, we don’t have the money. We don’t have the sponsorship. We don’t have the support. We are very well supported by Yamaha and I’m super grateful because they look after us so well that I honestly don’t know how we would do it the way we’re doing it without them.”
Trev – On that point, it is the generous support to Yamaha competitors offered by Yamaha Australia, through YRD and the like, via component pricing to supported competitors in our country actually makes the Next Generation rules sound expensive to ASBK competitors. I think this is something that other countries do not enjoy to the same extent, thus why it has made sense for so many other domestic competitions to have already moved to the Next Generation format. It’s just that Yamaha gives so much support here in our market within within Australian Supersport, well not just Supersport, but every single category that we have in ASBK, the series would struggle to function at all without the comprehensive investment made by Yamaha. And I am sure that when new brands come in to ASBK, via the eventual introduction of the Next Generation format, none of them are going to offer anything that remotely resembles the level of support that Yamaha competitors currently enjoy.
Maurice Nahlous
“At the beginning of last year, when deciding what motorcycle we were going to run, we couldn’t overlook the huge support provided by Yamaha at the track, and it helped that JJ loved the R6, I just stopped and made a logical decision, and realised I would have to be crazy to not run Yamaha, because of the support that they give competitors. And I think most of the field would to agree with me.
“But back to the Next Generation question… If it brought closer racing and it developed the riders in this country. I’d be all for that, my only concern is, I’m talking to a lot of people, they’re already doing it tight. They don’t have support, they don’t have sponsorship. You’re looking at $10,000, conservatively, to get set up with Mectronik. I mean the cost of the ECU isn’t that prohibitive, it’s setting it up, tuning it and you’ll need a technician available at the track to make the required changes throughout the weekend. that’s my only concern with this sport here in this country, is that we don’t have the support they have in Europe or America.”
Trev – I guess on the opposite side of that coin as well is if we were using what they’re using in Europe, it means the riders will be across it, the technicians will be across it. It will be easier for our riders to do wildcards. If you get smart kids in the pit-box that learn how to drive it and are really good at it, it opens up job opportunities for them around the world in other competitions, which I guess, like I say, again, playing devil’s advocate, there could be other net positives for us.
Maurice Nahlous
“That’s a good way to look at it too. If we had equitable racing… I know this is motorsport, so always, some team is gonna have a better prepared bike or a better performing bike, or their suspension guy’s gonna have the suspension dialled in a little bit better, or whatever. You’re always gonna have that, where the team plays a part in the outcome of race, which is part of motorsport, that’s all fine. But I’m all for a series that’s a bit more equal, a bit more level, and then the riders can get out and show everybody what they’ve got.”
Trev – Thanks for the chat Maurice. It is always good to have these conversations and get things out in the open. We will just have to wait and see where Motorcycling Australia take us from here… Both in regards to the immediate pending decision on banning the use of the Mectronik ECU, and then also to how season 2025 will be structured.
