Dorna & ASBK considering a future together

Dorna and ASBK talking about a future together

Dorna Sports, commercial rights holder to the MotoGP World Championship and eni FIM Superbike World Championship, has announced its backing of the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) for the 2015 season via the following statement from Motorcycling Australia this morning.

“Dating back to 1987, ASBK is the leading motorcycle racing series in Australia. Organised by Motorcycle Australia (MA), the championship is made up of various tiers with its premier class being Superbikes.

“For 2015 MA, with the assistance of Dorna, are focusing on the five areas of Stability, Consistency, Development, Safety and Fairness in what will be a rebuilding year for the ASBK series. The championship will be hosted over five rounds nationwide with the target being to provide its competitors with a springboard onto the world stage.

“In previous seasons, the series has proved to be an ideal stepping stone for riders such as Rob Phillis, Mick Doohan, Troy Bayliss, Aaron Slight, Mat Mladin, Andrew Pitt, Josh Waters and Josh Brookes. In recent times, the level of Australian participation in road racing at a global level has diminished, particularly when referring to the MotoGP World Championship and eni FIM Superbike World Championship.

“The objective of MA is to encourage and grow the participation of homegrown riders by providing assistance to compete at the top level. Dorna’s experience with series such as the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup, FIM CEV Repsol and Shell Advance Asia Talent Cups will be vital in achieving this target.

“In the meantime, the progress of riders Jack Miller and Anthony West on the world stage is hoped to promote Australian talent of the future in order to ensure a greater impact is made as the country looks to continue marketing the sport effectively. In-turn, this is hoped to continue attracting government funding for high-performance programs.

“Dorna shares the objective of boosting entry numbers on ASBK starting grids in order to increase the confidence of MA members and add credibility to Australia’s national motorcycle series.”

Editor’s Note – The above is a statement from Motorcycling Australia regarding their plans to align themselves and the ASBK series more closely with Dorna, the Spanish company that runs MotoGP. Dorna also has controlling interests in many series around the world, including the their long time stewardship of the British Superbike Championship and more recent take over of World Superbike. We believe Dorna is also involved in some way with the team set to promote the 2015 American Superbike Championship. It is hard to ascertain exactly what this will mean for motorcycle sport in this country, but perhaps this should be seen as a first step in working together to align class rules as closely as possible around the world. And to provide closer stepping stones in to the Asia Talent Cup, Red Bull Rookies and progression through to Moto3 etc. Superbike rules, not immediately, but in future years perhaps will see Dorna try and align Superbike rules more closely around the world, thus perhaps, and this is my own specuation, we can expect to see World Superbike move to more stringent restrictions on allowed modifications and ASBK rules correspondingly moving to meet such technical regulations. Whether Dorna eventually plans to take any financial interest or make any financial investment in Australian Superbike is yet to be made clear, this is just a first step opening the lines of communication in an effort to harmonise rules and progression paths for riders around the world. The first fruit from opening better lines of communication between the two bodies is perhaps the recent clarification regarding WSBK wildcards.