Bimota to Miss Remainder of WSBK Season

Dennis Chung
by Dennis Chung

Bimota has failed to meet the World Superbike Championship‘s homologation requirements and will not be allowed to participate in the rest of the 2014 season. Bimota had been under probation where it was allowed to race but would not receive any championship points for its efforts, until it could produce 125 street legal examples of its BB3 superbike.

The probationary period has now ended and Bimota has informed series promoter Dorna and the FIM that it has not met the 125-unit minimum required for homologation.

Bimota had received quite a bit of leeway. Before the start of the 2014 season, the rules were changed to lower the minimum production requirement for entry to the series from 250 units to 125. MV Agusta and Erik Buell Racing, two other new manufacturers debuting this season, were able to meet those requirements, but Bimota had not. The FIM and Dorna then granted Bimota a fourth-month probation but that did not prove to be enough.

In the eight rounds that Bimota took part in, riders Christian Iddon and Ayrton Badovini had been fairly competitive. Had their results not been subject to homologation, they would have been among the leaders in the EVO subclass entries with a handful of top-ten finishes.

Those results were for naught however, as Bimota’s homologation proceedings will be on hold until it can meet the minimum production levels.

[Source: FIM]

Dennis Chung
Dennis Chung

Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.

More by Dennis Chung

Comments
Join the conversation
Next