SportBike Scandal at Magny‐Cours: the track limits at the final corner are a complete joke

Brick by brick, modern motorcycling is tearing down the credibility and identity built over a century of thrilling battles around the world. We’ve reached the point of taking a victory away from a rider who, in a frenzied last lap, put his front wheel a centimeter onto the “green” of the inside curb. The latest blow in World SportBike at Magny-Cours.

A brief account of the latest scandal: David Salvador tackled the final chicane at Magny-Cours with a pack of rabid dogs on his heels. We’re talking about a tight chicane where even top champions have struggled to nail the right line—now imagine that on the decisive last lap of a race to the line. Salvador imperceptibly touched the green zone of the inside curb, the infamous “track limits,” to the point that live, no one noticed a thing. Spectators, TV commentators, riders on track, and even the organizer’s own social channels were convinced Salvador had won. Instead, three minutes later, the cold shower: “The winner drops one position for track limits.” And so the Briton Fenton Seabright was awarded his first world victory. Salvador lost a race he’d won, and those extra five points would have been very useful in an overall standings still very tight. Next year he’ll move up to Supersport with the factory Kawasaki. The one who really lost face here is motorcycling.

“There’s a rulebook,” the do-gooders will argue. Yes, there is a rule. And that’s exactly the dramatic part of the issue: what twisted mind could have come up with such nonsense, contradicting a century of last-ditch duels, breathtaking all-or-nothing wins, feats and impossible overtakes. Riders are not normal people; they’re phenomenal athletes—even the kids in SportBike, the Superbike entry level. But to discern a centimeter of trajectory at the Magny-Cours chicane, in a photo-finish sprint, is a task beyond even the greatest champions. Track limits, tire pressure to keep in check during MotoGP races, and so on and so forth. By now it’s a bouquet of stupidities. We’ve reached the point of penalizing lionhearted passes, like Marquez against Acosta in this year’s Sprint at Buriram. In another era, such a move would have made rivers of ink flow; today it’s against the “rules.” Absurd.

The seriousness of the SportBike incident at Magny-Cours is threefold, because it happened in the Superbike paddock, the ancient arena of the hard-and-pure riders. Applying this type of rule in this specific context means destroying thirty years of history, of battles, of overtakes. That the stewards didn’t stop for a moment to consider what they were deciding, and whether it wouldn’t have been more fitting to say, “Okay, there was a track limits infringement, but given the particular circumstances (last lap, photo finish), we’ve decided not to apply it.” Being a judge, even in real courts, means contextualizing the law and applying it with discernment. But here, nothing: there’s a rule and they don’t think about the enormous image damage it triggers. A bit like the six-kilo ballast imposed on Alvaro Bautista for the sole “crime” of being small, light, and having won two World Championships in a row.

Moreover, we’re talking about a Superbike series that’s running very fast—but in reverse. A championship they want to make ever more similar to MotoGP, without understanding that this process means moving it away from its origins, its own history and identity, creating a rift with millions of fans who no longer recognize it and are quickly turning their backs. A paddock where rules are enforced to the millimeter, but then they forget to announce the change in regulatory values for the Superbike flow meter, the device that should ensure performance balancing. Yes, it sounds impossible, but it happened right at Magny-Cours: after two months off, practice was held on Friday and no one knew the rules had changed. They said it on Saturday morning—never mind track limits...

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