Superbike needs an overhaul: With the British Superbike points system, Bulega wouldn't have won anything yet

The real difference between today’s Superbike and yesterday’s isn’t the technical regulations, but the total lack of identity and imagination. It would take very little to make everything far more exciting, even with algorithmic craziness that doesn’t work. How? For starters, just change the scoring system....

“Everyone must have a chance to win and the championship should stay open until the end”: that’s every organizer’s mantra. But in World Superbike it’s the opposite: Ducati has won 24 races out of 24 and the championship could already be wrapped up on Sunday afternoon at Magny-Cours. If not in France, the so-called uncertainty surely won’t survive the next round in Cremona. The final two rounds will have very little to say. Simply by adopting the same points system used in British Superbike, even this edition utterly dominated by Nicolò Bulega (23 wins out of 24!) would still be wide open. How? Let’s do the math.

Nicolò Bulega arrives among the vineyards of the Nièvre with a 133-point lead over teammate Iker Lecuona. Each of the four remaining rounds (Magny-Cours, Cremona, Estoril, and Jerez) awards 62 points. Bulegass can seal the deal on Sunday if he gains 53 points on his teammate. Unlikely, but the risk that the fight ends two-thirds of the way through is theoretically there. Remember that in WorldSBK the points are: 25 for first, 20 for second, 16 for third, 13 for fourth, 11 for fifth, and so on down to fifteenth. The Superpole Race: 12 for the winner, 9 for second, etc. In British Superbike they’re smarter and it works like this. In the regular season, i.e., eight rounds out of eleven: 18 for first, 16 for second, 14 for third, 12 for fourth, 11 for fifth, 10 for sixth, etc. In the third-to-last and penultimate rounds the points go up: 25 for first, 22 for second, 20 for third, 18 for fourth, 16 for fifth, 15 for sixth, etc. In the grand finale at Brands Hatch, in mid-October, there’s a super bonus: 35 points for first, 30 for second, 27 for third, 24 for fourth, 22 for fifth, 20 for sixth, etc.

In BSB they’ve also run eight rounds of three races each, as in WorldSBK. And the situation is fairly similar, because there too Ducati is the Superbike to beat and they have the strongest rider, Kyle Ryde. He’s won 11 times, finishing on the podium on 21 occasions. His closest pursuer Scott Redding has only 4 wins and 11 podiums, and between Snetterton and Cadwell, the latest outings, he’s gone off the boil. But the gap is still small: Ryde 392 points, Redding 321, a delta of just 71 points. There are three rounds left (Assen, Donington, and Brands) which will award a total of 255 points. So Redding, the chaser, is very much in the game. Almost certainly, despite a dominant Kyle Ryde, everything will be decided in the Brands Hatch finale. The system works brilliantly.

If the same system were in force in WorldSBK, the situation now would be: Bulega 382 points vs Lecuona 299, i.e., +83. Note: we calculated the Superpole Race with the current points, not considering that in BSB all three races, including the Sprint, award identical points. If WorldSBK used BSB’s system, Magny-Cours would be the last stop of the regular season, so 54 points up for grabs. Cremona and Estoril would award 75 each to the winner, the Jerez finale 105. Same total: 309 points still to be assigned, with Lecuona (just one win out of 24!) still very much in contention.

You’d have to ask those in charge. From the outside, in this era, there’s a total absence of planning, imagination, boldness. World Superbike only makes sense if it builds and sells its own identity, which means moving as far as possible from the benchmark, MotoGP. That was the very simple recipe that, in the golden era, launched a championship that started from zero in 1988 into a sports and cultural phenomenon in just a few years. Under a monopoly regime, everything tends to be standardized, so in this era Superbike has increasingly become MotoGP’s poor cousin, copying various aspects without having the same budgets, media coverage, or positioning. Practically a suicide. Finding technical rules that work is extremely difficult, because there are many interests and strategies that are hard to reconcile. But adopting a different points system would be simple—and free!

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