WSB: Ducati CEO: 'WSB needs to find its own place'

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Ducati Chief Executive Claudio Domenicali has suggested the popularity problems facing the Superbike World Championship is because it is no longer a different proposition to MotoGP.

Despite not having won a WSB title since 2011 with Carlos Checa, Ducati remains the most successful manufacturer in the series’ 29-year history and Domenicali has already committed to the future of WSB by confirming they will campaign their all-new V4 in the series from 2019.

However, when asked by MCN’s World Superbike Reporter, Gordon Ritchie, what he believes needs to be done to make World Superbike great again, Domenicali said it wasn’t a simple task and highlighted how WSB and MotoGP need to be different propositions, with MotoGP aimed at the more casual fan and WSB the enthusiasts.

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“How to make World Superbike great again is a very interesting debate,” he explained. “I think times are different. If we look back 15 years ago we had Troy Bayliss fighting with Colin Edwards in Imola. The bikes were superb prototypes and actually there was WSB on one side and 500GP on the other side. They were two completely different proposals.

“MotoGP, starting in 2002, went four-stroke and then they started to become two championships which were more similar than they were before. WSB, from that point, was trying to find its own place. It was going more stock. 15 years ago there was much more freedom in tuning but it was much more expensive.

“Now you also have the same organisers of the championship. I am not sure there is the possibility to turn back the clock 15 years. I think WSB has to be for the real enthusiast and MotoGP is more for people who do not know so much about bikes. I would like to see more manufacturers and more manufacturers being competitive.”

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