Pirelli are the sole tyre supplier to British Superbikes.
One of the benefits of a single tyre manufacturer are that it keeps a lid on the costs of racing. If there were multiple tyre manufacturers involved, it could be that the tyre brands end up throwing loads of money at Research & Development to try and win trophies. This happened in MotoGP where tyre choice was open. There were stories about tyre manufacturers taking a tyre from the Friday practice session, flying it by private jet back to their R&D facility and producing a completely bespoke tyre for a bike or rider ready for the qualifying session the next day.
As you can imagine, costs spiralled out of control!
The idea of a single tyre supplier is that all the tyres are the same, so no one team or rider has an advantage.
As we understand it, the tyre manufacturers can make a bid to become the sole tyre supplier to BSB. This probably involves a payment to the organisers of the championship, MSV, but it’s not just about who has the biggest chequebook. The tyre suppliers probably also have to prove they have a suitable range of tyres and can support the riders with enough product.
The one disadvantage to the riders and teams is that these one-make tyre championships tend to have a sole tyre supplier and support network, so tyre prices are fixed. In the open class world it’s likely that some tyre manufacturers would be supplying tyres to teams for free, paid for by that tyre manufacturer’s marketing and development budgets. So the single-make tyre supplier will probably mean the costs to run a bike in the BSB series are higher for most teams.
We’ve put together a guide to the Pirelli Diablo range of motorcycle tyres which shows you all the tyres used by the British Superbike racers, including the Superbike and Superstock classes and the other championships like the Ducati TriOptions Cup.
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