BSB 2024 Grids

A long time. It's about brand awareness and sales. Ferrari haven't won an F1 drivers title since 2007, but have never sold as many road cars.

FHO's budget generally and marketing budget specifically is enormous compared with Haslam's. Their corporate entertainment facility -v- his, is another example. Who is left now as "big" team, with a "big" presence? OMG and FHO.

The season starts in 2 months' time. Everyone already knows that FHO BMW will be at Navarra. No one outside of Haslam's outfit knows whether he will be there. How do you market that?

The fact that Ms. Ho is a female is important to BMW.

Who is Ms. Ho's fiance? Who is that fiance's boss? Who owns the BSB series? Who provides the BSB safety and medical cars? Mr. Higgs' car? Who provides the cars for driving experience days, course cars, safety cars, medical cars and other uses to MSV circuits? Whose advertising is across the start/finish line at Donington? BMW have an extensive arrangement with MSV.

I doubt that, the main reason for that relationship is Hicky and what he does at the TT and that relationship with BMW seems sound.

They also do a lot of stuff around females in bike racing and while not yet getting results that is a vital aspect of the team too.

BMW have done a lot of work this past few months and that will trickle down, signing the best Superbike racer i the world tends to do that.

You do not break a relationship down like that after setting records at the TT, (arguably a far bigger and more important race than any BSB season), just because the bike is not that quick on UK circuits in the hands of your star man. And make no bones about it, Hicky is the star man in that team

Does wsbk stuff actually trickle down into bsb ?

Aren't the bikes chalk and cheese ?

Fundamentally the same, but very different in many ways. A BSB bike needs to be super stiff in some areas and very compliant in others to give as much feel as possible as the rider largely controls the level of slide and edge grip.

A WSBK bike doesn't need that, as the electronics control all the slide and torque delivery characteristics. If you watch WSBk, you'll often see the rider literally close the throttle to go onto the brakes, and the moment they're off the brakes, they're full throttle. If you did that on a BSB bike in most corners, you'd be in row Z of the grandstand
You do get some level of intervention with a BSB bike through Split throttle bodies for cylinder deactivation and anti detonation mapping etc, but nothing like the level in WSBk, which I would suggest is why the transition between the two is so difficult, as the setting up of the bike with regards to the mapping per corner etc is a whole new skill set to learn above and beyond the riding of the bike
Plus, WSBK tracks tend to be very different to BSB tracks (obviously excluding Donington) as most WSBK tracks are fast and slowing, whereas BSB tracks are typically much more stop/start

Does a team have to run the same bikes in BSB and Roads? FHO are hugely wealthy they could quite easily run the best bikes for short circuit and a separate manufacturer for the roads from a financial angle.

With the way that the rules now mean all parts are available to everyone, regardless of being a factory team or not, I'm not sure it's so important to be recognised as the official team any more, and the only real benefit is data from the WSBK team, most of which is largely unusable in BSB, or the option to have your riders wildcard for them at WSBK rounds, which again isn't an issue if you have enough cash and just want to run yourself with their help
FHO have a pretty much unlimited budget, so can choose whatever they decide is the best bike
I wouldn't be surprised to see them on Ducati's though

The Leon motor issue isn't hard to sort given some planning time, and from what I understand, it's very much sorted for this season

The team could easily run Hicky on a BMW for the roads, funded by FHO, but under his own PHR team, or like the Triumph he runs in separate livery
You're right though, I'm not sure he'd want to ride a Ducati on the track, but also isn't stupid and knows that he's onto a really good thing with FHO's cash, and it's easy enough to switch between bikes from short circuits to roads.

Leon was on a 23 bike, but had old shape fairings as SMR had a load of them and they were very cheap (new carbon fairings are circa £12k a set, and you can easily go through 10-15 sets in a season, so using old shape ones when you're running your own team on your own budget is a no brainer )

Just to be accurate, it wasn’t a highside, and he’s planning on being back riding later this month as we’re in Spain testing Feb 29th and he’s confident he’ll be in riding shape, albeit not 100% fit, by then

In fairness, it probably is a long recovery, but he’s a tough little bugger, so will probably try and ride way before he really should

Yeah, they’re nuts
Ron ended up in hospital last year following a BMX crash
Bloody bmx at 67