- Joined
- Jul 22, 2020
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The point is that GP is next level compared to WSBK, the best WSBK riders would be mid-field in GP if they were lucky…
It’s easy to overlook the fact that most gp riders are mid-field finishers in gp. Being a gp winner is a pretty exclusive club.
Of course GP is next level compared to wsbk, the comparative investment (financial, intellectual, and physical) makes that clear - GP surpasses wsbk in all categories.
The assertion that wsbk riders are essentially farm team “scrubs” compared to GP riders seems unsupported though.
How many former gp riders are currently in wsbk, 6 - Bautista, Iannone, Gardner, Redding, Lecuona, and Sam Lowes? Of them, how many were gp winners - Iannone? How many are wsbk race winners - Bautista and Redding? And then, only on the Ducati iirc - on other bikes they’ve been less competitive. If the average skill disparity between gp riders and wsbk riders was so great, all the former gp riders should be regularly competing for wsbk race wins.
I think the more compelling data point might be lap times. How much faster is the average gp pole time compared to wsbk at the same track? If wsbk riders are scrubs compared to gp riders, then certainly the vastly more talented gp riders on vastly more expensive gp bikes must set pole times in other zip codes compared to wsbk - 10 or or 20 seconds faster maybe?