Photo: Kawasaki
Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R fans will be thrilled to learn that 2016 will bring a revised, new superbike generation. Guim Roda, Kawasaki's WSBK team manager talked to Speedweek and mentioned that the outfit is going to receive a new bike for the next season.
This obviously means that Kawasaki is working hard to have the production bike ready for testing and homologation ahead of the next season. However, the coolest thing about the new liter-class Ninja is that Akashi is planning to follow into the steps of Aprilia, Ducati and BMW, thus delivering a bike that's already more competitive in its stock trim.
In turn, this means that the new Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R will receive an even more race-ready character right from the box. BMW did so with the 2015 model year S1000RR, Yamaha updated the R1 even more thoroughly, whereas Aprilia delivered a new RSV4, the RF-suffixed one. Ducati has the Panigale R as the homologation basis for WSBK, while extending the road superbike range with the larger-displacement 1299 Panigale and 1299 Panigale S.
The current version of the ZX-10R already makes 200 PS, but expect a little more from it, possible with an "R-specced" version equipped with better suspensions ex works. According to the German magazine, Roda says that Kawasaki will not build a new bike from scratch, but will improve the existing platform in terms of chassis, swingarm, engine and electronics.
So far Kawasaki is leading the WSBK charts with Jonathan Rea followed by Tom Sykes so it will be fun to see how things evolve in 2016.
Stricter WSBK rules limit the development of the race bikes and this means that the base model must be already "evil"
The World Superbike rules were modified and now only allow a much stricter set of changes to be made to the production models. This forces the manufacturers to engineer better bikes right from the start, since they can no longer get the upper hand through extensive and expensive factory team developments.In turn, this means that the new Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R will receive an even more race-ready character right from the box. BMW did so with the 2015 model year S1000RR, Yamaha updated the R1 even more thoroughly, whereas Aprilia delivered a new RSV4, the RF-suffixed one. Ducati has the Panigale R as the homologation basis for WSBK, while extending the road superbike range with the larger-displacement 1299 Panigale and 1299 Panigale S.
The current version of the ZX-10R already makes 200 PS, but expect a little more from it, possible with an "R-specced" version equipped with better suspensions ex works. According to the German magazine, Roda says that Kawasaki will not build a new bike from scratch, but will improve the existing platform in terms of chassis, swingarm, engine and electronics.
So far Kawasaki is leading the WSBK charts with Jonathan Rea followed by Tom Sykes so it will be fun to see how things evolve in 2016.
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