New Women’s Motorcycle World Championship, taking place with the SBK rounds

The official name will be FIM Women’s Motorcycling World Championship, and it is going to be the first motorcycle world championship reserved for women. The announcement was made today in Jerez by FIM President Jorge Viegas and Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta. The project is in its first stages, but the starting date has already been set for 2024.

“The Enduro, Cross, and Trial already have women’s world championships, so the time had come to have one also for track speed,” Viegas explained. “It’ll take place in conjunction with the SBK rounds, with a calendar of 6 races, all in Europe, and with a single make. The goal is to have riders from all over the world.”

Broadly speaking, the program of the new championship  “does not want to be a promotional series, but the point of arrival for women who race with motorcycles.”

Gregorio Lavilla, Dxecutive director of the SBK Championship, offered a few more details: “I love everyone’s enthusiasm. It’ll be a long-term project, and we’ll see how it evolves over the years. To start with, we thought of a single-make, and we’re informally speaking with different constructors. The idea is to have a bike similar to the Supersport in displacement. It goes without saying that, in the future, we’ll open up to other constructors.”

The Aprilia RS 660, which corresponds to the identikit, is one of the options.

The Spanish manager continued: “The maximum number of participants will be thirty. As per regulation, we aim to have between twenty and twenty-five riders. Logically, we’ll have to figure out how to choose them, because we know that there are many differences between the various national championships. The age limits will be those of the world championship regulations, therefore, from eighteen to fifty years of age, and the first stage will coincide with the first round of the SBK in Europe.”

Carmelo Ezpeleta added: “We want to have the best female riders in the world. We already talked to several constructors, and it seems like we’ll be able to offer competitive bikes at the lowest possible price. We’ll start racing in the SBK championship, but I don’t rule out that, in the future, we can do it along with the MotoGP, maybe only some races. We wanted to present this new championship first, because we consider it very important, and now we’ll continue to work on all the details. There are different organizational models, and we’ll have to understand what works best for that championship.”