Suzuki’s patent shows MotoGP style GSX-RR getting new road-friendly fairing lowers

Suzuki has filed a patent for extensive bodywork changes to a motorcycle that’s the spitting image of the firm’s MotoGP machine.

There’s nothing to say that Suzuki isn’t spending money, time and effort putting in patents on a race-only bike. Maybe that’s what the factory is doing. Maybe what it wants to do is make sure that the likes of Yamaha, Suzuki et al don’t copy the changes to its MotoGP bike’s bellypan.

But if that is the case then it’s puzzling as to why the factory has applied for a worldwide patent on something that’s only going to be fitted to a few race bikes for what will be a very limited period of time.

From the design drawings that we’ve been sent you can see that the bike featured is identical to the racer (we’ve put both below so that you can compare the differences for yourself). The drawn motorcycle even has the same almost-single-sided swingarm design that nips in before the rear wheel to allow a route for the exhaust to sit underneath the rider’s right foot.

If this is a road-bike patent then there’s nothing pointing to road aspirations in the very carefully-worded document that accompanies the drawings. In fact, you’d not know any of this patent was anything to do with a motorcycle in the first instance because it’s filed as a description about air-flow around a vehicle’s bodywork.

Suzuki has also been very careful to not show the front of the bike in the drawings, so we can’t see if there’s a headlight secreted in the fairing somewhere. The one thing that is clear is that there are no numberplate holder or indicator lights visible on the side view of the bike.

What the drawings do focus on is the flow of air along the bottom part of the fairing, Suzuki does say that what is proposed here doesn’t solve an issue of wind ‘lift’ as the air is fed towards the back wheel. In the patent are three designs to the underside of the belly pan with a severe, flattened ‘V’ seemingly the best for adding stability to the bike as it tips into a turn.

What do you think to this? Does this mean that this bike shown here is the road bike with specific road-friendly fairing touches or has Suzuki decided to spend money, time and effort stopping the competition copying what happens on the bottom of a race bike’s bellypan?