WSB: Tomorrow (Thursday) will see emergency meeting over tyre longevity in Australia. Tyres changes during the race could be mandatory, again.

Nothing official on this so far but we’re getting chatter from the paddock that a meeting has been called for tomorrow between riders, Pirelli and race organisers Dorna to see about mandatory tyre changes in this weekend’s first round of 2019.

Last year WSB bosses were forced to shorten the Supersport race from 18 laps to 16 on the Sunday and both the Supersport and Superbike races were classed as ‘flag-to-flag’ meaning that they wouldn’t be stopped except in very serious circumstances. During the races the WSB riders had to come into the pits for new tyres after 12 laps and the WSS riders had to do the same in their race after nine laps.

Over the past few days there appears to have been an issue with some of the tyres being put through their paces during the two-days of testing at Phillip Island with Ducati in particular suffering with high tyre wear – Kawasaki, apparently, aren’t suffering with the issue to the same degree. Blistering on some of the rubber used has led to tomorrow’s meeting being called.