Assen: Zero tolerance on rev limits – Lukas Tulovic battles his way through

Following his winning streak at the last two Euro Moto Superbike weekends, Lukas Tulovic – and his team-mate Lorenzo Zanetti – faced the expected consequence in the form of a 500 rpm reduction in rev limit. As you can’t simply press a button on the Ducati V4R’s standard electronics to instantly reduce the rev limit, the Ducati riders had two options for Assen: either stay at home, or try to solve the problem with their throttle control. The team is currently in action, and Tulovic paid for his first attempt in free practice with a crash, from which he emerged unscathed.

In the meantime, a memo arrived from Euro Moto’s technical management setting out how the procedure is to be handled over the weekend. There will be no tolerance limits, warnings or time penalties for exceeding the rev limit of 15,600. If the data logger records 15,601 revolutions even once, that’s it – the rider will be disqualified.

The original bulletin

The tricky reality

“In the first and second practice sessions, neither of the two riders managed to stay within the limit,” says team owner Matthias Moser, describing Friday’s events. “The technicians had tried everything in the run-up to the event.” This experiment is being monitored by the Euro Moto technical commissioners, who can read out every lap and every rev via the data logger. Should the data logger fail, Ducati must hand over the data from its own data recording system. “It’s not exactly safe either, constantly keeping one eye on the rev counter,” says Moser. “To be honest, I don’t yet know how it’s all going to work at the start either.”

Tonight’s team meeting is sure to run a little longer, and we’ll see how the story unfolds during Saturday’s Superpole. All we can do is wish the riders strong nerves and a steady right hand.