WorldSBK’s technical boss Gregorio Lavilla has defended the championship’s combined minimum weight rule.

The combined rider-bike minimum weight rule was introduced for the 2024 season and affects riders who are below a minimum weight of 80kg, and bike-rider combinations that do not meet the combined minimum weight of 168kg. Every kilogram underneath the minimum combined limit results in 0.5kg of ballast added to the bike.

Since it was introduced, Alvaro Bautista has gone from winning 16 WorldSBK races in 2022 and 27 races in 2023 to four races in 2024 and none in 2025. In 2022 and 2023 he won the title, but in 2024 and 2025 he finished third behind Toprak Razgatlioglu and Nicolo Bulega on both occasions.

This year, Bautista made a specific effort to criticise the rule that was intended to level things between riders of different physical statures.

The Spaniard described the rule as “discrimination” after the Misano round, and repeatedly suggested throughout the year that he was disadvantaged compared to his rivals as a result of the ballast weight he’s forced to run.

However, WorldSBK Technical Director Gregorio Lavilla has come out in defence of the rule.

“It's not about equal combined weight for everyone, which is impossible,” Lavilla said of the combined minimum weight rule when speaking the PecinoGP YouTube channel.

“It's a system that brings the averages closer together. 

“The maximum ballast limit is 10kg, and it's not an attack on anyone. 

“Time passes, it passes for everyone. And, I want to tell you, Bautista will continue to be light even at sixty, so he could get on a bike and win.”

Lavilla added: “Weight may have affected some aspects, but he remains a competitive rider. No one is against him.”