On April 29, 2023, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) and Dorna Sports officially announced the beginning of an entirely new racing series for 2024. This time, the series will be all about women racers, and will be called the FIM Women’s Motorcycling World Championship, it was announced by Jorge Viegas, Carmelo Ezpeleta, Gregorio Lavilla, and Francoise Emery during the Jerez MotoGP weekend.
The first season will be held in 2024 and will “primarily run alongside the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship.” Tentative plans are for there to be at least six rounds in the opening season, with two races held per round—much like the previous WSBK structure. It will be a one-make series, with equal bikes distributed up and down the paddock. A supplier for these bikes has not yet been announced but should be announced shortly.
"This is the first time ever, since 1904, that we are going to start next year with the FIM Women’s World Championship. I also hope you like the logo, it’s a surprise for all of you,” FIM president Jorge Viegas said during the press conference. The logo has not yet been revealed as of May 1, 2023, but we expect he is building anticipation for its reveal in the near future.
"We gave a lot of thought to this, and we had a lot of demand. As we do in Motocross, Enduro and Trial, we are starting with a women’s World Championship next year in circuit racing. Our plan is to have six races in Europe, and we are planning to do a single brand competition. We will try to have women from all over the world racing in this new Championship. It will be organized primarily within the frame of the WorldSBK Championship,” Viegas went on.
"It's a Championship where we want women to be pro. It's not a step to another category, we want women who race here to be able to earn a wage as a rider, as professionals. We hope to start in March or April next year,” he concluded.
"When I was informed about this project and its possibilities, I took a lot of interest and had a lot of enthusiasm. Currently, we thought that the World Superbike platform could be one of the places to start this project, but it doesn't mean that it could only be in Superbike. It's within Dorna, so we will see how this develops,” added WSBK executive director Gregorio Lavilla.
"We don't have all the details yet, this is a live project, evolving all the time. It's important that we expand the opportunities available, and especially seeing a lot of Cups and projects that we've started, I think it's a big challenge but all of us must be proud of being able to offer this opportunity. At the end of the season, I would like to see a good progression for the future ahead in order to have more riders and more possibilities in this sport,” Lavilla went on.
"The best platform to start with is a single brand, and we've been discussing it informally with manufacturers already. We will start to define the details, but we expect something in a similar range to Supersport displacement. There has been a lot of interest, but this is a project that is progressing, and can progress through the years to expand with different manufacturers, teams... we want to create a destination where female riders from around the world can join the Championship and find professional success," he said.
"That means we can also explore new ways to promote the motorcycle industry. If we start from zero, we can be more creative. Like I said from my side, I will put in my full commitment to make it happen and to make it work at the standard that we want, and hopefully, we can be successful and enjoy it,” Lavilla concluded.
We look forward to seeing what the new championship is like and how it evolves over time and will be sure to keep you updated as new details about the series emerge.
