Glenn Irwin delivers clear verdict on current BSB rules

The BSB championship has been decided in the final race in each of the past two seasons since a new points system was brought in.

After Bradley Ray’s unusually anti-climactic title success in 2022, when his two main title rivals — Tarran Mackenzie and Jason O’Halloran — were taken out of contention at the penultimate round of the season at Oulton Park, BSB discarded its decade-old Showdown format and introduced a new ramping points system which pays more points-per-race in the final nine races than in the first 24.

Not that the rules were to blame for the underwhelming ending to the 2022 season, but the new points system has now delivered a 100 per cent success rate in bringing the title battle down to the final race of the season.

In 2023, Tommy Bridewell beat Glenn Irwin to the title in the last race, but in 2024 he was unsuccessful in the defence of his championship at the conclusion of a final race showdown between himself and eventual champion Kyle Ryde.

For Irwin, even if the close finishes to the championship are influenced by the points format or the rules of the championship in general, that’s not necessarily a negative point for BSB.

“I’m happy with whatever the rules are,” Irwin said in an interview conducted on the Ducati stand at the recent Motorcycle Live show at the NEC in Birmingham.

“To be honest, BSB is a show, and the healthier that that show is, the better it is for the teams, the better it is for the riders, and the better for the fans.

“If we can arrive at the penultimate round, or the final round, with more than one or two guys that cannot just mathematically win but can very realistically win the championship than I think that’s better for everyone.

“If you dominate all year, you perhaps might not have the gap that you would have at the end, but I don’t really look at the rules for stuff like that.”

Irwin added that the points system doesn’t change how he, or the PBM Ducati team he’s about to enter his third consecutive BSB season with, goes racing.

“The team go racing to win, I go racing to win, and I think we work well because of that. PBM is all about winning and I always go 110%. So, whatever way the point system is, it is what it is.”

The NASCAR Cup Series has come under fire in recent years for the ending of its championship, which features a 10-race ‘play-off’ knock-out format, with four drivers remaining in title contention at the season finale.

Since 2020, the Cup Series season has ended at Phoenix Raceway, and in each of the past three seasons the title has been won by a driver of the Penske team — Joey Logano in 2022 and 2024, and Ryan Blaney in 2023 — despite the outfit typically not showing race-winning speed as frequently as others in the regular season.

For Irwin, the current BSB calendar offers something of a reversal of this scenario, with his and Ducati’s worst circuit — Thruxton — placed in the middle of the season.

“To be honest I’m probably quite glad Thruxton is in the middle of the year because if it was 35 points for a win at Thruxton I think we would be leaving in a bad situation,” he said.

“Rules are rules, regulations are regulations. They change every year, but I don’t lose much sleep over it to be honest.”BSB is a show, and the healthier that that show is, the better [it is] for the fans…”