Yeeeeeah 2nd-gen FTW! I would love to see what mods he's running. Obviously with Supersport it's pretty much whatever you want to do and can afford. He was comfortably in 3rd before the rain red flag, then the wet restart was just chaos. Definitely more excited to watch WSS now though! In other news, sucks to hear about Ant West, I was looking forward to watching him race too. Met that guy here at my home track back in November -- cool dude, plus the first round of this season he got on a bike that didn't even belong out there and rode the ass off it right up til the end and just got out horsepower'd on the finish straight.

They have reeled in the costs a bit no more Traction control!.. For sure would like to hear what all is done on the bike, from the outside beside some type of different akra muffler and brembo sbk rotors cant tell much.

So advantage ZX6Rs then since they come factory with TC. I believe the MVs do as well. Which would explain why both were so dominant in the rain.

Even the stock system has to be turned off, given all the top level guys on these bikes all run motec or magnetti marelli standalone systems.

They banned all those electronics as well. Kit boxes only this year. Can't even re-flash them like we do stateside with FT-ECU etc. Stock triple clamps and links as well now.

This was the first year with BANNED aftermarket electronic packages. So no more motec/marelli ecu's that required a huge ammount of money and specialists - engineers to run those packages.
All bikes in class run with superstock - updated electronic packages that come from the factory. That includes Triumph, so they should use the supersport package that was available from the factory upto 2012 (wiring and programable ecu).
Honestly I can think of no reason not to use the latest model daytona which I find it more reliable and more competetive next to F3s/zx6s and cbrs but I'm sure they know better.

The best reason I can find is because they alreay had those second generation daytonas ready to race... Unfortunatly that proves that Triumph factory doesn't care at all on racing... by allowing a Brit(!) team to race with their old generation bikes that no one can buy!
That's pity, really pity. But again. Congrats to the team and their effort. I really wish we can see them again next year!!

Luke Stapleford on pole at Qatar. Done on a bike at least four years old! How is this possible on a bike that has poor geometry from the factory. My understanding is that they have to run stock triples and linkage also.

That's correct. Stock linkage and stock triple clamps by the rules of wss

Really unfortunate for the team. The proved that they had the speed to be on podium. Let's hope that we will see them again in wss.