The Busa can boogie
Surely the big Suzuki’s too long and heavy to be fun on track?
They’re all sniggering as I roll up. “You’re not actually planning on riding that around here, are you?” Yet what the other trackday-goers waiting to get out on circuit at Blyton Park don’t know is, that despite its weight and length, the 2021 Suzuki Hayabusa is a supersized sportsbike at heart and far more capable round corners than appearances would suggest. Having ditched the standard, flat-profiled Bridgestone S22 tyres in favour of a taller, more agile pair of Pirelli’s new Diablo Rosso IV, the Busa’s got a new-found keenness to drop onto its side. It responds to a firm shove on the inside bar and, once settled, sticks to the selected line like glue. With its standard settings, the KYB adjustable suspension is limousine-smooth on the road but much too soft for the track (I should’ve added a few clicks more compression damping and a smidge more rebound, but didn’t get round to it) so it responds to aggressive inputs by yumping and yawing slightly, much to the amusement of onlookers. “That looks awesome fun,” says one of the instructors. “It’s pulling some crazy shapes but it’s still flying. It’s great to watch!” He’s absolutely right, awesome fun is exactly what riding the Busa on track is all about. It’d be easy to get put off by the thought of its 268kg weight and that 113lb. ft torque at 6500rpm, but despite those scary-sounding on-paper figures, in reality the Busa is something of an easy ride. The bike’s length and weight give you the confidence to explore its tremendous shove when coming out of corners, especially when backed up by the safety net of traction control, which – stupidly - I had completely turned off at first then thought better of it later in the day, when I set it to Level 3; knowing it was there definitely helped my bravery levels.
It’s also quite an involved ride.
As there’s not a vast amount of ground clearance, the pegs go down frequently, but reducing the lean angle by hanging off more certainly helps. Likewise, getting through Blyton’s fast right-left flick at Port Froid takes a bit of body-swinging to get the Busa from one side of the track to another, but you certainly don’t need to be built like Peter Hickman to hustle it through. Blyton’s a fairly tight circuit which means the Busa hasn’t ventured much beyond third gear today, but the gearchanges I am doing are all silky smooth and addictively efficient courtesy of the Busa’s standard-issue two-way quickshifter - easily one of the best factory-fit quickshifters around. Why can’t all blipper systems be as good as this?
Towards the end of another session, the only hint of protestation is from the big Busa’s brakes. With new Brembo Stylema
calipers and larger discs, it’s a vast improvement over the previous version’s wooden-feeling, lacklustre stoppers. Using both front and rear brake hauls the Busa down from 150mph ready for Blyton’s tight right-hander at the end of the straight very efficiently indeed. But after 20 minutes of track use they’re starting to fade and I start to become very aware of the Busa’s potential as a runaway freight train so I’m relieved to see the chequered flag to give us both time to cool off.
It’s been a great day and I’d love to get the Busa back on track after a few twiddles of the suspension adjusters to see how much better it could be.