It’s not often we hear much out of Belassi, but when we do we try to share the news as quickly as possible. According to a recent Facebook post by 88 Motorsport Sweden, the “new Belassi B3R 333hp will be introduced on 4th April in their factory in Austria. We will report detail information of the new unit and their concept. Stay tuned!” Although there’s not a whole heck of a lot to go off of this single post, we do know that the road to the B3R’s release (and that of the B3S standup) has been a rocky one at best.
In June of last year, The Watercraft Journal was the only source to report that the Belassi standup, which was absent from a woefully regrettable demo session during the Top Marques show held in Monaco the previous April 14-17, 2016, was also suffering from hull failures caused by manufacturing issues. And while no word on the ski – powered by a naturally aspirated, multipoint fuel injected I3C16 Marine 3-cylinder 4-stroke, displacing 1602cc and producing 180 horsepower – the post notes that the B3R will be in full display at the Linz, Austria plant in a couple of weeks.
The runabout, which has been honed and tested rigorously by World Champion Gyorgy Kasza who has been serving as a test rider. When WCJ asked Kasza regarding his role as a test rider for Belassi, Kasza remarked that “we will see how [the Belassi runabouts] turn out,” and that the process has been “difficult.” The video below, as shared by Belassi in late December of last year, notes that over 400 hours have been clocked in testing and refining the new B3R runabouts. Until the full reveal on April 4th, we’ll have to wait and see.
