MotoGP

[p6x]

1 hour ago, GuzziMoto said:

Sucks to be them.

Word is Yamaha is giving them bikes for free and paying their riders salaries. So all they have to pay for is the day to day expenses of running the team. The big ticket costs are being covered by Yamaha. But who wants to be one of their riders? Mostly they are going to be looking for guys who are well past their sell by date and on their way down or new guys who may not really deserve a seat. And I would think their sponsors will be looking for the door, they were paying their money to sponsor a team that is running at the front and challenging for the title. Starting next year that will come  to an end and they will likely be fighting to not be last. Who wants to pay good money to sponsor that? At a minimum they would likely be willing to pay a lot less, if they even want to continue at all. And sponsorship is generally where teams make their money.

Paolo Campinoti said in a Sky TV interview, the decision was mainly motivated by Ducati's slight when they took Marquez instead of Martin.

Pramac was Ducati's main partner team for 19 years. The initial years were not so shiny. Paolo Campinoti said that it was always the unwritten rule that Pramac was the springboard to Ducati Factory; it had been true up to now. Bastianini, Bagnaia, Ianonne...

Anyway, the past is the past. I don't know the guy, but since I lived and worked 10 years in Italy, I am tempted to believe that pride had the role in it.

Now, I don't know who is going to ride for them. I would happily propose my services, if they are desperate.

My next question is going to be who will get the current millesime bike(s) next year? one to VR46, one to Gresini? taking into account that one is for Fermin Aldeguer;

 

Edited June 28 by p6x

[p6x]

Francesco Bagnaia is the new king of Assen, or so it seems.

After dominating each and every practice session, he just went away during the sprint race, and Jorge Martin could only watch him go.

I much enjoyed Moto America Qualifying 1 yesterday, with Loris Baz 1 and Josh Herrin 2. I never understood how can a 6.3' tall guy can ride racing motorcycles.

 

[Joe]

2 hours ago, p6x said:

Francesco Bagnaia is the new king of Assen, or so it seems.

After dominating each and every practice session, he just went away during the sprint race, and Jorge Martin could only watch him go.

I much enjoyed Moto America Qualifying 1 yesterday, with Loris Baz 1 and Josh Herrin 2. I never understood how can a 6.3' tall guy can ride racing motorcycles.

 

Ducati is dominating…

[p6x]

20 hours ago, Joe said:

Ducati is dominating…

Bagnaia was untouchable, and even Martin admitted that had he been starting from the second position on the grid, he would not have been able to finish first.

Good did for Enea Bastianini third.

Bizarre ride by Marc Marquez. Pundits said that he may have been impaired by his front tire pressure, being forced to manage it to avoid a penalty.

 

[Tomchri]

Boring racing today, all 3 races actually. Most people since 1995, was it 192554 during the 3days. Still very enjoyable of course.

Cheers Tom.

[Lucky Phil]

10 hours ago, p6x said:

Bagnaia was untouchable, and even Martin admitted that had he been starting from the second position on the grid, he would not have been able to finish first.

Good did for Enea Bastianini third.

Bizarre ride by Marc Marquez. Pundits said that he may have been impaired by his front tire pressure, being forced to manage it to avoid a penalty.

 

Racings great these days isn't it! You limit electronics that are eventually developed and filter down to the road bike market to enhance road riding and safety and replace it with the rabbit hole of aerodynamics that has zero road bike application or benefit and just causes extreme tyre management issues on race bikes. Pure administrative genius on the part of Dorna. 

 

Phil

Edited June 30 by Lucky Phil

[p6x]

Next is Sachsenring, another Marquez playground.

This one is going to be interesting because Martin also likes the track, and Bagnaia is on a cruise.

Marquez got a penalty for exceeding 0.001 bar of front tire pressure....

It is going to be Pedro Acosta's last chance to become the youngest ever GP winner.

Will Marc Marquez be able to be in front of the GP24 with his GP23?

I follow some debriefs of the Grand Prix from journalists who are affiliated DORNA, in particular I am subscribed to some paper magazines. Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that Michelin has introduced a new tire this year, and at the beginning of the season, the GP24 riders complained about front shattering. According to the journalists, Ducati has solved the problem for the GP24. The GP23 is not that well suited for that new tire, and this is clearly a handicap for those riding the GP23, except for Marc Marquez, who seems to be able to make the difference. He is actually always the top of the GP23, in front of his brother, DiGia and Bezzechi.

It is very possible that we will no longer see four current year Ducati next year. Campinoti, the owner of PRAMAC is an industrial with deep pockets and powerful sponsors. It is unlikely that VR46 be able to pay for two current millesime Ducati next year. We will see. But loosing PRAMAC is certainly a big blow for Ducati.

 

 

[GuzziMoto]

Ducati would have a hard time running two current spec factory bikes and four last years spec factory bikes. That math does not work. You can't provide more of last years spec bikes then you have left over. I would think either VR46 will get the two bikes Pramac is giving up (they previously tried to get current spec factory bikes, so they seem to feel they have the finances to make it happen) or possibly VR46 would get one and Gresini would get the other. It is also possible that Ducati would move to providing three current spec factory bikes next year,  leaving them with three last years spec bikes the following year. That math would work, but I can't see VR46 taking only one current spec bike and giving it to the rookie Fermin Aldeguer. I could see Gresini doing that, though. I could see them taking one current spec bike and putting Fermin Aldeguer on it for Ducati. For some reason Ducati apparently made a deal with Fermin Aldeguer to put him on a current spec factory bike in his first season in MotoGP. That was stupid. And a waste of a factory bike. But Ducati has been making some questionable decisions lately.

I have heard about the new Michelin front tire in the works, but everything I have read says that it is coming in 2025. From what I have heard, this year all they introduced was new compounds for the same tires they have run for a few years. But it does seem that the 2023 Ducati does not like the 2024 tires, unless you are Marc Marquez.

[p6x]

@GuzziMoto

Let's do the math: this year, they have four GP24 and four GP23 distributed in four teams.

Next year, they will have four GP24 from this season, only three teams.

The Factory team gets two GP25, so in theory, VR46 and Gresini would inherit the four GP24. But this is no longer the standard strategy.

Tech3 has current year KTM's or GasGas in 2024. PRAMAC will get the same M1s of the Yamaha factory team. LCR also has current factory spec'ed rides.

Aldeguer has a Ducati contract, so maybe Ducati will still have four/three GP25 next season, however losing PRAMAC is certainly a bigger deal than they are trying to make sound.

As for Yamaha, working with Paolo Campinoti is not going to be a walk in the park. He is known to have very strong opinions, as we could verify with his decision to dump Ducati.

As for the tires, as I said, I am following two journalists from different media, both French, which have been in the motorcycling racing for a long time. I also follow Moto.it, also run by people who used to race in their days. Simon Crafar collaborates to GPMag, and brings a lot of technical insight which those YouTube guys don't have a clue about.

In the latest issue of GPMag, there is a very interesting article about Michelin and the manufacturing of the MotoGP slick tires.

Did you know?

The rear MotoGP slicks are produced using the C3M procedure; 3D printing. Front is still produced the traditional way. Next year, both the front and the rear will be produced using the C3M procedure.

Their QA/QC procedure is that every 100 tires produced, they take one out and cut it to verify that it is within the specs. All the production is nevertheless scanned. Should anything be spotted, the tire is removed. Each tire has its own identity and can be tracked, like aviation spare parts. Meaning that each of the components are traceable, including the rubber compounds. They gave the example of Jorge Martin's specific complaint about a tire. They have a lab that specializes in peeling, analyze, dissect tires. It takes time, but they can. Of course Martin's tire was perfectly matching; they came up with an explanation why the tire underperformed though. Martin's way of riding overheated the tire, dimming its adherence property. They did acknowledge that Bagnaia's tire issue at Sliverstone 2021 was a manufacturing defect.

The MotoGP tires are produced around the clock, 9000 per year.

They said they have an English version of the magazine, using Simon Crafar to translate the technical minutia.

[GuzziMoto]

Yes, the math favors running three current spec 2025 factory Ducati's next year and three 2024 spec bikes. That means one of this years bikes will not be used, but that is no big deal. That is bound to happen either way, whether it is one 2024 bike not being used or two 2024 spec bikes not being used. Their issue will be that they are supposedly obligated to provide a 2025 spec bike to Fermin Aldeguer, which means that they would require the team that they give that single 2025 spec factory bike to run Fermin Aldeguer on it instead of their own rider. I would be surprised to see VR46 take that deal, although maybe Gresini would take the deal if they sweeten it by dramatically reducing what they charge Gresini for leasing their bikes. Where as VR46 would likely be willing to pay more to lease current spec factory bikes, they would only do so if they get one for their rider. If they only get one 2025 bike and have to put a rider Ducati signed a deal with on it they really have no incentive to take that deal as they get little out of it. Also factoring into the math is Yamaha and KTM will be running 4 2025 spec factory bikes next year while Ducati seem to be saying, as per Digi, that they will only run three 2025 spec bikes next year. I did not know Digi said that when I suggested they might do that, but it seems that is what they are planning on. That makes sense from a number point of view but it may hurt them from a performance point of view.

Yes, I have heard about the testing being done with the new front tire, and I have heard about how they are 3D printing the rear tire. It is very cool tech. Not sure it is the best tech, as they still seem to have QC issues, some tires are not as good as others. But that has always been true with the Michelins, and no doubt this 3D printing is an effort to cure their QC issues. But, as mentioned, the official stance is still that the new front tire they are testing is for use in 2025, and for 2024 they say all they did was update a compound of the old design with rubber that is between the medium and hard tire. Simon Crafer is a great guy, and a good source of info. But I have not seen any info that says the new front tire design is already being used in races.

The interesting thing to me about the Michelin tires in MotoGP is that the tire compound seems to directly effect the construction of the tire. Normally the tire is made from two different rubber compounds, the carcass of the tire would be one compound and the tread another. But with these Michelins it seems like the rubber compound of the tread is also the rubber compound of the construction, and a soft compound tire has a softer carcass while a harder compound tire also has a harder carcass. That is not the way it used to be. That results in a difference in the way the tire works far beyond the difference in the grip of the tire between different compounds.

Edited July 2 by GuzziMoto

[GuzziMoto]

By the way, the 2023 spec Ducati had chatter issues last year, leaving the guys on 2022 spec Ducati's at an advantage in the early part of the season until the factory figured out how to deal with that chatter. It seems that they are possibly back in that hole again, with the riders on the 2023 spec bikes again dealing with the bike not liking the tires, even though supposedly little has changed. Makes you wonder how much of fixing the issue last year was in the set up of the bikes and how much of it was the riders changing what they were doing. And it would seem that Marc has already adapted, he has already figured out how to change what he is doing to make it work.

[p6x]

@GuzziMoto

The line-up has been confirmed by Gigi Dall'Igna, as you had characterized it: 3 and 3.

There is 1 seat available at Gresini, and presumably 2 at VR46; Marco Bezzecchi has left VR46 for Aprilia; Alex Marquez has been reconfirmed in Gresini. Fabio di Giannantonio's name has been floating around with other teams, even if Ducati said they would like to keep him.

Then Fermin Aldeguer will possibly end up at Gresini, as Morbidelli is a VR46 team member; unless of course he stays with PRAMAC.

The HRC has confirmed that Alex Espargaro will be their test rider.

I don't think much will change for Ducati until the new specifications take effect.

As for the rider's adaptability, I guess Marc Marquez deserves some reckoning. Especially following the major surgeries he went through, and being almost immediately competitive on a bike not designed around his style. If we look at Franco Morbidelli who was injured too, his progress on the GP24 seems to be much slower.

[GuzziMoto]

Marc Marquez is clearly a special talent. I don't like him, he races like he doesn't give a shit about the safety and well being of the other guys on the track with him. In fact he has shown a tendency to go out of his way to make contact with other guys on track, likely to establish his dominance over them. It is something that the late Dale Earnhardt perfected. But that aside, you can't deny his talent. He can do things other guys can't do. I don't think we will ever see him dominate like he did in the past. Put him on the same bike as everyone else, a bike that is not as hard to ride as the Honda was, and he will only be as fast as the other top guys. I don't see him able to go that much faster then someone like Pecco when he is on the same bike as Pecco. But he will certainly give Pecco a run for his money. And if Pecco is able to beat him on the same bike that will say a lot about the skill of Pecco. But if Marc beats Pecco everyone will say "of course he won, he is Marc Marquez". Everyone will put all the credit on Marc if Marc wins, so I don't see why Ducati wanted him on their bike. They would have had the potential for much more credit to them if Marc went to KTM and Pecco still beat Marc. Pecco beating one of the all time greats on a KTM would have made Ducati and Pecco look great. Now no outcome will really make Ducati look good, if Pecco wins, Pecco looks awesome. And if Marc wins, everyone says that Marc is one of the all time greats, of course he won.

The biggest question now is where does that third current spec bike go and where does Fermin Aldeguer go. I would assume they are going to the same place, but at this point I don't want to assume anything. Prior to Pramac leaving Ducati the word was Fermin would go there and take one of their current spec bikes. But was Ducati really required to give him a current spec bike? If so, he would have to go where ever that third current spec bike goes. And so Ducati would need to sweeten that pot to get someone to take the rookie AND put the rookie on their only current spec bike they get. That would be, I would think, a hard sell.

[p6x]

4 minutes ago, GuzziMoto said:

But was Ducati really required to give him a current spec bike?

This is still unknown, and Dall'Igna said they will make announcements in due time, when everything is sorted. I have the feeling they had not planned for PRAMAC's exit, and this has thrown a major spanner in their works. That they are trumpeting to everybody that Marquez had no direct input in Ducati's choice to incorporate him at the Ducati factory team proves exactly the opposite.

At Barcelona, they told Martin he was in. It is only after Marquez publicly announced that PRAMAC was not an option for him, that they rescinded their decision; "wait a minuted, we never said..." that sounded pathetic. So they went full damage control mode.

It is very clear to me, that initially, Marquez was always penciled to PRAMAC. Even early statements from Marquez indicating he only wanted a current year spec'ed bike were misleading.

In any case, it will be interesting to see if Martin can win a championship on the Aprilia.

Strangely, Ducati will become the only team to have year old spec'ed bikes in the competition. From this GP on, Trackhouse will run two current year Aprilia bikes. Of course, the engine cannot be swapped, and will remain from 2023, but they are saying they are almost identical. We still don't know if Trackhouse will have Joe Roberts in MotoGP in 2025. I say they will...

In 2025, all the teams will have same year spec'ed bikes, excepted Ducati.

[GuzziMoto]

Yes, it seems clear that Ducati were expecting Marc Marquez to go to Pramac, and even Marc seemed on board with that saying all he wanted was a current spec bike. When Marc switched tactics and declared that Pramac was not an option for him it clearly caught Ducati management off guard. And Marc did it in such a way that he also insulted the Pramac team, that along with the factory shafting their current rider. That led to Pramac leaving as well, which Ducati was clearly not ready for. The whole things could be a poster child for how NOT to run a racing team. And as much as they try to say Marc did not cause all those events, anyone watching knows who really made all that happen. And I suspect that was all done by Marc to establish who the number one rider at Ducati is. The way he made them bend over to sign him to their factory team made it clear who the most important rider at Ducati is.

And yes, it is interesting that Ducati may be the only brand on the grid next year running last years bikes as well as next years bikes. Although I am not sure LCR has the current spec Honda bikes for both their riders. When Cal was there Honda gave them one current spec bike for Cal and one of last years bikes for the other rider (originally Jack Miller back in 2015 when they added the second bike). I don't recall them ever getting upgraded from that deal, and I would actually guess that when Cal left they reverted to both bikes being last years bikes as they only gave Cal a current spec bike so he could help them test. After Cal left I do recall hearing a number of riders at LCR complaining that they were not being utilized to help develop the bike. No doubt in part to how little development you can do when you are riding last years bike. But maybe LCR now have a pair of current spec bikes. Some would say Honda need the extra current spec bikes to help them develop the bike. I am not sure I buy that, seems to me having to build four new parts every time they want to try a new part would slow down building new parts. Easier to build two, see if they are better, and if they are build more like that.