MotoGP

[p6x]

If you have followed the French MotoGP which is taking place in Le Mans, Le Mans being a good reason to check it out, Marquez (Marc) almost got pole position, snatched from Bagnaia at the last moment.

I mean, this guy sit out three MotoGP, comes back racing as if their was never any interruption.

To gauge the performance, suffice to look at Danilo Petrucci who never stopped racing since his exit, currently in WorldSBK, two wins in MotoGP on Ducati and yet, struggling at the back of the pack with what is generally accepted as the best bike of the pack.

The KTM, Miller and Binder may join the party at the front too.

 

[Tomchri]

What.a rider, woud have been boring if he was on a Duc, IMO. Realy enjoying the KTM performance to.

Cheers Tom.

[p6x]

16 hours ago, Tomchri said:

What.a rider, woud have been boring if he was on a Duc, IMO. Realy enjoying the KTM performance to.

Cheers Tom.

Wow Marquez on this GP....

Incredible what he managed to achieve with an inferior bike. He could have let it go and finish third, but he went all in...

[p6x]

In Germany, Marc accumulated a total of 5 falls, before injuring a finger and deciding to renounce to the GP.

3 falls during the Q1 and Q2, which got to be a record.

The other Japanese brand did not do better.

Only KTM seems to be able to compete with Ducati, but still lacks something.

Marquez is unique in never giving up, but he should resign himself to wait for a better package before he hurt himself seriously.

[Tomchri]

Going to Assen next weekend   .

Cheers Tom.

[LowRyter]

too many hits

[GuzziMoto]

Word on the street is Honda was running out of spare parts, and had already cannibalized Mir's bike to get required parts to fix Marc's bike. It is possible him withdrawing was influenced by running out of parts (just idle speculation on my part).

Marc has always been something of a bowling ball. The difference is it used to be he would hit other people and knock them down without falling himself. He would crash, a lot,  but that was usually in practice. In the race he would knock others down but not fall himself. Now his mojo seems to be gone and he is hitting the ground more often, both in practice and in the race.  Sadly, he is still hitting others and knocking them down.

Absolutely crazy that he said Zarco was responsible for the crash that took Zarco out when Marc crashed into him. That was a situation where a normal racer would have said sorry about taking you down with me. Not Marc. I have to think Marc is becoming less and less popular with the other racers.

[LowRyter]

Suzuki out, Honda and Yamaha down for the count.  The mighty Japanese have fallen.  If Honda stays in MotoGP, I'll bet they'll be back stronger than ever in 3 seasons.  It's been their history of rock bottom to the top.

[GuzziMoto]

Honda do run in cycles. They tend to get overly confident in their engineers, and build bikes the engineers think are faster. Then after they hit bottom they go back to listening to the racers, and they rise back to the top. Rinse and repeat.

[p6x]

2 hours ago, GuzziMoto said:

Absolutely crazy that he said Zarco was responsible for the crash that took Zarco out when Marc crashed into him. That was a situation where a normal racer would have said sorry about taking you down with me. Not Marc. I have to think Marc is becoming less and less popular with the other racers.

Since then, others have come up with a similar view about the incident.

The rider coming out of the pits must check that it has a clear path before taking to the track. Now, when the incoming rider falls and you see his bike sliding towards you, I wonder what evading measure you can take; I think Zarco said he only had the reflex to raise his legs to avoid getting them injured.

Alex Espargaro (who injured himself watching his phone while riding his bicycle) said he agreed with Marc Marquez the rider entering the track must be the one watching out for hazards.

Later on, this was also passed along to all riders by the race direction.

I think it makes sense.

Now, that Marquez rushed to get back to the pits without checking on Zarco' state after he cleaned him off, that was not gentleman like. Although Marquez stated he did not for safety reasons. I think in other cases, he did check on other pilots he had hit.

[p6x]

1 hour ago, LowRyter said:

Suzuki out, Honda and Yamaha down for the count.  The mighty Japanese have fallen.  If Honda stays in MotoGP, I'll bet they'll be back stronger than ever in 3 seasons.  It's been their history of rock bottom to the top.

I feel that both Honda and Yamaha have been complacent because they were the leaders for so many years in MotoGP.

They did not heed the warning from Ducati and KTM seriously.

I am convinced Honda will react very quickly. Honda can make a lot of changes since it appears their problem is more chassis related than engine related.

For Yamaha, the path to renew with success is less obvious. It implies a major engine upgrade, possibly a change in the architecture itself. Given that the rules will change in 2027, I don't see Yamaha coming up with a V4 before that.

[GuzziMoto]

1 hour ago, p6x said:

Since then, others have come up with a similar view about the incident.

The rider coming out of the pits must check that it has a clear path before taking to the track. Now, when the incoming rider falls and you see his bike sliding towards you, I wonder what evading measure you can take; I think Zarco said he only had the reflex to raise his legs to avoid getting them injured.

Alex Espargaro (who injured himself watching his phone while riding his bicycle) said he agreed with Marc Marquez the rider entering the track must be the one watching out for hazards.

Later on, this was also passed along to all riders by the race direction.

I think it makes sense.

Now, that Marquez rushed to get back to the pits without checking on Zarco' state after he cleaned him off, that was not gentleman like. Although Marquez stated he did not for safety reasons. I think in other cases, he did check on other pilots he had hit.

The track layout leads to an issue with the way pit out is. The rider exiting the pits is going much slower, Marc coming down the straight was no where near Zarco when Zarco left the pits. But once Zarco left the pits he could not see Marc, or any other racers, coming down the straight. All he could do is stay wide off the line and allow the racers on track to go by. As long as they did that nothing was going to happen. But Marc, who could clearly see Zarco and knew he was there, pushed the front into that corner and wrecked. There was nothing Zarco could have done that would have stopped Marc from crashing, and him being involved in Marc's wreck was really just bad luck. Zarco did what he was supposed to do, he stayed out of the racers already on track's way.

That said, Zarco had the correct view, it was a racing incident. Shit happens. The idea that the wreck was Zarco's fault, or that Zarco could have prevented it, is laughable. The only person who could have prevented that accident was Marc, the human bowling ball.

[LowRyter]

9 hours ago, p6x said:

I feel that both Honda and Yamaha have been complacent because they were the leaders for so many years in MotoGP.

They did not heed the warning from Ducati and KTM seriously.

I am convinced Honda will react very quickly. Honda can make a lot of changes since it appears their problem is more chassis related than engine related.

For Yamaha, the path to renew with success is less obvious. It implies a major engine upgrade, possibly a change in the architecture itself. Given that the rules will change in 2027, I don't see Yamaha coming up with a V4 before that.

I don't know what disadvantage a inline engine is with Yamaha. 

[GuzziMoto]

10 hours ago, LowRyter said:

I don't know what disadvantage a inline engine is with Yamaha. 

The inline 4 engine is wider than a V4. Also, the intake and exhaust routing on an inline 4 is not as good as a V4. Finally, the V4 flywheel can be on the end of the crank, which can allow the team to change the mass of the flywheel with bolt on weights while the flywheel on an inline 4 is typically in the middle of the crank and thus the mass of the flywheel cannot be changed race to race as the rules do not allow for that kind of engine dis-assembly.

The better intake and exhaust routing tends to mean a V4 can make more power. Being able to change the rotating mass of the engine with bolt on weights allows the team to fine tune how that power is delivered. A famous case of that was a few years ago Suzuki got the rotating mass wrong, the crank was too light. Being an inline 4 engine Suzuki were stuck with that all season. Had it been a V4 they could have changed the rotating mass, but as an inline 4 they were stuck with it the way it was. That meant it was too hard to control the rear tire when it started to spin. It would spin up faster, so it could accelerate faster. But as soon as the rear tire started spinning it quickly became a handful.

One more advantage to the V4 is the engine can be easier to package into a MotoGP bike. But that one is more a shades of grey deal. It is more compact, but it can be harder to get as much weight on the front wheel as you can with an inline 4.

[p6x]

11 hours ago, LowRyter said:

I don't know what disadvantage a inline engine is with Yamaha. 

To piggy back on what @GuzziMoto said, I propose two excellent articles written by Mat Oxley for Motorsport magazine;

It is mainly a crankshaft length difference. V4 has more torque, Inline handles better up to a certain point. As we have witnessed this year, the M1 got more power, however lost its cornering speed.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/motorcycles/motogp/why-are-motogp-v4s-faster-than-inline-4s/

In this second article, the same Mat Oxley explains in technical details why the Inline 4 handle better than the V4 engines. He also uses the example of how Zarco and Lorenzo faced a major set back when moving from the M1 to KTM and Ducati. While Zarco never recovered with KTM, Lorenzo made peace with his Ducati eventually.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/motorcycles/motogp/why-inline-four-motogp-bikes-handle-better-than-v4-motogp-bikes/

Even myself now understand what the advantages and disadvantages of each architecture are.

What I found interesting, is that the advantages of the Inline can transform into cons. This is perfectly illustrated this year with both Fabio and Franco. The M1 has more power, but has lost its curving domination. Also the power they got is not enough for them to have the wings they need to compete with the Vs.