Losail, Qatar

Tom's Tech Treasures: Analyzing MotoGP Tech Updates At Qatar, Part 1

Submitted by David Emmett on

Thomas Morsellino is a French freelance journalist and photographer, with keen eye for the technical details of MotoGP bikes. You may have seen some of his work on Twitter, where he runs the @Off_Bikes account. Peter Bom is a world championship winning former crew chief, with a deep and abiding knowledge of every aspect of motorcycle racing. Peter has worked with such riders as Cal Crutchlow, Danny Kent, and Stefan Bradl. After every race, MotoMatters.com will be publishing a selection of Tom's photos of MotoGP bikes, together with extensive technical explanations of the details by Peter Bom. MotoMatters.com subscribers will get access to the full resolution photos, which they can download and study in detail, and all of Peter's technical explanations of the photos. Readers who do not support the site will be limited to the 800x600 resolution photos, and an explanation of two photos.


New Honda fairing (Crutchlow’s RC213V)
Peter Bom: With all the extra horsepower which Honda has this year, together with a different chassis (to take some of the load from the front tire), it would make sense that there could be another aero update as well. As a side note, Ducati Corse boss Gigi Dall'Igna has hinted at protesting this particular fairing design.


Ducati GP19 front disc cover

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2019 Qatar MotoGP Race Round Up: From Masterful Management To Youthful Recklessness

Submitted by David Emmett on

For a place which 95% of the paddock hates going to, Qatar certainly knows how to make us want to come back. The area between Doha and the Losail International Circuit has been a mixture of noisy construction, omnipresent sand and dust, and an ever-changing and convoluted road system (the route to the track regularly and literally changing overnight) ever since I first went to a race there in 2009. But once at the circuit, the track layout serves up some of the best racing in the world.

Fittingly, the title sponsor for the Qatar round of MotoGP was VisitQatar, the Qatari tourist office aimed at stimulating inbound tourism to the Gulf peninsula. To be honest, the best thing VisitQatar could do to attract visitors to the country is just play all three of Sunday's races on a loop. In the Moto3 race, the first eleven riders all finished within a second. The first five riders in MotoGP finished within six tenths of a second. And the winning margin in all three races was five hundredths of a second or less. These were races decided by the width of a wheel, the winner in doubt all the way to the line.

The MotoGP race was a thrilling affair, a close race from start to finish, with wild passes as far as the eye can see. Riders jockeyed for position, vying to make their contesting strategies pay off. Yet it still left some fans feeling empty, with the impression that they were being cheated of an even better race if the riders has been willing and able to go flat out as soon as the lights went out all the way to the end.

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Guest Blog: Mat Oxley - MotoGP: from the Isle of Man to a tropical isle via the Arabian desert

Submitted by Mat Oxley on

Countries like Qatar and Indonesia are spending vast amounts on MotoGP. So where does that leave the rest of us?

Motorcycle Grand Prix racing celebrates its 70th birthday this year, so perhaps in some way it's fitting that a championship that began on a dank, grassy rock in the middle of the Irish Sea should commence this historic season in the middle of a burning desert.

The Qatar GP is a surreal event, mostly because it takes place at night-time around a ribbon of asphalt on the edge of the Arabian desert that's lit by vast floodlights which give the racing the hyper-reality of a videogame.

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Analyzing Ducati's Aero Attachments: Four Factories Protest, But Are They Legal?

Submitted by David Emmett on

Andrea Dovizioso's victory in the opening race of the 2019 MotoGP season at Qatar is currently subject to appeal. Dovizioso raced in Qatar using the aerodynamic components previously debuted by factory Ducati teammate Danilo Petrucci at the Qatar test, and used by Petrucci and Pramac Ducati's Jack Miller during practice at the Qatar MotoGP round.

After Dovizioso won a thrilling, close race by a margin of 0.023 seconds from Marc Márquez, the top five finishing with six tenths of a second, but the race was the first time Dovizioso had used the new aero parts. That prompted four factories – Aprilia, Honda, KTM, and Suzuki – to lodge a protest with the FIM Stewards, claiming that the aerodynamic device attached to the swingarm (see the tweet from MotoMatters.com contributor Tom Morsellino below) is illegal.

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