MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Normally, MotoGP teams keep garage doors firmly shut when the fairings of their bikes need to be removed, unless forced to do otherwise. For example, the teams have to keep their garage doors open throughout a MotoGP session, for as long as the pit lane is open. The factories used to slide large screens in front of the bikes to get around this, but Dorna and IRTA have banned this, allowing screens only to be used for bikes which have been crashed.

If a factory team wants to take the fairings off their bike, they have to use sheets and covers to hide the bikes innards from prying eyes, rather than screens. An injunction not all factories stick to: some will still put up screens, consequences be damned.

So it is very rare to get a shot of a bike with its fairing off. MotoMatters.com contributors Niki Kovács and Cormac Ryan Meenan have both managed on occasion to get a snap of a fully undressed bike. But in Austria, Cormac managed to get a selection of shots of the KTM RC16 without its fairing on, from both sides. Here's what the bike looks like, with some comments on what we can see.

When MotoGP fans dream of the glamorous life of a MotoGP rider, there are a few details they gloss over. Yes, there's the thrill of riding the fastest, most specialized racing motorcycles on the fact of the planet, at the best racetracks in the world. But along with the thrills come the spills, and with the spills comes the pain.

Despite the incredible advances made in protective gear – helmets, leathers, airbags, protectors - once the MotoGP season starts, a rider is never free of pain. Usually just small niggles or injuries, bruises, cuts, scrapes, rashes, minor fractures, pulled muscles, arm pump, cramp, stretched ligaments or tendons. Sometimes bigger issues, as collarbones, wrists, ankles, and hips heal.

And then there are the really big injuries. Think of the two miserable years Marc Marquez went through after crashing at Jerez in 2020 and breaking his humerus. With infection, nerve pain, and bone that was healing rotated by 30°, Marquez was in pain pretty much all the time, on and off the bike.

Dorna and the FIM announced at the end of the summer break that from Silverstone onward, they woulds start to enforce the minimum tire pressures mandated by Michelin. That enforcement would be delayed at the first round after the summer, the British Grand Prix, as both the sprint race on Saturday and the Sunday grand prix were classed as wet races. The sprint race started on a wet track, the grand prix started as a dry race, but the rain flag was shown, making it formally wet.

The agreement with Michelin was that minimum tire pressures would not be enforced in case of rain, as the conditions changed the stress on the tires and the load put into them considerably. So tire pressures were not checked at Silverstone.

Last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix was a different kettle of fish. Spielberg was caught in the heatwave which has gripped southern Europe, and the weekend was dry bar a few Alpine storms, which thankfully left the races pretty much untouched. The Red Bull Ring is also one of the tracks which most stresses the front tire, with a lot of exceptionally heavy braking, a lot of it uphill.

Punishment coming?

Sometimes after a race, I feel like there is a lot to write about. This is not one of those days, because it was not one of those races. In previous years, the Red Bull Ring has always delivered when it came to racing. But with conditions as close to perfect as possible – the only complaint you could have is that it was perhaps a little too hot – the weather wildcard was taken from the pack, and the race turned into a measure of rider and machine. And as it's the Red Bull Ring, where the key to speed is braking and acceleration, mostly machine.

So the race we got is a pretty fair reflection of the current state of MotoGP. The strongest rider/bike/team package dominated. The second strongest rider-bike package finished second. And the best of the satellite riders headed up a gaggle of last year's Ducatis. The Aprilias, who should have done better, got bogged down at the start, the launch off the line still very much the RS-GP's kryptonite. And the Japanese bikes spent their race battling to get into the top ten.