MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Since Gigi Dall'Igna arrived at Ducati, he has transformed the fortunes of the Bologna factory. Poached from Aprilia at the end of 2013, the Italian, who graduated from the University of Padua with a degree in mechanical engineering, shook up the Ducati Corse racing department, and set about redesigning a new engine and new chassis for the Desmosedici.

When Dall'Igna took over, Ducati were coming off the back of a season without a single podium. Eight-and-a-half seasons later, the Desmosedici has become the best bike on the grid, and has challenged for the championship every year since 2017. They have won the constructor's championship and the team championship, but the rider crown remains elusive.

Perhaps the biggest part of Ducati's success has been their ability to innovate. Dall'Igna brought with him a willingness to take risks, try new approaches, do something that other factories would have found unthinkable. Starting with his suggestion to turn Ducati into an entry into the Open Class, which prompted the introduction of concessions in MotoGP, to flooding the MotoGP grid with bikes, to the introduction of wings, ride-height devices, an obsessive focus on tire life, and much more.

In the first part of the interview with Brembo engineer Andrea Bergami, we talked about the effect the holeshot devices and aerodynamics on MotoGP bikes, and how they have dramatically increased braking in the class, and we talked about the physical strain that is placing on the bodies of the riders.

In this second part, we continued our conversation about how the brakes have evolved over the past couple of years, how Moto2 is preparing riders better for entry into MotoGP, and how developments in racing are feeding into consumer components and road bikes. And Bergami explains in detail precisely what it is riders are looking for when it comes to braking.

First, Peter Bom and I asked about managing temperature in the brake discs. In the past, the difficulty with carbon discs was getting them up to temperature in the first place. With the additional cooling options for the discs – finned discs, finned calipers – was it hard to keep temperature in the brake discs?

A lot has changed in MotoGP over the last two years. Despite a freeze on engine development, and restrictions on aerodynamics development brought in at the start of the pandemic, the bikes are faster in 2022 than they were in 2019, the last time MotoGP had the same set of development rules.

Where has this extra speed come from? A huge amount has come from the introduction of ride-height devices. These contraptions, first trialed by Ducati at the end of 2018, have radically changed the way MotoGP bikes make their lap times. The devices lower the center of mass, helping to significantly reduce wheelie and improving acceleration. But they also change the way the bikes brake at the other end of a straight, changing the way the weight transfers and allowing for greater braking force.

To find out more about the way MotoGP has changed in the last couple of years, Peter Bom and myself interviewed Brembo engineer Andrea Bergami at the Portuguese Grand Prix in Portimão earlier this year. Bergami gave us some fascinating insights into how MotoGP bikes have evolved, the effect that is having on braking, and how Brembo is working to address and adapt to those changes. He also explained how he felt Moto2 was helping riders prepare for the jump to MotoGP, and the role of racing in development consumer products, which end up in the hands of riders on the street. We spoke at such length that this interview has been split into two parts.

At the presentation of Ducati's MotoE bike, it was immediately clear that this was a very different project. Energica had put MotoE on a solid footing, creating an exciting racing series with their Ego Corsa bike, and producing a machine that was both reliable and had an acceptable performance window. But the Ego Corsa was a modified version of Energica's road-going sport bike Ego. And Energica itself is a small engineering company specializing in electric bikes.

Ducati's V21L MotoE bike is a very different kettle of fish. Ducati is a major motorcycle manufacturer with a storied history of producing high-performance motorcycles and racing success. They have a long tradition of building a particular kind of internal combustion engine, and no experience with electric vehicles. So what Ducati have done is take the decision to build an electric racing bike, to learn valuable lessons needed to make the switch to production.

The V21L is a pure prototype, perhaps the purest prototype on the grid, in terms of distance from the technology used in Ducati's street bikes. And it is being built with the explicit aim of developing technology and gaining the experience necessary to eventually build an electric bike which consumers – or rather, Ducatisti, some of the most demanding consumers in the world – will cherish and buy.

Four rounds into the WorldSBK season Alex Lowes heads into his home round trying to get back to where he wants to be. After the hardest season of his professional career he’s rebuilt his body following a series of serious injuries and now feels ready to put his hard work to use and get back to challenging at the front of the field.

Last year, his second with the Kawasaki Racing Team, was trying. The injuries mounted up from even before the first round of the year with a flat track crash leaving the Englishman with a serious shoulder injury. The Grade 4 separation of his AC joint was enough to severely curtail his pre-season testing schedule and the opening rounds were trying affairs despite a great start to the campaign in Aragon.

Three podiums at the opening round gave Lowes and Kawasaki hope but that was the highlight of his season. Lowes would only take two more podiums in 2021 as the injuries mounted.

Through the pain

"I worked hard to get ready for the opening round of last year,” said Lowes ahead of his home round at Donington Park. “I had missed a lot of pre-season because of my shoulder injury so it was a lot of work to be ready for the start of the season. Given the shoulder injury the opening three rounds were pretty acceptable but then we tested at Navarra.

Maverick Viñales has always been something of an enigma. While his talent was beyond doubt, it was also mercurial, the Spaniard winning one week before riding around anonymously the next. When he had the tools he needed, he was unstoppable, winning 9 MotoGP races with both Suzuki and Yamaha. But if he didn't, he would struggle, go backward and end up frustrated and angry.

Throughout the period Viñales was at Yamaha, in the period when rider media debriefs were held in team hospitality units making it impossible to attend all of them, the small group of journalists I share debriefs with would draw straws for who would have to go to speak to Maverick Viñales. That was usually a depressing experience, sitting through Viñales' simmering frustration at not getting the results he believed he was capable of.

It was no surprise this would all come to a head, though I don't think anyone imagined it would end in such a dramatic fashion. Maverick Viñales was suspended by Yamaha after he stalled the bike on the grid in Austria, then in frustration, rode around overrevving it. A few days later, it was announced the contract Viñales had with Yamaha had been terminated with immediate effect, by mutual consent.

At the Barcelona round of MotoGP, I sat down with Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Lin Jarvis, ostensibly to talk about the decision by RNF to leave Yamaha and switch to Aprilia for the 2023 season. If you want to read what Jarvis had to say about that, you can read the first part of the interview published yesterday.

After discussing RNF, we moved on to discuss the wider situation with the rider market. Jarvis offered insights into how Yamaha is working with Franco Morbidelli, how surprised he has been by the transformation of Aleix Espargaro into a championship contender, and how Yamaha persuaded Fabio Quartararo to sign on for two more years.

Q: Suzuki’s withdrawal has thrown the rider market to chaos. All of a sudden, Alex Rins, Joan Mir, both top riders, are being discussed as options everywhere. You’ve signed both of your riders for next year, but Franco Morbidelli is not really showing what he showed in previous years. Is there a chance you might let him go? Have you had conversations with Frankie about next year?

Lin Jarvis: No, we have a commitment with Frankie. It’s something we must work on together to get him to rediscover the confidence again with the bike and to be able to perform. So, that’s our mission. In that sense, it’s a bit strange that Frankie has… Last year was not strange because he missed half the season, then he came back. The leg was completely not good. So, it was a very difficult circumstance last year.

Timing press releases is always something of an art. You want to maximize the publicity value, while paying due care to the feelings and pride of all those involved. So they are usually only released after long discussions and with approval by management.

Which is what made the announcement by RNF that they would be switching from Yamaha to Aprilia quite so painful. Though the news was hardly a shock, the way it was made public was extremely surprising, with a press release rushed out on Friday morning, just before FP1.

The timing was even more awkward because the release went out at the same time that RNF team owner Razlan Razali was in a meeting with Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Lin Jarvis, where Razali was about to officially inform Jarvis of RNF's intention to switch to Aprilia from 2023 onward. Normally, the timing of a press release would be one of the subjects on the table at such a meeting.

In Barcelona, I sat down with Lin Jarvis to discuss the announcement, and what it means for Yamaha's future plans for a satellite team. We ended up covering quite a lot of ground beyond my original questions about RNF, so this has been split into two parts. In the first half of the interview, we discussed the situation surrounding Yamaha's current and future plans for a satellite team.

Q: Obviously, the news came at Mugello that RNF were going to Aprilia. I understand that you were in a meeting with RNF at the time. They were telling you about it when it was made public. I think that was Aleix Espargaro’s fault for being eager to tweet the news. Were you expecting this?

While rumors that the WithU RNF Yamaha MotoGP team were considering a switch to Aprilia had been circulating for a while, nobody had expected the news to come out in the manner it did. Aprilia Racing rider Aleix Espargaro tweeted a welcome to RNF before FP1 started, and before Aprilia and RNF had intended to announce the news. Though Espargaro's tweet was deleted shortly afterward, it was too late. RNF and Aprilia rushed out press releases announcing the deal.

On Friday evening, MotoMatters.com contributor Niki Kovács and myself, David Emmett, sat down with Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola to find out more about the deal. What goals Aprilia had in signing RNF, how the link up will work, what bikes RNF will have available, and what the rider strategy will be for RNF.

The deal is what both parties have been looking for these past couple of years. RNF has wanted a closer relationship to the factory supplying bikes, while Aprilia has been in search of a satellite squad for the past couple of seasons. Both sides want to create a "Junior Team", in the mold of Pramac Ducati or Tech3 KTM.

It has been a pretty tough couple of weeks for Joan Mir. After a frustrating sixth place at the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, in which he complained of struggling with the front, on the day after, at the end of the Jerez test on Monday, he was called in to the office in the Suzuki Ecstar team truck to be told be Shinichi Sahara and Livio Suppo that Suzuki had decided to withdraw from MotoGP at the end of the 2022 season.

Two weeks later, after a difficult day on Saturday, where he found himself struggling in FP3 and having to go through Q1, Mir ended up crashing out of the French Grand Prix at Le Mans while chasing a possible podium. "It's been painful mentally," Mir said after the race on Sunday.

Can Joan Mir bounce back? At the Circuit of The Americas, I spoke to Mir about his past, and the road he took to MotoGP. It was a long, hard, and uncertain road, the possibility of failure lurking every step along the way. Mir had to bear a heavy burden of responsibility, one he shouldered largely through his own choice, rather than outside pressure. Along the way, he had to deal with plenty of setbacks, and turn them into something positive. That path helped him to win the 2020 MotoGP championship.