Analysis

2022 Sepang MotoGP Test Saturday Notes: Aero, Engines, And A Mountain Of Work

Submitted by David Emmett on

Shall we declare Aprilia 2022 MotoGP champions, now that Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales ended the first day of the Sepang MotoGP test in the top two positions? Obviously not. The Aprilias have already had extra time around Sepang, Maverick Viñales spending two days on track during the shakedown test, Aleix Espargaro one day extra. So they were already up to speed and used to riding a MotoGP bike again.

That doesn't mean that Aprilia's speed isn't real. The 2022 bike is a step forward, in part a result of Aprilia changing course after a disappointing Jerez test back in November. A new chassis improved the handling of the bike, the engine is more refined, and the whole is a lot narrower. "It felt like a Moto2 bike," Espargaro said after he had sat on it for the first time at the Aprilia factory. He had spent a long time in the garage after his team had rebuilt the bike after the shakedown test, where he had been alternating between the old and the new bike.

Making the bike narrower was quite an achievement, with a lot of parts to pack into a small area, but the effort had paid off, Espargaro said. "The difference is huge in last year’s bike in this area. From lap one it helps a lot to throw the bike into the corner. The strongest thing of the bike, the best thing is the turning," he told us.

Back to speed

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Is This How Ducati's New Front Ride-Height Device Works?

Submitted by David Emmett on

The one near certainty coming into the Sepang MotoGP test was that Ducati would have found a new way to push the boundaries of vehicle dynamics. We have seen it before with the wings, with the rear swingarm spoiler, with the holeshot and ride-height devices, and more. The only question for onlookers was what exactly Gigi Dall'Igna and his team of engineers had dreamed up this time. After a tip by French MotoGP tech guru Tom Morsellino, I set out to investigate.

The answer to that looks like it is at the front of the GP22, instead of the rear. Ducati have installed a new holeshot device on the front of the Desmosedici, which appears to double as a front ride-height device. Where the old holeshot device was a simple latch, the new one is much more sophisticated, and looks like it is being used on corner exit, as well as at the start.

First, a quick look at the old holeshot device. Like the units fitted to most of the bikes on the grid, it is relatively simple. There is a catch on the bottom of the fork, and a latch mechanism operated by a cable. The rider loads it by compressing the forks, then rotates a butterfly switch on the top triple clamp to engage it. When the rider brakes for the first corner, the latch releases and the front comes up again.

Walking down pit lane, I took the following photo of the mechanism on Fabio Di Giannantonio's bike. (As it's old tech, mechanics are a lot less paranoid about it.)

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2022 Sepang MotoGP Test Friday Notes: New (And Old) Liveries, Braking Assistance, And Defending Titles

Submitted by David Emmett on

Pit lane is finally open, if only for some teams – notably Yamaha and Suzuki – to show off their new liveries, and we are starting to get a first look at the new parts some of the factories have to test. The new Yamaha livery is almost indistinguishable from last year's, Yamaha following the "if it ain't broke" philosophy.

Suzuki's is updated, and to my mind improved by having a dash of black to set off the other colors on the bike. The black panel around the race numbers something of a throwback, though historically, white numbers on a black background were used in the 125cc class.

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2022 Sepang MotoGP Test Preview: Making Sense Of All The Changes

Submitted by David Emmett on


Marc Marquez' Honda RC213V at the 2014 Sepang 1 MotoGP test

It is dangerous to draw too many lessons from the results of the Sepang test. In the ten years between 2011 and 2020, the rider who set the fastest time at Sepang has only gone on to win the MotoGP title twice: Casey Stoner in 2011, and Marc Marquez in 2014. (That stat is complicated by the fact that between 2011 and 2015, there used to be two Sepang tests – I've taken the fastest time from both tests in those years.)

Casey Stoner was fastest in 2012 as well, but ended up losing to Jorge Lorenzo that year, after smashing his foot at Indianapolis. Dani Pedrosa was quickest in 2013, but was overshadowed by his rookie teammate Marc Marquez who took the crown at the first attempt. After his dominant year in 2014, Marc Marquez was quickest at both tests in 2015, but notoriously ended up finishing behind the two Yamahas of Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi.

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KTM MotoGP Launch: Brad Binder And Miguel Oliveira Look Back At 2021, And Ahead To 2022

Submitted by David Emmett on

While the most interesting parts of the KTM launch had to do with the personnel changes, and the shift of focus from the purely technical to the human (for a full review, see here), factory riders Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira were still fascinating on the weakness of the 2021 KTM RC16 and what they wanted fixing for 2022.

What the riders were missing above all was some consistency, Miguel Oliveira said. "Through different key moments of the championship I wasn't able to finish the race. Two big examples; Austria race 2 and Misano race 2 where the result could have been quite good."

KTM paid for that lack of consistency down the stretch, leaving too many points on the table and making a championship campaign tough. "The other thing is the pure consistency of the results, finishing the races pays off a lot at the end of the championship. And of course that's of course the main reason why I think consistency must be improved," Oliveira pointed out.

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Pit Beirer And The KTM MotoGP Launch: It's The Human Factor That Makes The Difference

Submitted by David Emmett on

Not all team launches are the same. They vary in style, substance, length, medium. There are live presentations, long prerecorded presentations, and short videos. Their length or content inevitably have no correlation to their information density. When you start, you never know what you are going to get.

The KTM MotoGP launch kicked off with a 4:35 video presentation which was all style and no substance, four minutes of spectacular images, dramatic electronic music, and empty cliches about racing. After the launch, however, things got good. Really good. Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira gave a glimpse of where they felt the KTM RC16 was lacking in 2021, and what needed to improve. Interesting, but not earth-shattering.

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What We Learned From The WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team Launch

Submitted by David Emmett on

The setting for the launch of the WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team was genuinely spectacular. From the stunning Philharmonic Theater in Verona, Italy, and featuring a couple of doses of opera – a refreshing change from the standard MotoGP diet of electronica or metal – the team walked through the presentation of its riders, its livery, and its team management. The launch was let down by technology – though the Facebook feed was pretty smooth, the YouTube video was stuttery and barely watchable.

Not that it mattered all that much. Team launches, especially of satellite teams, are mostly dog-and-pony shows aimed mostly at flattering the egos of sponsors, and generating a headline or two on a slow news day. In that, it was successful. There was plenty of chatter on social media over the launch.

Afterwards, the media got to talk to some of the protagonists over Zoom, a technology that looks set to stay in MotoGP for the foreseeable future. And that did lead to a few interesting insights, some about the team, some about the state of MotoGP, and what might change.

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Room For Optimism: What We Learned From The Honda MotoGP Presentation

Submitted by David Emmett on

Team presentations tend to be rather turgid affairs. Hours of talk for a few brief moments of enlightenment. Which is why we sit through all those hours of talk, of course, because if you listen carefully and read between the lines, you might learn a thing or two.

Past experience left the MotoGP media looking at the Honda motorsport Q&A with some trepidation. Would it be worth sitting through the long presentations to dig out nuggets of interest?

That calculation changed on Thursday night, when HRC announced that Marc Marquez had been riding a motorcycle again, and would be present at the launch on Friday. Both developments which meant the media would get a chance to talk to Marquez about his eye injury, about the accident which caused it, and and how soon we might expect to see him on track again.

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The 2022 MotoGP Silly Season Primer: Who Is Likely To Move Where Next Year?

Submitted by David Emmett on

It is the second week of January, and there as yet no substantial rumors of MotoGP rider contracts being signed. Compared to recent years, that is a bit of a late start to Silly Season, given that all but a handful of riders have their contracts up for renewal at the end of 2022.

In past years, January has been a hive of activity. In 2020, there were rumors over the new year period that Maverick Viñales was being courted by Ducati, with Yamaha forced to make an early announcement to keep the Spaniard in the Monster Energy factory team (and we all know how that turned out). A couple of weeks later, rumors followed that Ducati had signed Jorge Martin, and at the end of January, we learned that Fabio Quartararo had been signed to the factory Yamaha squad, displacing Valentino Rossi.

Two years earlier had seen a similar story, with Yamaha signing both Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi up in January, in time for the team launch. And to think, Valentino Rossi bemoaned Casey Stoner's move to Repsol Honda for the 2011 season as a decision taken early, when the deal was sealed after the Jerez round of MotoGP in early May, 2010.

By those standards, the current lack of movement on the contract front almost qualifies as tardiness. Riders are not jumping on contracts early, and factories are not pushing hard to sign riders before they get poached by someone else.

A different environment

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Will Life At Speed Do For MotoGP What Drive To Survive Did For F1?

Submitted by David Emmett on

There was a period during the previous decade where F1 was steadily losing ground to MotoGP. While Bernie Ecclestone had made four-wheeled grand prix racing successful in the era of TV and print media, his dismissal of social media, combined with processional racing, saw the ratings of the sport flag.

Dorna, after a similarly difficult start, finally embraced social media in the middle of the last decade, and that attention to the benefits of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram helped build the profile of the sport. That was helped in no small part by the technical regulations conceived in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and put into place between 2012 and 2016 having their intended effect and making the racing much closer and more exciting. MotoGP grew while F1 lagged behind.

The arrival of Liberty Media changed the face of F1, dragging the sport kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Liberty took a radically different view of the media aspects of the sport, pushing hard into social media, and giving the teams far more leeway and freedom to create and promote their own content online.

Unscripted reality TV

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