MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Aerodynamics was a main focus for most of the teams (and coincidentally, also the easiest thing to spot), and almost all the manufacturers rolled out some interesting parts. Aprilia have taken a leading role recently, picking up after Ducati and in some aspects, overtaking them. At Sepang, they rolled out a new front wing, pictured here (my phone photo) on Maverick Viñales' bike.

As you can see, the front wing now is now a triplane and not a biplane, with three wings instead of two. If you compare it with the photo of the standard front wing (below, picture by Cormac Ryan Meenan), you can see that the upper wing has been split in two to create something similar to the original, while an extra wing has been added below, curving up before reaching the fairing.

There was a great deal of excitement when this unusual prototype bike (my shoddy phone camera photo) was spotted in the Repsol Honda garage at the Sepang test. Was Honda the latest factory to try out a ground-effect fairing? The obvious answer was yes, but this misses the point entirely. This bike spoke volumes about what HRC was up to at Sepang. And it had very little to do with aerodynamics. Or at least, it had very little to do with ground effect.

The changes at HRC – former Suzuki engineer Ken Kawauchi replacing Takeo Yokoyama as Technical Director – have see Honda go back to basics. At Sepang, Honda sent Marc Marquez out to ride the Honda RC213V with just a plain fairing, no aerodynamic wings fitted at all. "The new technical manager arrived in HRC, and he wants to understand many things about the concept," Marquez explained. "I was not asking about why this, why that. I was just riding."

Look beyond the ground-effect fairing on the strange prototype, and this bike too looks more like HRC going back to basics. To understand what Honda are up to, let's go through a few photos and parts, one by one.

What have we learned from the first two days of the MotoGP shakedown test at Sepang so far? Well, the first thing we have learned is that it can still rain quite a lot in the tropics. The test riders and GasGas rookie Augusto Fernandez have not had a great deal of dry track time over the past couple of days.

Combine a damp track with the fact that it is test riders out there – Cal Crutchlow for Yamaha; Michele Pirro for Ducati; Lorenzo Savadori for Aprilia; Stefan Bradl for Honda; and Dani Pedrosa, Mika Kallio, and new signing Jonas Folger for KTM – alongside GasGas rookie Fernandez, and it means the times don't mean much. Fernandez gets extra track time by dint of being a rookie, compensation for the reduction of official testing time which has taken place over the last five years or so.

A wander up pit lane at the Sachsenring shows teams and factories still hard at work trying to figure out ways of going faster. Here's a quick note of the things I have seen so far, with a few very poor photographs.

The Barcelona test proved to be a chance to try out new aerodynamic packages, and some of those have made an appearance at the Sachsenring. On Friday, Maverick Viñales spent most of the day on Aprilia's new fairing, with Aleix Espargaro following suit today.

As you can see, the lower part of the fairing is wider, creating a ledge around the middle of the bike. That should bring the side of the bike closer to the asphalt when the bike is leaned over and create something of a ground effect. It also provides a certain amount of downforce at a very useful point, close to the center of mass.

The fairing redesign does have a disadvantage, however: the neat sliding hatch on the standard fairing where the starter motor engages has been replaced with a latch.

A few thoughts on things I saw walking up and down pit lane.

First, it is clear that teams are worried about tire temperature. The factory Ducatis, the factory Yamahas, and even Andrea Dovizioso were using the silver wheels, using special paint to dissipate heat more effectively.

Aprilia appear to have the most sorted motorcycle, judging by the parts and tools in the garage. Where other teams and factories have shocks, fork springs, and even swingarm linkages (Suzuki) lying in the garage, Aprilia are just changing tires. That is ominous for the rest of the grid.

As one of the factory KTM riders left pit lane, a caught a glimpse behind the bottom of the fairing. It looked like they have a lot of hydraulics there, which are most likely used to control the ride-height device. Locating it under the bike is ideal in terms of weight distribution.

I am starting to suspect that the 2022 MotoGP season might be cursed. The Sepang test happened, and was relatively incident free, but it's all been downhill from there. The track coming apart at the Mandalika test, an almost normal Qatar, the track coming apart at the Mandalika race, freight problems in Argentina, an almost normal Austin (or as normal as Austin can be, the same going for Qatar), and then rained out practice at Portimão.

So we arrived in Jerez with the weather forecast looking promising. Some rain on Thursday night, but all dry for practice and throughout the test. Friday night dawned sunny and bright as promised, but nobody had told the track. Though the surface was mostly dry, a few persistent damp patches remained throughout the day, stubbornly resisting all attempts to remove them. When I left the track at 10:30pm, circuit staff were still out with special blowers trying to dispel the remaining water.

It is always hard to decide which order to write about the manufacturers in after a MotoGP test. It is sometimes obvious, but at a test like Sepang, where there was a surprising amount going on, it is hard to rank the factories in order of importance or significance.

So leaving Honda and KTM until last should not be taken as indicative of anything other than authorial capriciousness. I had to pick an order. This is the order which I picked. It doesn't mean much. Because both Honda and KTM had a lot to test, though in slightly different areas. Honda continued work on their brand new RC213V prototype, which the public got its first glimpse of at Misano. KTM were focused more on the human side, with two rookies to get up to speed in the Tech3 team, and a new team manager brought in to smooth the running of the project.

Honda – Oh brave new world, that has such vehicles in it

The shock of the new is abating when it comes to Honda. We are slowly getting used to the idea that Honda has abandoned its previous design philosophy and has built a radically different machine. Yet the bike which appeared at Sepang had undergone yet more changes since its last outing at the Jerez test.

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.

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.