Now there's a wing

Aprilia has the slowest top speed, but first to break into the 1'53"s at Losail FP2, all the advantages in the curves.
Interesting development.

Looks like Don14R in his dreams, or on the pipe, again...

Yeah Don14R will definitely have that wing option all covered.

Oilcanboyd said:

Looks like Don14R in his dreams, or on the pipe, again...

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Year after year Aprilia burns through cash in MotoGP and the best they can get is 7th, in a year where Honda is doing nothing. They should go back to WSB.

Interesting, 0.18 seconds a lap off the podium with a rider who has never won a GP? My pick is that Dovi could make it fly

I like Aprilia’s, my friends who have them absolutely love them after owning Ducati’s. Specifically handling, sound and quality, they are small bikes though.

Oilcanboyd said:

Looks like Don14R in his dreams, or on the pipe, again...

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Welcome back bro! You ever circle back to that other thread and drop some knowledge on us about an “o-ring” problem causing blow-by? Lol

Look at Kawasaki, they tried MotoGP for a few years, spent lots on money and the best they did was third place in one race. So they went back to WSB and with Rea, they’ve won the title many years now. Plus they pay Rea well to keep him happy. Aprilia should go back to WSB, they can’t seem to build a winning bike in MotoGP.

DCPanni said:

Look at Kawasaki, they tried MotoGP for a few years, spent lots on money and the best they did was third place in one race. So they went back to WSB and with Rea, they’ve won the title many years now. Plus they pay Rea well to keep him happy. Aprilia should go back to WSB, they can’t seem to build a winning bike in MotoGP.

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If Im not mistaken Kawasaki came back in 2002 after being away from MotoGP for 20 years. I think they stayed in MotoGP until 2008 before leaving again. Then again Suzuki left in 2011 and came back 2015. And look at them now. What amazes me is that many of the MotoGP and WSBK races use same tracks. I was reading an article (here is the link) about MotoGP and WSBKs using the same testing track in Misano. This was the 1st time that both race classes shared a track Are MotoGP and WSBK too close for comfort? | GRR . And for example Scott Reddings Ducati was a tenth slower than the KTM and 300th's of a second slower than the MotoGP Ducati. So Im surprised that Kawasaki and BMW arent competing in MotoGP. As well as surprised that Kawasaki can built a dominant WSBK but cant build a competitive MotoGP bike. I was also reading an article on the differences between both classes ( I knew many of the differences but never knew all of them). It was pretty informative and now I understand the differences more. What's the difference between MotoGP and the Superbike World Championship? I get it they cant make the WSBK's lighter because technically they are production bikes. However if they have now become so close in lap times with the weight difference for example how come Kawasaki make an impact with a MotoGP bike that is lighter? After all MotoGP bikes are prototype bikes. Just my 5 cents on this.

Something is not credible about these reports of MotoGP vs wsbk lap times.

MotoGP bikes are like 10 kilos lighter, have 10% more power, and probably have more sophisticated electronics - how can the lap times possibly be within hundredths of each other? Hell, the spread on a MotoGP podium is usually greater than that. I don’t accept that a wsbk could podium at a MotoGP event.

They typically cherry pick data for those comparisons. For example, I recall a year or two ago articles of how Rea on his Kawa was 7th in lap times in the middle of a bunch of GP bikes. What they didn't mention was how they were taking race lap times from the GP bikes and the Rea time was on qualifier tires. They also like to pick times during poor weather, reducing the spread. That's what happened when they said stock V4s were a second or two behind the Corse V4R, the track was damp so nobody was going particularly hard.

craig bush said:

Something is not credible about these reports of MotoGP vs wsbk lap times.

MotoGP bikes are like 10 kilos lighter, have 10% more power, and probably have more sophisticated electronics - how can the lap times possibly be within hundredths of each other? Hell, the spread on a MotoGP podium is usually greater than that. I don’t accept that a wsbk could podium at a MotoGP event.

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I posted the article after only reading the 1st portion of it. As I continued to read it said that many factory riders werent there and of course it is only testing. But about a year or 2 ago though, I did read an article which was discussing the lap time on both series using the same tracks. The race times on the tracks that both used for racing were extremely close. You can find those track times easily by googling them.

MaverickiB said:

They typically cherry pick data for those comparisons. For example, I recall a year or two ago articles of how Rea on his Kawa was 7th in lap times in the middle of a bunch of GP bikes. What they didn't mention was how they were taking race lap times from the GP bikes and the Rea time was on qualifier tires. They also like to pick times during poor weather, reducing the spread. That's what happened when they said stock V4s were a second or two behind the Corse V4R, the track was damp so nobody was going particularly hard.

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Yes youre right. One of the 2 links in my response has an article similar to what you are talking about. They talk about Rea's lap times. However they do mention the tires he was running.

MaverickiB said:

They typically cherry pick data for those comparisons. For example, I recall a year or two ago articles of how Rea on his Kawa was 7th in lap times in the middle of a bunch of GP bikes. What they didn't mention was how they were taking race lap times from the GP bikes and the Rea time was on qualifier tires. They also like to pick times during poor weather, reducing the spread. That's what happened when they said stock V4s were a second or two behind the Corse V4R, the track was damp so nobody was going particularly hard.

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Good points. That’s what I figured.

Also short tracks, all bikes make far too much power i.e. Wheelie and spinning, most of these bikes accelerate into 3rd-ish at very similar rates beyond that horsepower takes over thus making shorter tracks advantageous to wsbk.

Ya I was just thinking something similar - This is a super interesting discussion especially now that Dorna owns WSBK, even though wings are cool.
MotoGP, prototypes, pushing every design-engineering and economic limit, running in fantastic situations, F1 / MotoGP tracks, is how innovation happens. Awesome. (however retarded the marketing driven single tire rule is)
So, if WSBK is all about "production bikes," I think it could be more interesting to see them race some B level tracks instead of only F1/ MotoGP tracks to keep it closer to what production bikes are made to do. Somewhere it makes sense to make sport bikes for the average Joe riding the streets. I mean, F1 / MotoGP tracks are fantasy land. Sport bikes for the street need to deal with other things.
+1 on the horsepower obsession not being endlessly interesting. We can't go 200MPH on streets, unless you're in Florida ;P

Aero appears to be where are lot of free gains are to be made with Ducatis ground effect when at lean and the Aprilia moustache keeping the front glued down.

Paul G said:

Aero appears to be where are lot of free gains are to be made with Ducatis ground effect when at lean and the Aprilia moustache keeping the front glued down.

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It’s my impression that as aero becomes more important, racing goes to .....

I think the dominance of aero over other factors that impact racing (power, tires, driver skill, etc...) has ruined F1 by making close racing nearly impossible, and I suspect that if aero becomes more important in MotoGP, the quality of racing will decline there as well.

F1 does appear to be a parade, but if you think about it, this is just the end result of progress. In the beginning there were wild differences in motorsport as various technologies were new and untried. Now armed with so much knowledge and computer power its only natural that the differences have become so small. Unless there is a major tech discovery all gains are measured in microns. Get enough microns in various areas and youre golden.

Paul G said:

F1 does appear to be a parade, but if you think about it, this is just the end result of progress. In the beginning there were wild differences in motorsport as various technologies were new and untried. Now armed with so much knowledge and computer power its only natural that the differences have become so small. Unless there is a major tech discovery all gains are measured in microns. Get enough microns in various areas and youre golden.

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Smaller separation is the trend, but that’s not what I’m referencing and you can make a case that even as that occurs absolutely, the inverse is happening relatively, meaning that although the absolute time gaps between the field might be small, the relative gap is large (i.e. only one or two teams has any real chance of challenging for a championship).

What I’m referring to is the general observation that as aero becomes the predominant aspect of performance and design, the quality of racing declines. F1 is far more interesting when close racing and passing is possible. Why do you think they implemented a work around like DRS to circumvent aero? It’s an interesting irony actually - how has F1 attempted to facilitate more wheel to wheel racing? By circumventing aero dominance.

I’m concerned we’re seeing the beginning of the same mistake in MotoGP. Interestingly, what did post race analysis suggest as a possible explanation for why Ducati couldn’t secure a win in Qatar despite seeming so dominant? The strong head wind more prominently limiting Ducati top speed than other manufacturers. Why? Aero sensitivity.

I’m not so sure it was the headwind that helped the blue bike pull away on the straights...

It was prolly the monster energy fangs

Fast bikes have fangs : )