Sweet baby geezus! The Ducati has 3 sets of wings now?

3 sets of wings now?

Aero is a black hole moneypit that needs to be controlled, I think most of the track records have been broken in the last 2 years which is a lot to do with it. Problem is that the front tire cant handle the loads So now we have the issue of 15 riders with tire pressure warnings so the title might be decided on an throw of the dice, because they have to guess where the rider will be- out front or in the pack. Sepang was a joke, Jorge couldnt attack and Pecco got a tire warning. It's not racing, it's engineering.

The aero arms race doesn't irritate me as much as many of you. Top flight racing has always been about engineering - even back in the 80s and 90s, they were trying to push the envelope. Only difference was their material science and tech was primitive and we (humans in 2023) are much better at it today lol

What irritates me more is Ducati being allowed to flood the grid with bikes. Everyone is either already on a ducati or wants to be on one. After years and years of sucking, Ducati finally has a good bike and now they are flooding the grid with it. Manufacturers should be limited to one factory team and one satellite. Not 1 and 18.

Ya me too. I don't mind it - I'm actually intrigued by it. It's a bit of an ugly duckling at the moment. This configuration is kind of over the top.
It's simply a new era in moto. The new tech that is landing is gong to continue to be in acceleration and part of the sport has changed to need to adapt to it fast.
Who can ride with this engineering is the racing part. But for me racing is also building that cool .... that flies like that. That's definitely part of it.
If you really hate that, there's always the Tour De France. Everyone on retarded designed bikes all the same by regulation with minimum weight requirements, every rider fairly naked and teams are actually teams. That's a real race about the dudes. About the teams. Very little tech but they push what they can, even highly engineered food. The winner is the one who survives best over weeks of racing.

I don’t mind the wings on the MotoGP bikes. There should be a class of racing that’s ‘sorta’ all out like that. But I’m glad there’s WSBK where they have to race something at least in the realm of bikes we can buy.

I made the OG post because it’s just crazy looking. Of note, the 2nd place Pramac bike didn’t have the newest set of wings on it.

When aero becomes the dominant development path, the quality of racing declines. Happened in F1 and is happening now in MotoGP.

F1 rules changed to address the issue and Dorna is doing the same.

2nd place wasn’t Pramac, who also uses the fork mounted wings. Gresini (sp?) was second. Neither the factory or satellite teams always use the fork mounted wings. I think it’s just a setup option the teams can choose to use or not use. Aprillia introduced them early this year, Ducati followed.

I saw this the other day and thought that it is relevant to the aero discussion:

craig bush said:

When aero becomes the dominant development path, the quality of racing declines. Happened in F1 and is happening now in MotoGP.

F1 rules changed to address the issue and Dorna is doing the same.

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F1 went down the drain for a different reason

bunch of pricks started to knee down every grand prix, has become unbearable to watch this .... show

nothing to do with aerodynamics

Paul G said:

Aero is a black hole moneypit that needs to be controlled, I think most of the track records have been broken in the last 2 years which is a lot to do with it. Problem is that the front tire cant handle the loads So now we have the issue of 15 riders with tire pressure warnings so the title might be decided on an throw of the dice, because they have to guess where the rider will be- out front or in the pack. Sepang was a joke, Jorge couldnt attack and Pecco got a tire warning. It's not racing, it's engineering.

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Front tyre pressure increases are a combination of aero and ride height devices. Still Engineering though.
Can't see ride height devices making it onto road legal bikes, but more aero will (although not to the extremes of motogp hopefully).

Are ride height devices legal in any other racing series?

cl955 said:

Front tyre pressure increases are a combination of aero and ride height devices. Still Engineering though.
Can't see ride height devices making it onto road legal bikes, but more aero will (although not to the extremes of motogp hopefully).

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You don’t see road cars with F1 aero, you don’t even see track day or club racing cars with F1 Aero….I suspect it will be like that with bikes.

Pretty interesting article

panibadboy said:

F1 went down the drain for a different reason

bunch of pricks started to knee down every grand prix, has become unbearable to watch this .... show

nothing to do with aerodynamics

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So they completely redesigned the cars to address an issue that had nothing to do with car design?

Steven31371 said:

You don’t see road cars with F1 aero, you don’t even see track day or club racing cars with F1 Aero….I suspect it will be like that with bikes.

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Who cares what's available on road. Owning V4R for a road use is the peak of insanity.

Otherwise MotoricambiXP or Flamingocorse or any Chinese GFK pusher will be happy to print you any type of fairings with any type of aerodynamic elements for a track.

No idea what you're bragging here about guys.

If the aero becomes completely computer driven with telescopic wings will the tire guys be able to hang?

Shark just produced an active aero helmet

Optimally with aero in mind MotoGP bikes would look drastically different, they would be bigger, have a fairing that enveloped the front wheel, side mounted radiators and the list goes on. It seems though that they’re trying to keep some conventionality or want to maintain an incremental progression. It’s kinda stupid right now because MotoGP bikes can be a lot faster with the current tech, just like F1 cars can be a lot faster if they weren’t open wheeled and open canopied.

I think this is silly since both classes are portrayed as the ultimate form of 2 and 4 wheeled road racing vehicles when in fact they can be a lot faster.

An unrestricted LMP car can lap faster than an F1 car.

MotoGP is entertaining, WSBK is where it’s at!

An interesting one was Binder breaking the Motegi lap record the other week that had stood for 8 years from Lorenzo on the Yamaha in 2015. Crutchlow suggested to Yamaha that maybe they should be giving other aspects of the bike more development attention over aero like they are currently given this fact. There was sfa aero back then. Hard to argue that.

What's interesting is that when you step back MotoGP is in essence just a show i.e entertainment. Gladiatorial, dangerous and the pinnacle of going fast on a track with 2 wheels but it's just a show owned by a for profit business with the manufacturers competing for buyers attention etc. When you get that picture rather then get sucked along by the rivalries, the characters, the achievements etc then you have to ask who the "product" is for, who is buying it and what happens when people turn off. Plenty of die hards will never give up but I know a lot of people who stopped following it when Vale retired, and if it remains processional with stupid tire rules and the bikes dont let aliens emerge but are instead so far over in the engineers side of the box then I will give up too. Why? Because it's as boring as ...., let's get real here we have Mir, Quartararo, Marquez with 10 world championships between them, and they are dead donkey last. This is with bikes that can form a complete starting grid within one or two seconds. Sepang was the most boring ........ race of them all so far, why would anyone renew a pretty expensive MotoGP subscription to watch that dull parade? The only thing that keeps me interested is MM getting on a Ducati lol!

Paul G said:

why would anyone renew a pretty expensive MotoGP subscription to watch that dull parade?

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I watch it free when at Mugello. they have TVs with Italian TV showing free MotoGP