Ducati goes Open

[thought]

ain't too bad unless you consider a crashfest rain ridden race where the field gets decimated and the winner by more default than anything else ends up being one of those Open machines.....I think there was a rain race at LeMans a few years ago where there were like 6 different race leaders and all because of attrition more than anything else....thgat comes to me as a perfect kind of example...

From this article:

http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/motogp/motogp-intermediate-factory-2-category-rule-change/#more-58210

"It is also unclear whether weather conditions will be taken into account when assessing results. When the engine allocation rules were first brought in, an exception was made for factories which had not had a dry win, the same logic could be applied here."

If that's in there then the wet race attrition factor should be mitigated imo.  And it seems that there is precedent for that kind of rule.

[Triple J]

The main problem here is that Dorna changed a major portion of the rules 2 weeks before the 1st race of the season, and 1 day before the last official test. That is unbelievable, especially at this level!

Everyone knew how the Open and Factory rules worked, including Honda. The actual rules don't sound all that bad really...lose 1.5L of fuel and 3 engines if you do well...not the end of the world I guess, and Ducati can still develop. Punishing the Open teams for doing well is an odd concept though.

Like I said...if they want a spec ecu, nut up and make it a rule. Give the teams plenty of notice.

[thought]

To me... it's more about the diplomacy aspect and I actually would have done the same as Dorna did in retrospect.

In terms of cost/benefit analysis, I see this helping Dorna's plans more than anything else.  If they just took the hard line and forced rules down the factories throats there would be a pretty high chance that Dorna would burn a whole crapload of bridges it cant afford to burn yet.  Honda has left racing series before (F1) so it's not unimaginable that they would again.  And Honda has a pretty long memory for slights.

So on the benefits for Dorna we see:
1. Honda is a little less butt hurt over the Open bikes.
2. Aleix, who is everyone's underdog hero right now, gets as close to a factory bike as he can get.
3. Yamaha gets to play around in the Open class and get a head start on development.
4. Ducati gets a chance to make a bike that actually works
5. The jpn factories will probably be a lot more open about working with MM on the new ecu when they next get invited to participate in it's development. Reason being that they are just going to handicap themselves if they dont have a say in it's development.
6. Dorna manages to maintain relations with the factories and save face for them.  Important as this a small group of people that will have to deal with each other for years and hurting those relationships will affect future negotiations.

On the cost side:
1. internet flames

Sure, this isnt the balls out hard core decisions we would have loved to see... but it's actually a pretty solid step in the right direction.  Because, in the end, we're still going to probably see what we want to see from the racing this year.  More competitive bikes duking it out and better races.

[zooom]

let me play this thought out into the open for a moment....

20 liters of fuel for a factory bike....on a longer track like say Aragon for example, where they are running low on fuel and "throttle back" the consumption to last the race, that means they lose speed and therefore the open bikes have the ability to catch up and possibly place while factory bikes run out of fuel and sputter to a halt....


not that far out of the realm of reality here really.....chew on that for a moment.....

[thought]

let me play this thought out into the open for a moment....

20 liters of fuel for a factory bike....on a longer track like say Aragon for example, where they are running low on fuel and "throttle back" the consumption to last the race, that means they lose speed and therefore the open bikes have the ability to catch up and possibly place while factory bikes run out of fuel and sputter to a halt....


not that far out of the realm of reality here really.....chew on that for a moment.....

Only really seems to be an issue for Yamaha right now I think.  Honda doesnt have any fuel issues and I've never seen Duc really have any either.

I read somewhere that it might be because of the I4 vs V4 engine configuration and how the I4 is harder to cool which makes them have to run it richer.

[zooom]

Only really seems to be an issue for Yamaha right now I think.  Honda doesnt have any fuel issues and I've never seen Duc really have any either.

I read somewhere that it might be because of the I4 vs V4 engine configuration and how the I4 is harder to cool which makes them have to run it richer.

OKAY...so how many factory bikes are there on the grid right now?....and how many of them are at the sharp edge of the front....so if the 2 factory Yammy's run out of fuel ( and the 2 Tech3 bikes since they are practically the same spec)...you then give an open door to Aleix Espargaro to run that freight train right past them into a podium spot....and now Aleix has 9 motors and 22.5 ltrs of fuel whole Colin keepos the extra fuel and motors ( or do both Forward Yammys suffer that fate since they are on the same team?)

[MadDuck]

Only really seems to be an issue for Yamaha right now I think.  Honda doesnt have any fuel issues and I've never seen Duc really have any either.

I read somewhere that it might be because of the I4 vs V4 engine configuration and how the I4 is harder to cool which makes them have to run it richer.

Why would an I4 be harder to cool than a V4?  They are all liquid cooled so configuration alone shouldn't matter. The size of the cooling jackets/ports & radiator area would seem to have more effect to me. Dunno?

[Speeddog]

Why would an I4 be harder to cool than a V4?  They are all liquid cooled so configuration alone shouldn't matter. The size of the cooling jackets/ports & radiator area would seem to have more effect to me. Dunno?

I'm pretty sure that to get the motor narrow enough on the I4 they've siamesed all the bores, so no water passes between the cylinders.

V4 isn't dimensionally restricted in that direction, so likely full jackets.

But Y and H continue to refuse to send me blueprints, so that's only based on suspicion and internet innuendo.

[thought]

OKAY...so how many factory bikes are there on the grid right now?....and how many of them are at the sharp edge of the front....so if the 2 factory Yammy's run out of fuel ( and the 2 Tech3 bikes since they are practically the same spec)...you then give an open door to Aleix Espargaro to run that freight train right past them into a podium spot....and now Aleix has 9 motors and 22.5 ltrs of fuel whole Colin keepos the extra fuel and motors ( or do both Forward Yammys suffer that fate since they are on the same team?)

Didnt quite get the last bit of your post (autocorrect I'm guessing) but I see this as what Dorna wants to happen.  Will make the move to Factory 2/Open bikes more appealing to Yamaha.  And, according to the rules and if Yam had the extra cash, they could pop open Aleix's bike's engines and start to develop them over the course of the year like Ducati.  Which leaves Honda as the only factory left that really benefits from having a full factory spec team... Yamaha might make the decision that running a factory 2 team with a spec ECU they are helping to develop along with the associated benefits is better than running a full factory one.  And if Factory2 options start to beat out Hondas... pretty sure Honda would make the decision to go that route too.  Same way they moved to a V2 in WSBK just to win.

And I wouldnt say that Aleix would have a open door to the front, even if the Yams run out of fuel, Aleix will still have to deal with the satellite Hondas... If the factory/satt yam's nose dive, I think we'd just see a Honda podium,  podium order probably being something like MM, Pedrosa, Bradl, Bautista.

In the end,  with this new open/factory2 rulebook, it seems that this is the choice that Dorna is giving the factories.  Would you prefer to spend all your money on developing your own ECU or would you prefer spending all your money developing your engine over the course of the year?

And for the I4 cooling, it's as Speeddog said.  Just internet speculation but makes a bit of sense considering the V4 bikes have no issues but the I4 bike does.  But of course it's to be taken with a grain of salt as the internet was pretty wrong about the 90 degree V4 Ducati was running was the issue too.

[ducpainter]

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2014/Factory+2+explained+by+Javier+Alonso
[cough]bullshit[cough]

[Triple J]

But of course it's to be taken with a grain of salt as the internet was pretty wrong about the 90 degree V4 Ducati was running was the issue too.

Only kind of wrong. Ducati's V4 is longer than Hondas, which still could be the problem.

[gm2]

most of this thread TLDR; so i may be repeating something

so honda was upset when ducati chose Open because that was not in the spirit of Open as they understood it.  might have been technically ok, but not how they understood it was supposed to work. 

the real issue came up when honda discovered that the 'spec' Open software was in fact ducati's 2013 factory software.  as in, literally.

sure, maybe ducati hands that package over to any Open team so it can be 'continuously developed' and shared by all.  but the fact is that suddenly ducati got more fuel, softer tires, more than 2x the engines, the ability to develop during the season, and the exact same electronics package they were running in november.  sepang 2, suddenly dovi is .3 off the front.  Honda cries bullshit, says we left once, we'll do it again.

hence this subsequent factory 2 nonsense.

i'm really starting to support the f1 model, including Phone Home.  let's get back to racing.

[derby]

i'm really starting to support the f1 model, including Phone Home.  let's get back to racing.

 

[duccarlos]

From this article:

http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/motogp/motogp-intermediate-factory-2-category-rule-change/#more-58210

"It is also unclear whether weather conditions will be taken into account when assessing results. When the engine allocation rules were first brought in, an exception was made for factories which had not had a dry win, the same logic could be applied here."

If that's in there then the wet race attrition factor should be mitigated imo.  And it seems that there is precedent for that kind of rule.

If you read the above article, it states that all manufacturers were given the chance to help improve the MM ECU. Both Honda and Yamaha declined. Honda is now butt hurt because they did not see this move coming? It's not that Ducati made a shady deal with MM. In the end, HRC does provide a ton to MotoGP, more than any other manufacturer. Dorna can't afford for them to pull out like they did in F1.

[triangleforge]

And if the pot weren't stirred enough yet, there's this:

http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/201006/1/ducati-to-sell-open-bikes.html

I can hardly wait for the season to start; if pre-season has been any indication, there's going to be a soap opera every single weekend, and some of the least-predictable racing we've seen in a long time.