At the end of last season, we discovered the partnership established between Ducati and MegaRide, a young Neapolitan Italian company headed by Flavio Farroni, the agreement aiming to develop software for predicting the wear of Michelin MotoGP tires in order to help the Borgo Panigale team to best choose the tires that would equip the GPs 18 of Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso at each Grand Prix.
A few months later, given the success experienced by the Reds, the journalist Carlos Domínguez interviewed for the Spanish site Motorcycling the CEO of the transalpine company to try to find out what the progress of the work was, and if MegaRide had played a role in the latest results of the official Ducati riders.
Let us first recall that Andrea Dovizioso has often brought up the subject of tires, usually to declare that his bike fits them imperfectly. But what does Flavio Farroni seem to think about it, through this interview?
First of all, let us emphasize, the Italian engineer's responses remain quite vague and evasive, under the grounds of confidentiality of his contracts and his work. We can regret it, but we can also understand it…
However, here are some of the most interesting extracts…
Flavio Farroni: ” Our own theses and doctoral thesis projects have focused for years on the development of innovative methodologies, tools and experimental characterization procedures capable of rendering the behavior of an element as complex as a tire, of understanding it and simulate it. Many companies and racing teams, from Formula 1 down, have requested specific actions to improve their knowledge and performance, and Ducati has been one of them.”
What were or are Ducati's needs?
”I can't be very specific, but the main demand in motorsport is generally the ability to reproduce tire thermodynamics, grip and wear behavior in real-time simulation environments and provide their designers and engineers relatively easy-to-use tools to analyze vehicle information, highlighting the physical effects involved in its performance.”
Given the success, have other manufacturers come forward?
“It is happening, but an exclusive contract keeps us, proudly, linked to Ducati, also for next season.”
Does this contract prohibit collaboration with other teams?
“I’m afraid I can’t be as specific about the details of our contract.”
When it comes to predicting tire wear in real time, what exactly do you mean? Can you say how the grip will deteriorate in the next two laps?
” The fundamental aspect of a predictive and physical model is adaptation to continuous changes in the environment and its conditions. This involves optimal tire management during racing, but also monitoring the roughness of the asphalt and estimating grip in real time. The main demand is the reproduction of the thermodynamics of rubberouch “.
You mentioned earlier that you make specific versions to make it easier for engineers to work with your applications: does Ducati need the presence of MegaRide workers on circuits like Michelin or Öhlins?
” These details are confidential but our philosophy, both in the academic world and in MegaRide collaborations, is based on the possibility of providing our partners with all the results that come from our facilities for experiments such as our TireLab and all our experience as a scientific group and as professors or engineers who follow the development of the activity both on site and on the track”.
To what extent do you think you have helped Ducati this season?
” Well, companies, drivers and teams are finally realizing that optimizing the phenomena that occur in the small area between rubber and asphalt is crucial for vehicle development and tuning. We hope to have made a significant contribution to the great Ducati season, but the results are mainly due to the work of the engineers at Borgo Panigale, and in particular those of the dynamics and vehicle simulation team, who designed this great machine.”
When you analyze the different Michelin compounds, is there anything special that catches your eye?
”Such information is highly confidential and knowledge of the same brand makes the difference in the development strategy. The viscoelasticity of the compounds, the glass transitions and the clear definition of the thermal range in which the tire must operate, which affects the phenomenon of degradation and heating, form the holy grail of optimization.
After these deliberately evasive answers from Flavio Farroni, it remains difficult to judge what MegaRide's real contribution to Ducati is.
What is certain is that we work hard, with the help of sensors and electronics (located in the famous “Salad Box”, placed under the saddle of the Ducati?).
However, it is obvious that the job is not made easy by the latest Michelin rear tires, which have somewhat consigned to oblivion ideas from the past, such as, for example, “a soft tire wears faster than a hard one and must be used when it is cold”.
Principles which have remained true for decades, but which have given way this year to a state of affairs postponed by Piero Taramasso: ” the soft tire is like gelatin. You feel the extra grip as it moves. Lorenzo and Johann Zarco are gentle and gentle with the bike. If the setting is right, they can extract the extra grip from the tender. If it moves too much, we can switch to medium. The medium has less grip but is supposed to be more consistent. If the medium is still moving, you can switch to the hard, which is supposed to give you more stability. Aggressive drivers like Márquez and Cal Crutchlow can use the hard tire. When the bike is stable, they feel more comfortable and can attack more.”
This grip/stability ratio therefore seems to become the main choice criterion for MotoGP riders and the tendency is to no longer really talk about soft tires which cannot finish the race.
Under these conditions, the contribution of MegaRide's predictions undoubtedly loses some of its appeal. Furthermore, what is true for automobiles, F1 or others, is not true for motorcycles: there is no question of a racing strategy based on real-time data obtained by sensors, since telemetry is prohibited in MotoGP.
