In Qatar, at the start of the season, it is promised that Ducati will have a lot to do with its five other MotoGP colleagues who will stand in front of it so that the leveling corrector of the front of the bike is abandoned. His European peers, Aprilia via Romano Albesiano and KTM by Francesco Guidotti, whom he knows well since the Pramac epic, announced that in Losail, the debates within the MSMA, the manufacturers' association, should be animated on the subject. Preliminaries that the sporting director of the red tunics Paolo Ciabatti joined with his arguments And indeed, things should heat up in Doha…
This 2022 MotoGP season is expected to be the most intense in history, and firstly because it is certain given the calendar that it will be the longest. On the track, the battle will be merciless given the gaps observed during the off-season, which have narrowed even further compared to a year 2021 when the peloton was already together in a pocket handkerchief.
But there will also be political tension and that is Ducati who branded this sensitive area with a hot iron. By bringing onto the track a front level corrector for its already formidable GP22, the noses of its other manufacturers stood up as the Desmosedici lowered itself in the turns. It will be recalled that this system, mechanically operated by the pilot, is understood to have a complexity matched only by its development cost. A system also reported as archaic since mass production uses electronics for this type of operation. An advance that is legally prohibited in MotoGP.
For Ducati this system is legal and cost it money
So this tip “ from the stone age » – dixit KTM – will never find one day on a model in a dealership, whichAprilia remarked. So why launch a development budget in what will always be “ a waste of time ", always according to KTM ?
The problem is that this leveling correction is legal and to decide that something at the MSMA requires unanimity... The specter of the rear deflector crisis which had brought Ducati to explain himself in court, thus giving a sad image of the paddock, comes back to hover over MotoGP. And all the more so since at Ducati, we apparently intend to stay straight in our boots.
The sports director Paolo ciabatti thus commented on the desert storm which is coming to the Qatar : " Ducati innovates while remaining within the regulations, I think there is nothing else to add » we read on Moto.it « Any legal battle over its accuracy will depend on other manufacturers. We are obviously not very happy with this situation. We developed systems that required time and investment from the company ". We are there. Following the next number…
