Today, and especially after the divorce between KTM and Johann Zarco, it seems fashionable to denigrate the Austrian firm, especially since the results remain mixed for the moment despite the few exploits of Pol Espargaró.
The purpose of this article, however, is not to defend the men in orange but simply to put things in context and, with “Spy Attitude” to back it up, to note that we are very far from remaining inactive in Mattighofen . Finally, the RC16 could well end up surprising us… For the better!
Today, KTM is therefore aligned with its 4° V90 engine set in Big Bang with reverse direction of rotation, just like Ducati and Honda.
But in the meantime, Honda, looking for power to counter the Ducati, did not hesitate to completely remodel the front part of its chassis to replace the air intake, which was divided into two tubes on each side of the motorcycle before returning laterally into the air box, by a model whose passage leads directly into it, even if it means bypassing the steering column (see here et leaves).
Can we directly link this provision to the obvious increase in power of the RC213V? We are not competent enough to answer, especially since the Tokyo firm took the opposite path in Moto3, then followed by KTM, but we can logically think that calling into question all the rigidity before a frame refined year after year, the delicate point of the Hondas and the KTMs, was not done only to have fewer parts to change in the event of a fall...
In any case, KTM has also set to work to use the same layout, even if it means, like Honda, having to move the steering damper, to the side with a referral to the Austrians, on the top directly from Honda. Unlike Honda, this went completely unnoticed for KTM, and it was only the return of the steering damper (rotary at KTM) that alerted us...
2018:
Today, and since Le Mans for the first time, the two official motorcycles as well as that of Miguel Oliveira have a direct air intake whose duct passes above the front cylinders to end in the air box.
If, at Honda, this required the total redesign of the front part of the machined aluminum chassis, it is equally likely that KTM had to do the same thing, even if its tubular frame necessarily offers more latitude to allow a conduit to pass through. around the steering column.
KTM having the same confidentiality policy as all the factories (shutter lowered as soon as the motorcycle enters the box, a trend which is increasing from year to year...), it has not been possible for us for the moment to really see the front part of a chassis which, in any case, evolves month after month as evidenced by the following point.
Alongside their design and calculation, KTM has always evolved its chassis empirically. We obviously remember the saw cuts and sleeves in the Moto3 frames at the start of the project, but exactly the same thing happened this year with the Moto2 and we were able to count up to 8 split tubes at the mini - discer (slots covered with adhesive tape) on certain chassis in the intermediate category of the Austrian firm! This possibility of fairly simple experiments being one of the advantages of the tubular chassis, the Austrians would be wrong to deprive themselves of it!
The process is not quite the same in MotoGP but we obviously also work on the different rigidities of the frame. Thus, we saw the appearance of additional supports intended to secure the frame to the rear cylinder head of the engine.
The RC16s were driven with these new bindings... then without the screws, to be able to compare the data and the pilots' feelings.
with:
Without :
This is not a first either, because the Yamaha M1s sometimes use the same “trick”, which consists of riding without one of the engine mounts, to give a little flexibility to the chassis.
At Yamaha, it is often only on the right side that a screw is removed, while at KTM we have gone so far as to do without it on both sides. However, it seems that today we have returned to the complete assembly, with all its screws...
Since we have already done so previously, we will not discuss here the different evolutions of the swinging arm, today full carbon, and we will keep for the last part of the triptych what is undoubtedly the most revealing of the advanced technological research currently carried out by KTM, although almost invisible...
To be continued…
