The big subject that drives currently discussions in Losail is the new system put in place by Ducati.
At the end of 2018, the men from Borgo Panigale tried the now famous “holeshot device”, which lowers the rear of the motorcycle when starting off to combat the tendency to wheelie, controlled from a rotary button on the triple clamp.
Aprilia followed (by lowering the front), and it is now Yamaha's turn to try this on the track, while Suzuki and KTM are working on the subject. As for Honda, Maverick Vinales said last night that he thought they already had this device.
But while everyone was working on this, Ducati was already taking the next step of being able to lower the entire bike in a straight line to gain top speed. We had seen some the order during the tests in Valencia and our hypotheses seem to be confirmed little by little.
Yesterday, the Ducati team director, Davide Tardozzi, said on the official MotoGP website: « We have new things. It is usual for Ducati to innovate. We are very proud to say that over the last five years at least, we have brought all the innovations we have on motorcycles to MotoGP. We think this something will work and we will use it in the race. That [motorcycle height adjustment] is something that people are talking about…It’s something that maybe could be on the bike. We are pretty sure we will have this advantage in the near future. We have other things in the pipeline and I guess we will make sure we have the bike of the future. »
A start of controversy immediately arose because it is clearly specified in the regulations that no electrical or electronic system can operate the suspensions and steering.
More Davide Tardozzi stated that " whatever it is, and as in the past, everything is in accordance with the regulations because any what we had in the past before everyone else has summer sharing with the technical director » Danny Aldridge to ensure its legality.
Even if a cable comes out of the control, we can a priori eliminate a fully mechanical system because it seems impossible to be able to raise the motorcycle by simply pushing on the lever from the ATV. On the other hand, nothing prevents the cable which comes out from being connected to a hydraulic system, and this is what we think we may have seen in Valencia !
To be continued in the coming days...
