Yooperbikemike's 2014 MotoGP Thread

So Ducati can stay a factory option since they did not win a race and be allowed the 12 engines they can still improve upon withe 24liters of fuel?

The 2014 season isn't over yet. It's *possible* that Ducati could muster the combination of win/podiums to put them in the restricted category. You can argue all you want about how likely that is, but there you are...

Do they get to keep their software and improve upon that too? If so, it looks like it would be nice to be on a Ducati for at least the first part of the season. Seems they might run into the restriction area (with podiums) pretty quickly if they get 12 motors, their ECU, 24 liters of fuel, AND the open class soft tires! At least it will be interesting.

How many motors has Ducati been forced to use the last few years? Wasn't it six? I'm sure they can plan on only using 9 and be perfectly safe.

http://motomatters.com/news/2014/03/18/factory_2_rules_adopted_for_2014_spec_so.html

It appears to me havin extra fuel,more engines and softer tires...don't mean a hill of beanz if'n ya can't steer the damn thing...:eek1

But that number could dwindle if in-season Ducati modifications necessitate moving engine mounting points.

Imagine that by mid-season frame modifications require that engines 8 and 9 be modified also. Then- due to the newest mods, the bikes improve (miracles do happen) and Ducati wins a race. Goodbye engines 10, 11 & 12.

Now what? Go back to the older (slower) engines and frames?

Horna is a mess.

Emphasis added, but if I'm reading this correctly, the latest decision means that engine allocation would not be affected in the current year, but fuel and tire allocations would be.

Any win this season other than by MM, VR, DP, JLo, BS, PE, SB, AB is not legitimate.

The latest rules (yesterday? today? an hour ago?) make Whackbat look easy to understand.

Maybe that's the way to look at it; another way is Ducati seeing a grossly mislabeled price tag and insisting on paying that price ("this Rolex says $50 and that's what I intend to pay!").

I think any race team would do the same if they were in the same position. Anything within the rules to gain an advantage. I think the thing that people object to is the rules changing after the fact.

It's messy I agree. But if Crutchlow or Dovi won the championship, there'd be greater objections, and not just from fans. It would be chalked up to fuel and tire advantages, not rider or engineering skill.

I just hope Ezpeleta doesn't blink before 2016 and really does bring MotoGP back to a single class again. Question is whether Honda will leave if they have to run a control ECU.

If you can exploit the rules to your advantage that *is* superior engineering. But Honda sometimes talks about the spirit of the rules so I guess that's not everybody's idea of fair play.

There was a guy who raced in SoCal in the 70s. Every one *knew* he was building cheater motors. But tear down after tear down proved fruitless. I never found out what he was doing but I had to give him credit for figuring out a way to get an extra 5% HP on every one.

The ECU does seem to be the key to the whole thing. If the only casualty from the spec ECU rule was honda it wouldn't really bother me.

I dunno. I think Ducati had a last-minute sex change operation to compete in a category they wouldn't otherwise have been able to. That didn't suddenly make them better athletes (or engineers). Dorna reserves the right to keep the series from devolving into a complete farce (which is worse than a partial farce).

All in all, it seems like a good compromise. Ducati had plainly lost their way, and under the previous rule had little to no prospects of catching up (no testing). This provides them with an on-ramp to competitive Factory status while helping the truly Open teams to keep their sponsors on-board by making it explicit that they are less technologically advanced than Ducati. Remember, some of the objections to Ducati as Open were coming from Open teams, not just Honda.

Everyone has 2 years to get their stuff in a bundle, and prepare for the spec ECU. And no whining. I hope it encourages Suzuki and Aprilia to get stuck in. Personally, I still pine for Team Green, but you can't have it all!

I tend to agree. I think it comes down to cultures. In something like Circle track, anything you can get away with is legal. MotoGP not so much.

I've been a race fan for 40+ years. I may be waxing nostalgic but what ever happened to the old days where anything/everything goes, full factory bikes, any engine spec, ECU, tires, fuel, balls out anything goes racing? If you don't have it, you lose and fix it. All these restrictions, penalties, and panty knots by Honda are just castrating what was great about this sport. Like Pecha, I wish I hadn't already paid my 95 euros (or whatever it was) for this year's MotoGP subscription.

Are there any restrictions for the number or timing of Dorna rule changes that can occur?

I think the rule changes will help Ducati catch up and yet keep them from dominating. I just hope it makes for good racing and I'm looking forward to the season.

Do you enjoy seeing one team dominate, race after race, year after year? Because that's what you are talking about. I'd bet you would stop paying for that too. If you haven't noticed, absent "rules", the guy with the most money always wins. Under the pressure of Honda budgets, manufacturers and teams have steadily dropped out of the premier class. What rock were you under for the last half of all those years?