Equalizing the bike & rider weight in moto 2 but no other class? How come now & not last year? Will they do this to Motogp in the near future? Puzzling.
Joined Oct 2011
351 Posts | 25+
Europe
@cliché: yeah, widening the 'operating window' should be the way to go, not at last because it gives BS the chance to market it as a positive development.
This is already reality in Moto3. Well, why not this year? Why not in 2010? Why not already in the 250 era? Better late than never.
And as for MotoGP: maybe it's not as relevant because 250+hp can cope with some extra kilos a bit easier than <150/<60.
This is already reality in Moto3. Well, why not this year? Why not in 2010? Why not already in the 250 era? Better late than never.
And as for MotoGP: maybe it's not as relevant because 250+hp can cope with some extra kilos a bit easier than <150/<60.
Marquez has his championship now so every thing can be evened up. He was supposed to win it last year but messed it up. There was no way it could be allowed to happen again. Why do you think all the dangerous riding stuff was ignored until the championship was wrapped up and then bam a back of the grid penalty just to make it look fair.
Joined Oct 2012
3K Posts | 725+
Crab Key
2) was kinda how it used to be in 500s. Where making your tyres last the full race distance was one of the skills. The tyre's performance was exceeded by the engine's. Engine tech, engine rules (fuel) and TC making this unlikely now without hobbling the tyres.
My personal preference is to bring back competition in tyre performance (get Michelin and Dunlop back in), which would allow tuning to suit bike characteristics, which is how BS started their march up the ladder (before it was kicked over).
This is, for may reasons discussed here, highly unlikely. So realistic second choice is 2).
But then I come back to my original comment...which is a personal thing, but imagine being a tyre engineer and brewing up tyres that you know are poxy. Like being an aerodynamicist and sticking barn doors on your painstakingly developed streamliner.
Joined Apr 2011
900 Posts | 4+
somewhere else
Comes back to basics of racing. Open the rules.
1000cc
25litres
Whatever tyres
Weight minimum
Limited to nil T/C.
Runwhatyabrung
1000cc
25litres
Whatever tyres
Weight minimum
Limited to nil T/C.
Runwhatyabrung
Joined Aug 2008
6K Posts | 748+
Thailand
Because to not do so will end up with a lot of broken/dead bikers. Remember Group A rally cars?
Given unfettered class rules, you would have a race to produce a bike that was only just manageable for some riders, the rest would get hurt.
I don't want to see some guy ploughing into a gravel trap at 400km/h, this isn't the coliseum.
Given unfettered class rules, you would have a race to produce a bike that was only just manageable for some riders, the rest would get hurt.
I don't want to see some guy ploughing into a gravel trap at 400km/h, this isn't the coliseum.
Joined Apr 2011
900 Posts | 4+
somewhere else
You're spot on mate.
Somewhere between current MoroGP and Group A Suicycles is where we need to be.
Somewhere between current MoroGP and Group A Suicycles is where we need to be.
It was Group B rally cars, but Group B wasn't unlimited displacement. I don't think it is fair to assume that unlimited engine displacement and unlimited fuel would lead to excessive performance. Bikes have wheelie issues during acceleration. If the wheelbase is lengthened to handle the wheelie-effect, the bike no longer handles properly. The tires can also limit top speed, according the 990cc rumors. In the early 990cc days, it was alleged that the bikes would actually hit a terminal velocity b/c the force of the air pushing against the bike was more than the force provided through the contact patch. None of these performance circumstances exist in circuit racing automobiles.
If this is turning into a thread of what MotoGP should do, then I vote fuel-index.
Engine Displacement - 1000cc max, natural aspiration
Transmission - Manual Shift (current), no CVT
Dimensions - current height, width, etc
Weight - 150kg
Homologate 20L fuel tanks for everyone
Allocate seasonal fuel supplies to teams based upon historical success. Any manufacturer with a GP championship (any class) starts at 19L per race. Any manufacturer that has won a premier class GP in the last 10 seasons gets 18.5L per race. Each championship winning season during the last 10 years is a .1L reduction in fuel capacity.
Honda = 324L (18L x 18 rounds)
Yamaha = 322L (17.9L x 18 rounds)
Ducati = 331L (18.4L x 18 rounds)
Suzuki = 333L (18.5L x 18 rounds)
Each round, the team draws from its allocation, capped at 20L by the fuel tank capacity. The same allocation is drawn for each rider.
Let them spend cubic dollars. Unlimited cylinders. Free bore-stroke. Free gearing. Variable intake/exhaust. Unlimited electronics. Ceramic engine components. Unlimited valves per cylinder. The fuel index will stop the manufacturers from creating a competitive imbalance with torrential development spending.
Current MotoGP bikes? Legal
Current CRT bikes? Legal
800cc-era MotoGP bikes? Legal with 2kg ballast
990cc-era MotoGP bikes? Legal with 5kg ballast
Obviously, the fuel allocation sanctioning is difficult, but different sized fuel tanks could be homologated for each manufacturer at the beginning of the season. Not as fun, but same basic effect. Everyone gets what they want. Fuel limited sport. Lots of tech. Closer racing.
Engine Displacement - 1000cc max, natural aspiration
Transmission - Manual Shift (current), no CVT
Dimensions - current height, width, etc
Weight - 150kg
Homologate 20L fuel tanks for everyone
Allocate seasonal fuel supplies to teams based upon historical success. Any manufacturer with a GP championship (any class) starts at 19L per race. Any manufacturer that has won a premier class GP in the last 10 seasons gets 18.5L per race. Each championship winning season during the last 10 years is a .1L reduction in fuel capacity.
Honda = 324L (18L x 18 rounds)
Yamaha = 322L (17.9L x 18 rounds)
Ducati = 331L (18.4L x 18 rounds)
Suzuki = 333L (18.5L x 18 rounds)
Each round, the team draws from its allocation, capped at 20L by the fuel tank capacity. The same allocation is drawn for each rider.
Let them spend cubic dollars. Unlimited cylinders. Free bore-stroke. Free gearing. Variable intake/exhaust. Unlimited electronics. Ceramic engine components. Unlimited valves per cylinder. The fuel index will stop the manufacturers from creating a competitive imbalance with torrential development spending.
Current MotoGP bikes? Legal
Current CRT bikes? Legal
800cc-era MotoGP bikes? Legal with 2kg ballast
990cc-era MotoGP bikes? Legal with 5kg ballast
Obviously, the fuel allocation sanctioning is difficult, but different sized fuel tanks could be homologated for each manufacturer at the beginning of the season. Not as fun, but same basic effect. Everyone gets what they want. Fuel limited sport. Lots of tech. Closer racing.
Joined Jul 2008
2K Posts | 14+
Tweed Valley Australia
Lex, this means that the Honda Satellite team has to pay for the championship won by the factory rides of Stoner and Hayden The Yamaha Satellite team which has more recent success (comparatively) gets sanctioned on the basis of Rossi and Lorenzo's titles?
Are you drunk?
The Satellite teams will complain and want more fuel, then it will be a team or rider based affair, riders can change teams so rider based.Then every rider will have different amounts of fuel, then a favourite rider will run out in a critical race on the last corner.
This would be the big red flag for a satellite team owner that says WSBK for us.
Lexymandias, King of Kings, we look on his works ye mighty and despair
Doh! yes, it was Group B... and they didn't have unlimited displacement, but they did have unlimited boost.
From under 250HP to over 500HP in a few years. Too much, too fast, bad formula. Exactly what happens when you don't have rules limiting performance, you end up with an HP arms race.
The simpler the rules, the easier it is to compete affordably - that is the reason d'être of CRT. More fuel, easier to get good HP. The problem there is the engine allocation doesn't allow them to squeeze out the maximum power they could.
If weight is raised, spending a million dollars on exotic components is money wasted as you end up having to ballast the thing.
Reducing weight and fuel is what makes things cost megabucks. If they wanted good racing, the fuel limit needs to be a lot more than it is now. That would allow manufacturers that can make good power to get back in the game, without it favouring those that can only make their electronics take tiny sips. Fuel limits were what spurred the electronics race in the first place, I believe.
So, for simplicity, easy to follow, easy to catch out the cheaters: 1000cc 4T, any layout, 150kg or 220kg minimum bike+rider, conventional aspiration, no fly-by-wire, no GPS, no pit-to-bike trickery, anti wheelie/anti stall allowed, no TC, no fuel limit, one engine per race.
Tuning an engine to give its all just after crossing the finish line is, IMO, what it's all about. Honda reducing engines to five for a season only benefits Honda.
Im glad you touched on groub b,a friend of mine has an imaculate 6R4,he saved it before it got butchered in rally cross and has it on the road on limited mileage ill get some snaps,beautiful and still very quick car.
Satellite teams basically use the same bikes as the factory. Why shouldn't they have the same fuel allocation? Satellite teams use the same fuel capacity right now. You'll notice that I didn't require satellite teams to use the same allocation as the factory team at each race. IRTA can take extra fuel and push for an odd win or two. The situation is actually better for them than it is now.
I'd be drunk if I gave the satellite teams a season-long advantage over the companies who supply them with equipment.
Yeah, the formula encourages riders to bail, but that's by design, and it's not too different from the situation now. If the manufacturer puts in the work, the rider stays. If they slap ... around and their developments don't keep pace, the rider leaves. The only difference is that they don't have the luxury of sitting around until their competitors find a spare $100M. The fuel index is always coming after them, which increases competition and the pace of development. No offense to Doohan, but '94-'98 wasn't terribly entertaining, especially since Honda won 41 of 44 GPs during the last 3 years of Doohan's reign. Lack of competition between the manufacturers is not good for the sport or the competitors. Riders like Doohan shouldn't be marginalized b/c the manufacturer they rode for had an unbeatable bike.
The CRTs do get more fuel, and since displacement is unchanged and fuel capacity is reduced, the rev ceiling will come down. The engines will be more reliable, and better tuned.
Even when they add ballast, they continue finding places to save weight. Ballast is more dense and easier to place and adjust than functional components. F1 is the same way. The top teams once added nearly 100kg of ballast where they wanted it to be. This was the justification for KERS a.k.a. fuel-efficient ballast.
I'm not in love with the fuel limitations or the engine allocation rules, but the manufacturers have expressed an interest in continuing this kind of competition with one another. Engine allocation can be added to the index as well. 12 engines for 20L, 8 engines for 19L, 6 engines for under 19L (or some such schedule). I'd prefer displacement and rev limits, but the manufacturers refuse. Tough luck for the fans. The MSMA are idiots who can't write an interesting formula, but they make good motorcycles so you try to accommodate.
The purpose of the index is to keep the show in decent stead even if technological restriction are loosened. If the show deteriorates slightly, you hope the extra tech will lift the spectacle. An index also makes all bikes from previous formulas legal so Kasawsaki and Suzuki can rejoin immediately if they are inclined. BMW's 800cc triple is legal (now used by FB Corse). Fuel indexing at 20L and 1000cc also puts an end to the pointless bickering about the proper 'displacement base' for MotoGP. If Honda want to run a 600cc triple, nothing is stopping them. At 18L it might be a viable engine.
Joined Jul 2008
2K Posts | 14+
Tweed Valley Australia
Rider X uses more fuel and has a tail out riding style, he is on the same team as rider Y who doesn't but won the championship.
Rider X now has to change and tame his style to satisfy the rule change thus discriminating within a team and causing so much conformity the boringness chases people away or causes mass narcoleptic phenomena.
This is homogeneous and pasteurised. No GOATmilk in that lot. The dream of every bike battling in the last corner is ....., every time they try to create something like this it is just plain rooted. This raises engineering costs (to meet lower fuel quotas) through the roof and if you won 5 championships in a row wouldn't you consider taking 5 years off and getting your fuel quota back then having to compete on a very variable and disadvantageous playing field.
You are trying to punish the big spenders for being successful by making them spend more or leave. Does anyone really think that Honda or Yamaha will throw money at this when effectively ruled out of a championship by a minutia of regulations?
You are an insanely smart man, you have however outsmarted yourself this time.
Personally, I'm opposed to the restrictions on engine types. Turbos, superchargers, two strokes, diesels, we are missing out on all of these (some, such as turbos, are regarded as the way forward in the car industry and would provide genuinely useful R&D data for manufacturers) because the MSMA decided long ago that they only wanted to race naturally aspirated four strokes. I like the fuel limit, but only with a capacity limit, and I don't think it would be good to limit fuel in practice either.
These are complaints against the current 21L homogeneity. A fuel index doesn't have the same amount of fuel for all manufacturers, and it doesn't require every rider to adapt to an 81mm 1000cc machine. The seasonal allocation doesn't even require the same fuel capacity at every race.
The point of fuel-indexing is not close racing to the final corner, rather to stop the downward spiral of both the entertainment product and the technological product. The seasonal allocation makes the results unpredictable. The fuel index creates competition across a wide variety of participants, and since MotoGP equipment from all eras is legal, the barriers to entry are reduced. Technological variety and sophistication increase which satisfies the blue skies MSMA guru, while hedging the entertainment product against the possibility of mediocre racing.
The challenges are pretty clear. Measuring fuel allocation for each team at every race is complicated, though fuel tank homologation is possible. Teams would have to be fined if they exhausted their fuel capacity before year end. Qualifying with unlimited fuel and unlimited 1000cc engines could be precarious.
Joined Jul 2008
2K Posts | 14+
Tweed Valley Australia
With Marques in the series next year qualifying will be dangerous - even if it were on pushbikes.
Honda are building a V4 WSBK homologation machine for 2014. It will power CRT's as well.
They are still countenancing their threat to leave motogp as a factory (IMO). This would seal the deal again in my opinion.
Don't you think that with an engine rule, tyre rules, fuel rules and so on and so forth that some teams and I'll use satellite Yamaha and Honda again would just skip some rounds like Australia, Malaysia if they use a bit too much juice or blow an engine trying to make one run on fumes. Pick a track that a satellite team has crashed at two years previous. Give the rider a mystery flu (or to make goatee happy a milk allergy) and you save fuel and engines.
The point of the standard ECU was to slow down the spiralling cost of electronic wizardry - running a bike on less fuel will elevate that cost, which in numerous topics on here and cited articles is the biggest cost teams face now.
It also (and I could call to memory numerous articles) will suit jockey size in line riders like Pedrosa and Marques more than real life actual size riders like Rossi or Haystack. The spectacle of hanging the tail out with be limited to FP sessions and damp tracks.
I think the safety concerns whilst valid in some contexts have been overstated to achieve goals aimed at benefiting certain riders rather than true safety per se. Invoking the safety issue is a lot like the screeching female voice "what about the children".
You are paving the road to hell with nothing but the best of intentions good sir.
Honda are building a V4 WSBK homologation machine for 2014. It will power CRT's as well.
They are still countenancing their threat to leave motogp as a factory (IMO). This would seal the deal again in my opinion.
Don't you think that with an engine rule, tyre rules, fuel rules and so on and so forth that some teams and I'll use satellite Yamaha and Honda again would just skip some rounds like Australia, Malaysia if they use a bit too much juice or blow an engine trying to make one run on fumes. Pick a track that a satellite team has crashed at two years previous. Give the rider a mystery flu (or to make goatee happy a milk allergy) and you save fuel and engines.
The point of the standard ECU was to slow down the spiralling cost of electronic wizardry - running a bike on less fuel will elevate that cost, which in numerous topics on here and cited articles is the biggest cost teams face now.
It also (and I could call to memory numerous articles) will suit jockey size in line riders like Pedrosa and Marques more than real life actual size riders like Rossi or Haystack. The spectacle of hanging the tail out with be limited to FP sessions and damp tracks.
I think the safety concerns whilst valid in some contexts have been overstated to achieve goals aimed at benefiting certain riders rather than true safety per se. Invoking the safety issue is a lot like the screeching female voice "what about the children".
You are paving the road to hell with nothing but the best of intentions good sir.
