2024 silly season!

JFM01 · Oct 16, 2023

I don't see him leave his current team right now but Oliveira to Repsol Honda could be a huge deal for both parties if Honda can get their act together.
I often forget that Oliveira is a five-time premier class winner. This guy could definitely be a regular podium finisher on the right material.

warthog1 · Oct 16, 2023

I don't see Honda having the right material until the regulations change unfortunately.

mikesbytes · Oct 17, 2023

Time to play "guess who gets which bike next year" so this is my guess;
1. HRC pay RNF a tidy sum of money to get Olivera (Zarco stays with LCR, ie not promoted to HRC)
2. RNF replace Olivera with Di Giannantonio

That's why its called silly season...

#22 · Oct 17, 2023

mikesbytes said:
Time to play "guess who gets which bike next year" so this is my guess;
1. HRC pay RNF a tidy sum of money to get Olivera (Zarco stays with LCR, ie not promoted to HRC)
2. RNF replace Olivera with Di Giannantonio

That's why its called silly season...

That's actually a sensible season to me, if you want to go silly. Miguel stays at RNF with the promise of a factory ride in 2025 and to Repsol goes.....

DavidSim · Oct 17, 2023

warthog1 said:
I don't see Honda having the right material until the regulations change unfortunately.

Honda has the resources to do what needs to be done, they need a few strategic hires and things could change faster than we think.

I recall when Rossi and crew went to Yamaha on a bike with many challenges, they had things corrected in a matter of days after they showed up and the rest is history !

#22 · Oct 17, 2023

DavidSim said:
Honda has the resources to do what needs to be done, they need a few strategic hires and things could change faster than we think.

The problem is not resources, it is Honda not listening to riders. Rossi said it, Casey said it and now Marc's actions also say it.

They won't hire European engineers or adopt any European working practices. 'Honda make good bikes and if not, we will do it the Honda way' They prefer to lose their most successful rider rather than diverge from the Honda way. They won't be making any stategic hires but at some point, they will come good.

The fact Yamaha are in the same position shows you it is a cutlure thing at both companies.

DavidSim said:
I recall when Rossi and crew went to Yamaha on a bike with many challenges, they had things corrected in a matter of days after they showed up and the rest is history !

That is not totally fair to say. Yamaha already had a bike that was improving and I believe they debuted the flat plane crank engine in 2003. The issue was, they were throwing many concepts at the bike and not focusing on one. Rossi tried I think 5 different engine configs at his first test and then said he wanted to go with the big bang concept, which they then focused on solely. Rossi and Burgess famously said they would get the Ducati fixed in 80 seconds, but we know how that went.

The 2003/2004 Yamaha was certainly nowhere near as bad as the 2023 Honda. The fact Honda didn't move heaven & earth to hire any outside talent, nor get a 2024 prototype more than just a 2023 bike with some tweaks, shows that they are not going to be competitive for a couple of years, at least.

I say that sadly, as a Honda fan.

Keshav · Oct 17, 2023

Nationalistic pride. Plain and simple. 100 years ago, HRC would have told Marquez to commit Hara Kiri for failing them. Now he's a ronin.

MichaelBolton · Oct 17, 2023

#22 said:
The fact Honda didn't move heaven & earth to hire any outside talent

They offered a blank check to Dall'Igna but he declined, much like Newey constantly rejecting more lucrative contracts. Freedom beats money, and the Japanese culture is a tough nut to crack.

mikesbytes · Oct 17, 2023

MichaelBolton said:
They offered a blank check to Dall'Igna but he declined, much like Newey constantly rejecting more lucrative contracts. Freedom beats money, and the Japanese culture is a tough nut to crack.

He refused to shave his monobrow

#22 · Oct 17, 2023

Everytime my wife sees it she says "dude, there is supposed to be two"

michaelm · Oct 17, 2023

#22 said:
The problem is not resources, it is Honda not listening to riders. Rossi said it, Casey said it and now Marc's actions also say it.

They won't hire European engineers or adopt any European working practices. 'Honda make good bikes and if not, we will do it the Honda way' They prefer to lose their most successful rider rather than diverge from the Honda way. They won't be making any stategic hires but at some point, they will come good.

The fact Yamaha are in the same position shows you it is a cutlure thing at both companies.

That is not totally fair to say. Yamaha already had a bike that was improving and I believe they debuted the flat plane crank engine in 2003. The issue was, they were throwing many concepts at the bike and not focusing on one. Rossi tried I think 5 different engine configs at his first test and then said he wanted to go with the big bang concept, which they then focused on solely. Rossi and Burgess famously said they would get the Ducati fixed in 80 seconds, but we know how that went.

The 2003/2004 Yamaha was certainly nowhere near as bad as the 2023 Honda. The fact Honda didn't move heaven & earth to hire any outside talent, nor get a 2024 prototype more than just a 2023 bike with some tweaks, shows that they are not going to be competitive for a couple of years, at least.

I say that sadly, as a Honda fan.

They need a different engine design to go with the control ECU, Nakamoto knew the engine needed the bespoke software around which the engine was designed and foresaw this when the control ECU was mooted, and as Lex has said previously they are probably also not keen on going all out with aero etc which is irrelevant to their road bikes in the dying days of this formula. They also had a few external pressures on their resources like their F1 effort and a pandemic. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Ducati got the benefit of concessions followed by a freeze either imo.

I would take trying to sign Dall’Igna with a blank cheque as an indication they were prepared to go all out to keep MM however, and maybe even design a new engine, something he has reasonable form for being capable of doing.

And what you say about Yamaha in 2003 and 2004 fits with my recollection as well, Yamaha didn’t even have an engine designed from the ground up to suit the 990 formula at the start of that formula.

warthog1 · Oct 17, 2023

I have also read that the current Honda engine was designed around having their ecu control it.
Are they going to chuck the funds into a new motor to get them through 24,25 and 26? They are also behind on ride height control and aero.

Change MotoGP’s tech rules? 'You may end up with the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve'

Many fans think MotoGP’s technical rules need changing, so Mat Oxley sat down with Dorna management to discuss lack of overtaking, downforce aero, ride-height devices, concessions, safety and much more

www.motorsportmagazine.com

Wise choice for Marc to get out it seems to me. Conversely it doesn't seem a wise move to jump onto it if you plan on being at the front consistently.

mikesbytes · Oct 17, 2023

Honda has had sufficient time to adjust to the control ECU. I'm not buying that one

warthog1 · Oct 17, 2023

mikesbytes said:
Honda has had sufficient time to adjust to the control ECU. I'm not buying that one

The speculation is they need a new engine to do so, the control ecu cannot do what their ecu did. Their engine was designed to be smoothed by their ecu, the current ecu cannot is my understanding.

Barbedwirebikerr · Oct 18, 2023

Yes

warthog1 said:
The speculation is they need a new engine to do so, the control ecu cannot do what their ecu did. Their engine was designed to be smoothed by their ecu, the current ecu cannot is my understanding.

This. The engine built is a monster and could only be made usable with bespoke electronics that were congruent with the build. HRC lost most because there engine was/is brutal.

From Michaelm. "It shouldn’t be forgotten that Ducati got the benefit of concessions followed by a freeze either imo."

This is how Ducati have found themselves a generation ahead of the competition.

Playing keep up is hard if your nearly there, playing catch up, with current testing restrictions is nigh on impossible.

JFM01 · Oct 18, 2023

Keshav said:
Nationalistic pride. Plain and simple. 100 years ago, HRC would have told Marquez to commit Hara Kiri for failing them. Now he's a ronin.

Works for Ducati apparently. The only reason I can think of why Morbidelli was hired by Pramac is his Italian citizenship.

mikesbytes · Oct 18, 2023

They have had sufficient time to modify their engine, which BTW was working a lot better in 2020. I suspect the problem with Honda is that they work in silo's producing what's best in that silo rather than having an overall cohesive solution

Mick D · Oct 18, 2023

Barbedwirebikerr said:
Yes

This. The engine built is a monster and could only be made usable with bespoke electronics that were congruent with the build. HRC lost most because there engine was/is brutal.

From Michaelm. "It shouldn’t be forgotten that Ducati got the benefit of concessions followed by a freeze either imo."

This is how Ducati have found themselves a generation ahead of the competition.

Playing keep up is hard if your nearly there, playing catch up, with current testing restrictions is nigh on impossible.

It also shouldn't be forgotten that that .... happened a ....... DECADE ago. WTF people, quit giving HRC a pass for being the GOP of MGP - "we cannot deal with change, yes we got screwed, but we are gonna whinge about it for a decade and do absolutely NOTHING to adapt. TWATS.

michaelm · Oct 18, 2023

Mick D said:
It also shouldn't be forgotten that that .... happened a ....... DECADE ago. WTF people, quit giving HRC a pass for being the GOP of MGP - "we cannot deal with change, yes we got screwed, but we are gonna whinge about it for a decade and do absolutely NOTHING to adapt. TWATS.

Certainly you pay your money and you take your choice, but I doubt Honda have lost all technical competence or that their culture no longer allows success, their endeavours in F1 haven’t gone too badly. If they have chosen F1 over motogp that is indeed their problem, but the first year of the control ecu was actually 2016, the control ecu was from Ducati’s pre-existing supplier, Ducati did get significant concessions, there was a complete engine freeze for a number years iirc, and there was a Covid pandemic which I do recall correctly. Sure Honda shouldn’t whine if they have chosen not to expend resources, not that I have heard them do so, Nakamoto said the control ecu would screw them beforehand. Also pretty hard when your lead rider with the idiosyncratic riding style is basically down for 3 years, not that his input would necessarily have helped, but sure no one made them hire Puig who immediately fired Pedrosa who one would think could have helped them develop their bike.

Do you think Mercedes were completely dominant for more than a few years in F1 because the other manufacturers were lazy and incompetent btw.?.

warthog1 · Oct 18, 2023

So let em run their own ecu again then. It was supposedly to make GP racing less costly as the reason the spec ecu came in.
What a crock of .....

For example, Mercedes won the 2014 F1 title using a hydraulic ride-height regulator (basically a 2000-part hydraulic computer). Mercedes was allowed to keep this tech for the entire season – well done guys, clever job etc – but at the end of the year F1 banned ride-height regulators, for cost reasons.

This same technology arrived in MotoGP a few years ago – when Ducati introduced its ride-height device (designed by German engineer Robin Tuluie, who also created the Mercedes system) – and is still there, despite misgivings from many quarters. Why?

Change MotoGP’s tech rules? 'You may end up with the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve'

Many fans think MotoGP’s technical rules need changing, so Mat Oxley sat down with Dorna management to discuss lack of overtaking, downforce aero, ride-height devices, concessions, safety and much more

www.motorsportmagazine.com

I can understand Honda being a bit pissed off. They can't run their own ecu and are expected to design a motor around the spec one (more cost) whilst ride height devices and aero rolls on which would be way more expensive by a factor a heaps.

In any case I don't see the Honda being more competitive anytime soon.
You don't go there with championship aspirations it would seem. Ask Marquez.

2024 silly season!

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