Rins has the best riding style of all those on the grid. Like river water over a pebble.
Sadly, almost entirely useless in the age of aero fuckery.
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Sadly, almost entirely useless in the age of aero fuckery.
Spalders knows what he’s talking about
2027 MotoGP rule change ‘very beneficial’ to Yamaha’s Inline 4 engine
The new 2027 MotoGP technical rules could be 'very beneficial' for Yamaha's inline four-cylinder engine.www.crash.net
Neil definitely mentions some challenges of the I4 that I hadn't considered, but the underlying argument is a bit strange. Yamaha will benefit massively from reducing engine width by approximately 1 inch. Well.......imagine how much narrower the engine would be if it were a V4?? Perhaps the inline-4 will be an advantage in 2027, but highlighting the width aspect (maybe that was selective crash editing) when a V4 is much narrower is an odd argument.
His comments about Hayden's bike are also weird. Honda pulled out all the stops to build a special bike for him--a bike so special that it was genuinely horrendous after the summer break? Rossi had tire problems in 2006. It seems somewhat obvious that Michelin were redeveloping their tires to make better lap times in a fuel restricted formula (2004 was the beginning). Yamaha did not adapt well to these changes, and they struggled again in 2007. Hayden did just enough to survive the development tinkering and the torpedo attacks from his teammate to hoist the trophy.
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I think Mir would be rejuvenated on a bike that wasn't trying to kill him. Sadly, like most riders on the Honda of late, they give up by their 2nd year (or retire completely in the case of Lorenzo)
He's too inconsistent though. People raz on Mir, but he won the 2020 championship when Rins could, and really should have.
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I seem to recall Nicky was basically the test mule for the Predocycle. He thoroughly deserved his title but it did also coincide with an unexpected dip in form by both Yamaha and Rossi (I add the latter because he was busy testing Ferrari F1 cars, thinking the 06 title was already won).
I don’t rate Mir that highly at all.
The last time he looked dominant was in Moto3 when he won the championship. I’d even argue he didn’t deserve the expedited promotion from Moto2.
2020 was a weird, Covid shortened season with repeat races on the same tracks, and was an anomaly overall. Mir won it by basically sucking less than the others who were doing everything In their power not to win.
It's difficult to say exactly why Nick was testing various parts. He complained a couple of times about the high-crank variant of the RC211V, which he claimed also would burn the clutch. Was it built for Pedrosa? Unsure, but I don't believe HRC were trying to squeeze more performance out of the 990cc formula. The mass centralization concept was definitely something meant for the 800cc era.
Sure, I am also a Rins admirer, just hoping when he does retire and is no longer stressing and re-injuring himself remedial measures are possible.
Honda’s support of Nicky could best be described as desultory imo. He was an excellent superbike rider not made for pocket bikes, the 990 bikes were closer to super Ike’s than later formulae, the formula was mature, and he rode a great season. Rossi wouldn’t have been close enough to lose the title to him at Jerez whatever happened to him there if not for the Pedrosa torpedo in any case. I suspect Nicky could have won the race had it been necessary, much though I enjoyed watching Bayliss do so.
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I don't disagree, but he still won the title, not an easy thing. His consistency was vastly superior to his team mates and his podium tappy was only (just) beaten by Morbidelli.
I agree, and have repeatedy stated that his, nor Fabio or Bagnaias titles, have been won with anywhere near the level of consistency shown by Marquez in 2019. Had Marc not given himself a needless injury in 2020, I doubt few would say he wouldn't have won the title.
And Pedrosa...Honda's whole MO around the 800cc regs was based on their micro rider.
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As I recall they were using his bike as a test mule for concepts for the 800cc bike. It took till what, mid-season or later to fix his clutch problem? It's incredible how Honda did almost everything they could to hamstring has championship title effort. Imagine if they had just given 100% support to him that season? I think he would have won more races than he did, but certainly I don't believe the title would have gone down to Valencia.
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A shame Jerez 2020 happened to MM as I feel he would have easily won the title in covid-GP. He was so much faster than anyone, and the Honda hadn't become a widowmaker for him just yet.
i guess his point was that the V4 manufacturers most likely will just downsleeve their existing engines for cost reasons, while yamaha can and should build a new engine that is narrower (even if it is one inch), which brings them that much closer.
Developing an all new V4 engine means at least 5 years to be competitive as KTM has shown, even Aprilia's switch from 60 degree to 90 degree was about 3 years in the making, and took another 1.5 years to be competitive. I don't think Yamaha can afford that. If they wanted to go down that road, they should have started the project during Rossi+ Lorenzo 2.0 , IMO.
More worrying about Yamaha is what Simon Crafar shared a couple of years ago on air. Apparently, when they changed their air intake shape to chase performance, they also ran the intake through the headstock (vs around it), which completely killed their front end feel and corner speed machine status. They’ve managed to get some of it back, but not all of it. Which is incidentally one of Quartararo’s main complaints (As well as Rossi’s, in his final seasons).
Maybe aero will help mitigate this. Maybe not. We’ll see.
No doubt, that was the last year of the front end Honda (Marquez style), which he could ride with his eyes closed.
They made the rear bias widowmaker while he was out and well…
Video of Quartararo testing at Valencia (Might have to swipe a bit, I don’t know how Instagram links work on a forum).
Sounds really strange that the TC is kicking in hard during corner exit. They really are struggling to put all the power down.
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It didn't end with the 2020 bike, the 2021 bike was still a front biased Honda, but Marc only had one fully functional arm that year. 2022 is when the RC213V changed its DNA.
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I'll always marvel at how badly wrong they got the bike when he was gone. I get they needed to make a bike that others could ride but holy .... did they get it wrong. I still think about that Mandalika high side that was off-throttle. He got extremely lucky with that one because holy .... that could have been far worse than what happened.
Thanks for the correction, yes I reckon you’re right.
That was a 2 stroke 500cc high side. I don’t recall seeing anything like that in the 4 stroke era.
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I imagine a headstock with an air intake through it cannot be as firm as one without, and added aero load would do them no favours at all.
If you look at the tripe on Motorsport.com, they make out (in the comments section) that Marquez developed the current Honda. He didn't. Pol Espargaro did. They tilted the engine backwards to give more rear grip (along with other changes) at his request. Who can forget pre season 2022 and the podium interview in Qatar? "Honda have given me the bike I asked for"
5 races later, he was saying it was a huge pile of crap.
