On a day when Ducati debuted its latest box-winged fairing, aerodynamics remain a thorny topic for Ducati Corse chief Gigi Dall’Igna, the pioneer of winglets and the doctor of downforce.
The bearded Italian technical giant is still clearly peeved at the limitations put on aerodynamic development by restrictive cost-saving and safety-promoting rules introduced last year.
He made a waspish comment at Brno’s annual mid-year joint technical conference, where delegates from all MotoGP manufacturers do their best to avoid answering questions.
“We have talked too much about aerodynamics, and we have changed the rules too much. We change them every single year from 2016, so it is difficult to speak again.
“For sure, on the safety level, aerodynamics are really important. For example, the accident of Pirro in Mugello with proper aerodynamics doesn’t happen” [the Ducati tester was thrown over the handlebars at more than 300 km/h at Mugello].
Other delegates had a different view of safety, espousing the view that banned 2016’s projecting blade-wings on the grounds that (as Dani Pedrosa once said) “we have these kind of knives sticking out from the bikes”.
HRC technical director Takeo Yokoyama said: “Safety for us means what is outside the fairing, which can be dangerous, so we discussed reducing this for next year. What you do inside the fairing – perhaps with a double skin – is fine with us.”
Aprilia’s Romano Albesiano said aerodynamic development was very positive, but saw the greatest risk as “a cost explosion”, and the advantage of stricter rules as potentially limiting that.
With each aero design individually approved by Dorna’s technical director, the details confidential, and all manufacturers sailing very close to the win, the driest comment came from KTM technical chief Sebastian Risse, whose MotoGP bikes sometimes sport side-mounted box-kites.
“I think if we sitting here, if you had shown us photos of the bikes as they are now, when the current rules were announced, we would have said, 80 percent, that they are not within the rules. The current interpretation of the rules is very wide, and for us it was very important to narrow this down, so we can be sure in development if something is correct or not.
Current rules allow one update a year for each rider, and permit the removal of sections of homologated bodywork, allowing Ducati in particular a considerable variety of different internal configurations within the square add-on “box kites” on the sides of their fairing; although other manufacturers also take advantage of these permitted variations on a theme.
Next year only one “aero-body” will be allowed, including those homologated for this year, but these sectional modifications within the basic outline will be banned.
By Michael Scott
