If you’ve seen some of the photos from the Losail International Circuit, you’ll see that Nicky Hayden has been going out in some of the sessions with a piece of plastic affixed to his helmet. As the MotoGP paddock gets ready for the Qatar GP, the wind has been a factor here in Doha, fueled by the Arabian Gulf which is only two miles away from us and the desert the surrounds the area.

Originally we thought that Arai was perhaps experimenting with some sort of new aerodynamic package here in Qatar, but Carlos Checa ran a similar setup during the World Superbike races at Phillip Island with X-lite helmet. Talking to Arai Helmets about the odd clear piece of plastic, they disclosed that it’s something that Ducati has been experimenting with on its race package.

As the BMW World Superbike team prepares for the 2011 season, Leon Haslam and Troy Corser took a break from their training regiment to spend some time in BMW’s wind tunnel facility in Bavaria. Looking to hone the maximum performance out of the S1000RR, both riders worked on their optimal streamlined body positions in speeds up to 150 mph. The BMW WSBK team also looked at the S1000RR’s fairing, examining how to optimize the bike’s Cx or coefficient of drag (we assume any modifications that were made were WSBK legal of course).

The team will get to test its results later this month in Jerez, and in the meantime Haslam and Corser will be shipped off to a BMW fitness training bootcamp with fellow BMW riders James Toseland and Ayrton Badovini from the BMW Italia squad, along with members of the BMW Enduro team. We don’t like the sound of this training camp, but BMW has given us 12 high-quality shots of the S1000RR in the wind tunnel, which we enjoyed.

MotoGP fans in attendance during qualifying at the German GP may have felt like they were watching a Formula 1 race. This is because while at Sachsenring on Saturday, the Marlboro Ducati team used a new fairing design for the Desmosedici GP10 that incorporates F1-style winglets.

Used for only part of Saturday’s sessions, both Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden were fitted with the new fairing, which has small lateral ‘wings’ on each side of the bike. Ducati says these wings are designed “to help prevent wheelies around the dramatic undulations” of the German circuit. We just think they look pretty cool. More photos after the jump.

Last week we got a leaked photo of the 2010 MotoCzysz E1pc, and knew the bike would be a contender in today’s TT Zero at the Isle of Man. Now that the TT for electrics is over, we can get a closer look at the machine that left the competition behind in the dust. MotoCzysz was a scratch at last year’s TT, and following that mantra the team effectively started-over from scratch for their 2010 effort. Back for 2010, there is of course the familiar MotoCzysz-designed 6X Flex front-end suspension system, but the rest of the bike centers around a revised energy package that’s been refined to engineering simplicity.

We’ve already covered how the central “suitcase” or eDD incorporates space maximizing v-shaped removable battery packs that pop-out with the push of a button. And how the entire 2010 MotoCzysz E1pc involves virtually no wiring, since everything dovetails perfectly together. We’ve also covered how the MotoCzysz D1-10 motor is replacing the three Agni motors from last year’s bike. Running off nearly 500 volts of power, the liquid-cooled IPM motor makes 250lbs•ft of torque, and generates over 100hp. The aerodynamics of the 2010 bike have been completely rethought, and employ a palatable design that achieves the aerodynamic goals to give the team a greater advantage with their limited on-board energy.

All of this is well and good, but it doesn’t mean shit if the bike doesn’t go fast.

After a lively discussion on fully-faired motorcycles in his original post, including a lengthy post by Craig Vetter, Michael Czysz follows up the discussion by further delving into streamlining, dustbins, and the difference between the two. In his discussion Czysz explains the purpose and benefit of taking aerodynamics into account not only in electric racing but also in ICE applications, and then walks us through its use on the MotoCzysz C1.

The post is a good primer on the exponential force that streamlining tries to overcome, and well worth a read for that purpose. Michael Czysz closes his post with a hint that he’ll have a dustbin at the ready should the field warrant such a fairing, and should his rider Mark Miller feel comfortable using it. Check it all out here.

The last time we met up with Michael Czysz, he gave us the lowdown on why allowing dustbin fairings for use in road racing events was a poor decision for sanctioning bodies to make. Thankfully, Czysz has put his words to paper (computer screen?), and explained his thoughts on the subject more deeply in a blog post.

Making comparison to the salt flats of Bonneville, where streamlining is the name of the game, and close-circuit road course races like the Isle of Man, Czysz drives home the point that this is not a technology that transcends racing venues, saying “if Bonneville was 24’ wide and lined with stone walls streamlining would be banned- and so it should be at the IOM.” You can read his full post here for more of his analysis, and click past the jump to see what all the fuss is about.