Tag

analysis

Browsing

On Thursday, Ducati presented its 2020 MotoGP team at a spectacular location: the Palazzo Re Enzo in the heart of Bologna’s main Piazzo Maggiore square.

Before the launch was live-streamed to the public, the main protagonists spoke to the media to lay out Ducati’s plans for the 2020 MotoGP season. And though nothing inside the team is changing, and factories always attempt to keep their cards close to their chest, they always manage to let one or two things slip, whether inadvertently or not.

Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali kicked off the press conference with a justification of why Ducati goes racing. The crux of his argument was that disruptive technologies and a rapidly changing political environment made it imperative for companies to be as independent as possible. That meant being able to rely on their own knowledge, and not having it taken away by outside factors.

“To be economically independent, we at Ducati absolutely think that investment in research in development is crucial,” Domenicali told us.

“And we at Ducati consider racing as the most advanced part of our research and development. And when we put together all the effort for racing, for production bike research and development and all the tooling to make and produce new bikes for racing and production we are above 10% of our total company turnover.”

After the press conference part of Ducati’s 2020 MotoGP launch, we got a chance to ask Ducati Corse boss Gigi Dall’Igna a few more questions about the Italian factory’s plans for the coming season.

Dall’Igna expanded on some of the things he had told the press conference, such as his priority for the Desmosedici GP20, and how he expected the new Michelin rear tire to affect the racing.

But Dall’Igna also answered some other questions as well. The Ducati Corse boss talked about why he wanted more power from the GP20, the support on offer for Johann Zarco, how he sees rider contracts, and Ducati’s thoughts on racing in Endurance.

He even fielded a question about Marc Márquez, and managed to answer it by not answering it.

Official data on the US motorcycle industry for 2019 isn’t out yet, but Asphalt & Rubber has seen preliminary numbers, encompassing the first 11 months of the year on new motorcycle sales, and those numbers show that the USA continues to have essentially zero growth.

According to the documents supplied to us by our Bothan spies, from January to November of 2019, the US motorcycle industry grew a whooping 0.1%, with most of the major brands posting moderate single-digit losses for the year on new bike sales.

Who is the greatest MotoGP rider of the past decade? Followers of the sport will all have their own answers to this question, based on their own criteria. One way of trying to answer the question objectively is by using numbers to quantify performance.

Sure, the numbers may overlook certain factors. But going over the numbers from 180 races held over the space of 10 years helps eliminate outliers, and separate the signal from the noise.

To qualify for consideration, you have to win races. The 180 races held between 2010 and 2019 have seen 13 different winners: Cal Crutchlow, Andrea Dovizioso, Andrea Iannone, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Márquez, Jack Miller, Dani Pedrosa, Danilo Petrucci, Alex Rins, Valentino Rossi, Ben Spies, Casey Stoner, and Maverick Viñales.

Of that group, Iannone, Miller, Petrucci, and Spies have all won only a single race, ruling them out of contention. Alex Rins has won two races, but the Suzuki rider has only been active for three seasons, meaning he made little impact over the full decade.

That left eight riders who have won multiple races this decade: Crutchlow, Dovizioso, Lorenzo, Márquez, Pedrosa, Rossi, Stoner, and Viñales.

Of those eight, Andrea Dovizioso is the only rider to have started in all 180 races (he actually started 181 races, but the 2011 race in Sepang was red-flagged after Marco Simoncelli’s tragic death, and would have started in Silverstone last year, had the race not been canceled due to the weather).

Two other riders have started every MotoGP race held while they were in the class: Marc Márquez has competed in all 127 races held since 2013, and Maverick Viñales has started all 91 races held since 2015.

Jorge Lorenzo is set to retire from motorcycle racing. The 32-year-old Spaniard has decided to end his career as a result of the disastrous season at Repsol Honda, hampered by extreme crashes and severe injury, and never having become comfortable on the bike.

“I always thought that there are four significant days for a rider,” Lorenzo told a specially convened press conference at Valencia. “The first is you first race, the second your first win and then your first world championship – not everyone can win a world championship but some of us made it – and then the day you retire.”

The decision to retire came because he could no longer summon the required energy to continue at the level which was necessary. “Everything started when I was three years old, almost 30 years of complete dedication to my sport,” Lorenzo said.

“People who work with me know how much of a perfectionist I am, how much energy and intensity I have always put into my sport.”

“This level of perfectionism requires a lot of motivation, that is why after nine years at Yamaha – so wonderful, probably the best years that I enjoyed in my career – I felt that I needed a change, if I wanted to keep this full commitment to my sport.”

“That’s why I wanted to move to Ducati, it gave me a big boost of motivation and even though the results were very bad, I used the motivation to not give up and keep fighting until I achieved this beautiful Mugello victory in front of all the Ducati fans.”

We always knew that the Aprilia Tuono 660 was coming, ever since last year when the Noale brand took the covers off its RS 660 concept, and started teasing us with the idea of a high-horsepower middleweight twin motorcycle.

From there, it was quick to understand that Aprilia would need to make its "half an RSV4" into a platform, with other models soon to come. The most obvious next step then was a naked "Tuono" model.

That brings us to today, where not only do we see the Aprilia Tuono 660 concept looking basically ready for production at EICMA, but the Italian brand is also coyly showing us its plans for its next middleweight model, the Aprilia Tuareg 660.

To continue reading this story, you need to have an A&R Pro subscriber account. If you have an A&R Pro account, you can login here.

The current field of MotoGP riders may only be less than a season into the first year of their contracts, but the opening salvos of the 2021 season are already being fired.

That is a direct consequence of almost the entire grid being on two-year deals, which run through the 2020 season. Every seat on the grid will currently be up for grabs in 2021.

And because of that, teams, factories and riders are already starting to explore there options for the next season but one.

This is not something teams are particularly happy about. Team managers will grumble both on and off the record that it is a big gamble choosing riders basically on the basis of their performance two seasons before they are due to ride for you.

Fear of missing out on a top rider forces their hand, however, and so teams are already making preliminary approaches about 2021.

The extreme and unusual situation of every single seat being up for grabs means that Moto2 riders are also delaying their plans.

Most have only signed 1-year deals for 2020, knowing that so many options are opening up in 2021. Remy Gardner even turned down a chance to move up to MotoGP with KTM for 2020, preferring to wait for 2021 and hope for many more options then.

The new Honda CBR1000RR-R is finally out in the wild, and while Honda was able to keep this machine under wraps for the bulk of its development, there was a lot about the new Fireblade that we knew going into EICMA.

We knew that it would have winglets. We knew that it would make 215hp and weigh around 440 lbs at the curb...and from that we knew it would have the best power-to-weight ratio in class.

We also had a rough idea on what the bike would look like, thanks to an automotive photographer that was at the Suzuka circuit.

We even knew what the new name for this superbike would be. But yet, the 2020 Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade was very much a suprise when it was unveiled at EICMA on Monday night.

Certain to be the talk of the EICMA show throughout the week, here are some quick thoughts and bullet points, now that we have had time to process this new superbike.

To continue reading this story, you need to have an A&R Pro subscriber account. If you have an A&R Pro account, you can login here.

Perhaps the most talked about motorcycle from the Tokyo Motor Show, at least when it comes to fans and journalists, the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-25R was also the least talked about machine, in terms of manufacturers releasing details.

Kawasaki pulled the wraps off a four-cylinder 250cc sport bike, and then said...nothing.

In fact, the only official thing that Kawasaki has said about the motorcycle since its unveiling is to put out a press release reminding us that the Japanese brand has said nothing of substance about the new model.

No price has been mentioned. No marks on the calendar, or hints on which markets will get it first (or get it at all).

The release of the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-25R is a great example of why brands need to have an engaged hand on their public relations, because all hell can break loose when you let go of the wheel.

While Kawasaki is still dropping the ball on this, let us  try and bring some order to this chaos, both with what we know as fact, and what we can reasonably discern from those facts.

To continue reading this story, you need to have an A&R Pro subscriber account. If you have an A&R Pro account, you can login here.

Eight hours, three teams, one (eventual) winner. This year’s Suzuka 8-Hours had it all, but it also showed again that the differences between Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Honda are such that each has to approach the race in different ways.

Yamaha opted for balance, Honda for an advantage in the pits, and Kawasaki on the pace of Jonathan Rea and consistency of Leon Haslam.

To continue reading this story, you need to have an A&R Pro subscriber account. If you have an A&R Pro account, you can login here.

Are you ready? For the revolution? That is what is happening in Japan right now, at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show. We say this because Honda just debuted an electric dirt bike prototype that looks the business.

The Honda CR Electric prototype was co-developed with Mugen, a company with close ties to Honda. In fact, beyond the fairings, you would have a hard time distinguishing the Honda CR Electric prototype from the Mugen E.Rex that re-debuted this week as well.

Both bikes use an aluminum twin-spar frame, and look very "Honda" in their approach to building a dirt bike. It also doesn't surprise us to see that Nissin supplies the brakes for both efforts, and the same goes for Showa on the suspension side. What would you expect though, considering the close ties these brands have to Honda?

This is a project that is very much still in the family, and in the case of Mugen, that phrase is meant literally, as Mugen was founded by Soichiro Honda's son.

With Mugen spending the last eight years competing in the Isle of Man TT electric race, and racking up five race wins in the process, the tuning brand has built a cache of EV experience. Surely, this is where the Mugen-Honda connection is at its strongest. Together, these two companies are forging a new era of motorcycle design.

To continue reading this story, you need to have an A&R Pro subscriber account. If you have an A&R Pro account, you can login here.