Ducati: “Why Join The Navy When You Can Be A Pirate?” Will Dorna’s spec ECU and software, 12 engines, and 24 liters of fuel be a winning combination in MotoGP?

How can we make sense out of Ducati’s recent decision to go “Open,” to leave the ranks of prototypes to embrace the advantages and compromises of the formerly CRT (Claiming Rule Team) category in MotoGP? When it entered MotoGP in 2003, Ducati upset the unspoken Japanese “gentlemen’s agreement” enunciated by former HRC President Yasuo Ikenoya that participating factories would foreswear “exotic technologies” such as pneumatic valve springs and extreme Formula 1-like bore/stroke ratios, and not field equipment requiring service more complex than what was usual in World Superbike. Although never written into rules, this concept essentially spelled out a non-production-based racing class of modest technological level. The only valve-control technology Ducati was familiar with was desmodromic, in which the valves are opened normally by cams and finger followers but are closed not by springs but directly by complementary cam lobes operating L-shaped closing levers. This system provided a potential rpm advantage. Ducati’s new bike wasted no time getting on the podium, giving Honda’s “gentlemen” a bad scare. They responded somewhat intemperately, privately calling Ducati “pirates,” implying that Ducati had used illegal means (desmo) to obtain what was not rightfully theirs (podium positions).

“Just as Honda always hires the top one percent of graduate engineers from Tokyo University every year and assumes they will be first to originate and apply new technologies, so, too, Honda assumes that its “recommendations” will have the force of law in MSMA.

This is no harder to understand than any other clash of cultures. In Japan, Honda’s primacy is accepted, with Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki lining up behind Honda in that order. It is believed that the four Japanese motorcycle producers agreed to participate in the new series for a period of 10 years. The Japanese factories formed the MSMA (Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers’ Association) to represent them to the FIM and Dorna. Just as Honda always hires the top one percent of graduate engineers from Tokyo University every year and assumes they will be first to originate and apply new technologies, so, too, Honda assumes that its “recommendations” will have the force of law in MSMA. To Westerners, this seems undemocratic, but in Japan, it is considered right and proper. In the US, no such thing would be possible. No one would get in line, lawyers would be summoned, and the whole enterprise would dissolve into lawsuits and countersuits. But in Japan, all is consensus and calm. Except for Ducati. When MSMA decided that 990cc MotoGP bikes were too fast and dangerous, a reduction was made for 2007 to 800cc over strong objections from Ducati. Honda management welcomed such changes because its large R&D capability adapts more quickly to change than can smaller companies. Except for Ducati. The Borgo Panigalians went for broke on 800cc bore/stroke, revs, and horsepower, and put Casey Stoner on its bike. Previously known mainly for losing the front end, Stoner attained instant mastery on the Ducati, winning 10 races and the 2007 championship. This made embarrassing nonsense of Honda’s top Todai grads, its R&D expertise, and its 40-year reputation in racing. Mother Nature is not the only one you mustn’t fool! As we know, Ducati later got its come-uppance. Ducati originally adopted Bridgestone tires because it believed that company would give better R&D than giant Michelin, who was supplying most of the paddock. But when Michelin faltered and Bridgestone was made the spec tire for all of MotoGP, as “everyman’s tire,” they could no longer work as well on Ducatis. Stoner won fewer races every year until he was hired away by—you guessed it—Honda. Then, sproing!, he immediately won 10 races and the championship. God was in His Heaven, and all was well with the world. Now comes a question of priorities. Which comes first: 1) presenting exciting racing; or 2) strict adherence to rules? In the past several years, World Superbike has worked to keep all brands in competition; in a given year, as many as six makes have won races. That was the job of tech inspector Steve Whitelock, under the approving eye of Flammini leadership.

“Forced by the spec rule to use tires optimized for the majority, Ducati has spent years in the podium-free wilderness.

Meanwhile, MotoGP has no Whitelock, and Ducati, far from being kept competitive, has been well and truly hung out to dry, season after season. Forced by the spec rule to use tires optimized for the majority, Ducati has spent years in the podium-free wilderness. Is this an unfortunate accident or is it a punishment for piracy? (Now that SBK has come under Dorna control, Whitelock has been fired.) Dorna seems to favor strict rules enforcement to exciting racing. Do they think spectators come to the races to see justice done or to see racing among many competitive teams? Last summer, I spoke with Mike Webb, who is currently the MotoGP Race Director, moving up from Technical Director to replace the retiring Paul Butler. He is employed jointly by IRTA and Dorna, and “works closely with the FIM.” As a lad, he worked for New Zealand GP rider Ginger Molloy in 1971, spent 10 years racing himself, and is now known and respected as “the architect of Moto2.” I asked Webb about MotoGP’s strange fuel maximum, which, in 2014, limits prototype bikes to 20 liters (just over five gallons) of gas. “The fuel limit is presented to us as: 1) The factories want it as an engineering challenge; and 2) it’s the only performance limit that we have,” he replied. “And it’s probably the most expensive performance limit you could dream up. So, on those grounds, I don’t like it. I would much prefer a dead-simple rev limit that simplifies things and drops costs immediately and simply, and forget the fuel limit. Unfortunately, we come from different points of view. They—major manufacturers—want an R&D exercise, and the budget really doesn’t concern them as long as the office keeps funding the race department. So a simple rev limit doesn’t appeal.” (Honda’s MotoGP chief, Shuhei Nakamoto, stated last season that if a rev limit is imposed, Honda will leave MotoGP). I then said, “I notice you used the pronoun ‘they’ to refer to MSMA. Is that the correct pronoun?” “Excellent question,” Webb replied with a laugh. “I think you understand the situation very well. We get presented with unanimous MSMA decisions, and I think all of us suspect they are coming from one direction.” More recently, there has been a rules change regarding the fuel limit. Because liquid hydrocarbons shrink about one cc per liter for each degree Centigrade they are cooled, teams have carried large refrigerators to shrink their fuel.

“Because liquid hydrocarbons shrink about one cc per liter for each degree Centigrade they are cooled, teams have carried large refrigerators to shrink their fuel.

“Fuel-temperature limits came about as a consequence of the capacity limits,” Webb commented. “Every one of those steps is requested by the MSMA. Cooling the fuel is something that any engineer would naturally do. Once it became apparent they were doing that, MSMA said, ‘Please, can we set a temperature limit?’ A limit of 15 degrees Centigrade below ambient was set. I believe it is 10 C in F1. They will go to the absolute tolerance they are permitted. We followed what F1 did.” The latest rule now requires teams to decant fuel into a container of specified shape so the thermometer can be pushed right to the bottom (where the coldest fuel, being the most dense, settles). Why such a rule? Because a least one team, rumored to be Honda, was “asking” a tech inspector to not push his thermometer to the bottoms of its tanks, “for fear that it might damage the fuel pump pickup.” What was actually happening is that a team or teams were freezing a part of their fuel to very low temperature, pouring it into the bottom of the tank to create a temperature-stratified situation. So long as the thermometer wasn’t pushed down into the super-cooled layer, all would be legal. Requiring the fuel to be measured in a special container prevents such temperature stratification. This just goes to show that the more rules you make, the more Band-Aid extra rules you must stick on top of them. There is an alternative: MotoGP rules now allow a builder to use his own ECU software if he accepts the dual heavy expenses of 1) making five engines last a whole season; and 2) developing the technology to win races on 20 liters of fuel. But if he uses the spec ECU and software, he is permitted 12 engines and 24 liters of fuel. This past year, Aprilia ran an experiment to determine which path might lead a small company to better MotoGP results. “They’re in a really difficult position,” Webb summed up. “They can stick with 24 liters and nine engines or become MSMA. They’re doing an experiment this year [2013], running one bike on the spec software. Anyone entering MotoGP for the first time gets nine engines for one year. Then they have to undergo the full restriction. Aprilia says, ‘We can do nine engines, but five right now would be very difficult.’” Not so long ago, we learned that Ducati hired away Aprilia’s respected race manager, Gigi Dall’Igna. Could one reason for this be that Dall’Igna has already conducted the experiment that Ducati now plans to make, giving up its own years of custom software development for Dorna’s generic code in hope that the extra performance permitted by having more engines and more fuel can more than make up for it? Then, just recently, came knockout quotes from Ducati’s CEO, Claudio Domenicali. First, inspired by remarks of the late Steve Jobs, he asked, “Why join the navy when you can be a pirate?” This essentially throws Honda’s calling Ducati “pirates” back in their faces. And then he said, “The future should not be interpreted; it should be invented.” This amounts to saying Ducati must stop trying to build a Honda or Yamaha under rules effectively dictated by Honda (Dorna’s CEO, Carmelo Ezpeleta, and Nakamoto speak of their “partnership”). Ducati must invent its own future by taking the bold step of “going Open.” In the past, Ducati won races by going for maximum power from the 990 and 800cc engines, and now, the company must return to that policy, made possible by more engines and more fuel. Although that still leaves handling problems to be solved, Ducati can decisively break out of the confining MSMA limits to open a fresh horizon.