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In 2027, the current MotoGP engines may serve as the basis for a nice crystal coffee table in the living room, replaced by the smaller 850 cc powertrains already in an advanced stages of design and development by all the manufacturers present in MotoGP...and perhaps even some that are not yet there.
However, it is not only the current engines that will be retired. As Corrado Cecchinelli admirably explained to us yesterday in a video that we invite you to watch, the MotoGP bikes of the future will in fact be completely different bikes, with different aerodynamics - as FIM and Dorna prepare to intervene also on the tails and belly pans of the fairings - but above all they will abandon the much-discussed lowering devices.
Currently, only the device that locks the fork at the start, a very simple contraption actually adopted in motocross bikes, but also in mountain bikes, and the rear lowerer remain alive. From 2027, however, both will be banned and everything will be delegated back to the rider.
Starts will be more difficult, but above all slower, and much of the work will be delegated to the electronics, but above all one will not have to engage the lowerer at the exit of corners to get more grip and acceleration.
Perhaps this is why Gigi Dall'Igna and his crew are pushing hard on this device, which is at its swan song, since this is the penultimate year it can be used.
In the three photos you can see three different devices adopted on the GP 25, the GP24 and the GP24 satellite, respectively. The evolution is continuous, because the advantage that on aerodynamics is sometimes difficult to perceive and requires test after test, in this case is immediate. A lowerer that works, that is easier to put in, works wonders. Remember Marquez's crash in qualifying at Portimao when, not yet used to the Ducati, he inserted it too early in corner exit? Maybe in Ducati they came up with a system to minimize this kind of error. Or simply it is faster and more reliable. At first glance it appears to be a nice piece of machined aluminium.
If we remember correctly, the idea came from Robin Tuluie, who is also responsible for the mass damper that appeared on the Desmosedici in 2017.
The lowering device, in MotoGP as in F1, was created to bypass the prohibition on using electronic suspension. "Essentially we built a mechanical hydraulic-pneumatic computer. The total number of parts it consists of, in an F1 car, is about 2000, the whole car 6000," Tuluie, who works for PhysicsX in London, told our colleague Max Oxley.
We don't know if Robin is still working with or for Ducati, he was recently at work on an artificial heart project, not a simple project since our Creator did a pretty good job given that ours beats for life with a range of 30 to 200 bpm!
