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“With the new format it is almost impossible to do any practice and, as a result, improve. On Friday you have to try to get into Q2, it's a categorical imperative, because qualifying applies both to the Sprint race, in which a good start is everything, but also to the actual Grand Prix".
One of the championship's legendary technicians explains in a nutshell that the new MotoGP format is giving life to a completely different championship from those we have seen so far, but he prefers not to be mentioned. Nobody wants to be singled out as the one who demolishes the new formula, but many engineers and most of the technical chiefs think the same way: so, anyone who is behind stays behind, because there is barely enough time to get the bike set up. Furthermore, those who have more bikes on the track benefit enormously from being able to have more data available. And that goes for everything, not just the choice of tyres.
The result is that manufacturers like Yamaha and Honda are struggling with little or no chance of improving, also because there is another problem that is not being talked about openly, but a lot in secret rooms: the MSMA has agreed not to maintain the current regulation up to 2026. Which means it is impossible to make investments because they would be too short-term.
“MotoGP - explains our engineer - is castrated by the rule that sets the bore at 80mm. An in-line four-cylinder engine, such as that of Yamaha, for example, is a nice power unit, small and compact. The V-four is more complex, longer and has the difficulty of arranging the rear exhausts which need to be turned around to respect the lengths. In short, if they decide to change the rules by taking the bore, I don't know, to 86mm, the best engine for MotoGP would undoubtedly be the three-cylinder".
However, we are not going to see any of this, unless of course the rules are changed. But obviously those who would like to start from scratch today have little say in the matter, numerically speaking.
On the other hand, the dominant manufacturer, Ducati, which was even prohibited from using the front lowering device despite being perfectly within the rules, does not want to see its competitiveness achieved over years of investments vanish, and rightly so.
The result is that MotoGP is in a technical stalemate. Today the top 16 riders are enclosed in less than a second: it seems fantastic, but it isn't because behind the appearance of sixteen super riders there is a MotoGP that limits human performance. And it's simply not true that a different winner makes a great show every Sunday. On the contrary, motorcycle racing has always been the centre of attention when there were three or four top riders.
The current situation, however, is that some of the best riders are out of the picture. Thinking about another three seasons like this is enough to give you the willies: it doesn’t suit anyone. We need to update the regulations, and soon. Fancy trying to change the format. This is equivalent to changing everything because nothing changes, to quote from the novel Il Gattopardo (The Leopard). And even the additions of marketing experts operated by Dorna will not change the decline in engine capacity.
There comes a time when drastic decisions must be made. And this moment has come. There are no sports where 15 champions coexist at the same time. We need to make those who make the difference at the centre of everything once again. No need to name names. You must be blind not to see them.
