On Track Off Road No. 194

MOTOGP
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WATCH OUT FOR MotoGP’S UNDERD
So much happened at the MotoGP tests at Valencia and
Jerez in November that it’s hard to know where to start.
There was Marc Marquez’ heavy
crash which saw his team advance
plans for surgery on his
right shoulder – the same surgery
he had on his left joint at the end
of 2018, though the right limb was
nowhere near as bad as his left.
Ducati and Yamaha brought new
frames, which both seemed to
work.
The Ducati GP20 prototype
turned much better than the GP19
did, finally addressing the bike’s
biggest weakness. The Yamaha
engine had a few more horsepower,
and a lot more traction, giving
it some of what the M1, Valentino
Rossi and Maverick Viñales all
craved. Both Suzukis were quick,
Joan Mir continuing to catch Alex
Rins, and appearing as though he
will pose a severe challenge to his
teammate next year. The battle for
supremacy in 2020 started with
no clear winners, which should
mean we have a good year of racing.
Amidst all the excitement of Marquez’
shoulder, brother Alex’s debut
on the Honda RC213V, shiny
new frames on the Yamaha and
more, events at KTM and Aprilia
slipped under the radar. There is
a lot happening at both factories
though the changes at KTM are
far more visible than at Aprilia.
But, at heart, from where they will
make gains is the same for both
KTM and Aprilia: essentially the
methodology of developing a racing
motorcycle has changed, and
that is what is making the difference.
KTM brought two new frames to
the tests, focussing on the first,
a smaller step, at Valencia and
a second, a much bigger step,
at Jerez. The new frame looked
rather different: instead of the
circular steel tubes for the main
part, the RC16 had a more beamlike
tube, using a shape technically
known as a ‘stadium’ (for the
obvious reason that it looks like a
sporting arena: two parallel lines
with a semicircle at each end).
KTM had helpfully colour-coded
the frames for us: the orange one
was the MK1 version, the black
one MK2. At least, that’s what
they told us, as that is the kind
of trick factories commonly use
to distract attention from the bits
they don’t want you to look at.
The new chassis is the result of
the way KTM changed their testing
programme for 2019. With
the arrival of Dani Pedrosa, the
Austrian factory could streamline
and focus their work much better.
Mika Kallio has been testing suspension
and durability, while Pedrosa
concentrated on sifting the
wheat from the chaff, assembling
packages of parts to hand over to
the factory riders to try at official
tests. That process has eliminated
a lot of the tedious work of trying
to figure which combinations of
frames, swingarms, suspension
linkages, top yokes etc are most
effective. That was badly needed,
especially as Pol Espargaro has
effectively had to carry the final
stages of the entire testing