My take on this is that ducati is probably right that this was a strategic block of the technology by manufacturers who had less to gain by the winglets. Ducati is known for being a powerful but wild ride which tends to lose out in the corners against the other bikes. Anything you can do to interfere with ducati's advantage in the straights is good for you as a competitor.
This race was an excellent demonstration of ducati top speed. It is also one of the best races I have ever seen. Crack a beer and check it out! (skip to the 30 minute mark to bypass the pre-race content)
Interestingly, a rider complaint about those winglets was that it added so much stability to the bike that it was noticeably harder to wrestle through directional changes. Dani Pedrosa's parakeet-like physique was so unfit for the task that he couldn't go the distance and thus his bike quickly did away with the winglets. This rule works out well for him in particular.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jkv357
Ya, I get what wings were used for, but if Ducati could find them useful I'm sure that The Honda could figure out how to make them work. The fact that Yamaha and HRC tried them and didn't use them consistently says that maybe they weren't all that.
Reducing R&D costs is the main focus of almost all new rules at this point.
I don't think that additional MotoGP wing development would have benefited street bikes very much, but that didn't stop Kawasaki from going nuts with them on the H2R - https://i.ytimg.com/vi/N3QvX24iBiE/maxresdefault.jpg
Kawasaki and Ducati were relying on big power to get all that top speed, because those wings aren't helping (except for reducing the need for more electronic wheelie control when accelerating at speed). |