MotoGP revolution is in the air and why 2026 will be 2001 all over again

If Aprilia, Ducati, Honda, KTM and Yamaha engineers are working to “completely revolutionise the concept” of MotoGP bikes, who will make the best job of this hugely complicated engineering process?

We don’t know yet. What we do know is that Dall’Igna has been MotoGP’s most creative engineer in recent years, but just because he was king of MotoGP’s wings and shapeshifter era doesn’t mean he will create the fastest 850.

We will get our first answer to the big 850 question when we see the new bikes in action for the first time, most likely during the post-Czech Grand Prix tests at Brno on Monday June 22.

Most MotoGP engineers agree the 850s will be very different and will improve the quality of racing, but certainly during the first year there’s a chance that one manufacturer will find a better answer to the new rules and leave everyone else behind.

“The risk is that there will be bigger gaps according to how successfully one manufacturer designs their new bike and how unsuccessful the others may be,” adds Albesiano.

This is exactly what happened in 2001, when Honda used its creativity and resources to build a motorcycle that was so much better than the others that it won all but three of the 32 races in 2002 and 2003.

And it happened again in 2007, when MotoGP moved from 990cc engines to 800s and Ducati’s latest Desmosedici was way faster than the opposition.

While Suzuki and Yamaha prepared for the start of the big four-stroke era by bolting 990cc four-stroke engines into modified RGV500 and YZR500 chassis, Honda took the chance to entirely reimagine how a MotoGP bike should be.

And that’s what MotoGP engineers should be doing right now – not merely adapting their thinking from 1000cc machines with big aero, ride-height devices and Michelin tyres to 850s with less aero, no ride-height devices and Pirelli tyres, but trying to create GP bikes that no one has even imagined, just like the RC211V.

The RC211V pointed the way to the aerodynamics innovations of 15 years later

For 2001 Honda built Valentino Rossi a new NSR500, codenamed NV4B (never mind the fact that the bike would be obsolete within a few months) while at the same time creating the RC211V.

The RC211V was a wondrous machine even though its engine internals were nothing radical. Indeed its bore and stroke, cylinder-head design and so on were essentially borrowed from the RC45 road bike, winner of the 1997 World Superbike title.

What was clever about the RC211V engine was its five-cylinder configuration.

First, Honda wanted to build a five because four- and five-cylinder machines were given the same minimum weight, because the lighter pistons of a five would allow them to pursue higher rpm in search of more horsepower.

The V4 was effectively two narrow-angle (75.5 degree) v-twins with a single in the middle. Honda used the fifth piston to balance the narrow-angle vees, which otherwise would’ve vibrated too much, killing horsepower.

Remember that vibration was one of the problems that convinced Aprilia to replace its 75-degree V4 RS-GP with a 90-degree V4 in 2020.

But why did Honda want to put a 75.5-degree vee in its RC211V? Because a narrow vee engine is shorter, allowing it to build a more compact motorcycle with a shorter wheelbase.

Also, mass centralisation was one of the 211’s main design mantras, because the more you concentrate a motorcycle’s mass around its centre, the better it will handle, steer and so on.

Shifting the fuel tank away from its traditional place at the top of the motorcycle to its centre was another major part of the mass centralisation process.

The RC211V carried much of its fuel below the seat, whereas the 500s had carried all their fuel above the engine. Lowering the fuel was a big help, especially in the early laps of races, when Honda calculated the RC11V could achieve 80 to 90% of full performance, whereas the NSR500 could only manage 70%. This was so important that all the manufacturers quickly copied the concept.

Another common problem that the RC211V was designed to fix was chatter.

The RC211V had shallow main frame beams, with long engine hangers, which allowed lateral flex, without sacrificing longitudinal rigidity, to reduce chatter and improve grip. Once again, this design soon became the norm.

The bike’s clever rear suspension (both ends of the shock were anchored to the swingarm) further aided mass centralisation, by making more room for the low-slung fuel tank, and reduced chatter, by transferring less vibration to the chassis.

The RC211V also pointed the way towards the downforce aerodynamics innovations that took hold of MotoGP a decade and a half later.

At the time many pitlane observers wondered why the bike had such a tiny fairing, which made the 211 much draggier than the NSR500. Indeed Rossi told Honda he wanted a bigger fairing, because the original made life uncomfortable at 200mph, so HRC engineers told him that more slippery fairings increase lift, which reduces grip.

In other words, manufacturers like Honda were cracking the code that Ducati’s Gigi Dall’Igna fully solved when he introduced proper downforce aero to MotoGP from 2016.

Right now, as you read this, Albesiano, Dall’Igna, Sterlacchini, KTM’s Sebastian Risse and Yamaha’s Max Bartolini are storming their brains, hopefully working towards creating motorcycles as interesting and as groundbreaking as the RC211V.