Change MotoGP’s tech rules? 'You may end up with the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve'

What follows is a somewhat strange interview, in fact it’s less of an interview and more of a philosophical discussion about racing, but this is my fault.

I tell Cecchinelli and Ezpeleta that I’m not going to ask questions, but instead offer a few of my concerns about where MotoGP is going and then leave them to answer them.

I have a few notes scribbled in my notebook, including this one: seven races into the 2023 season and there’s not been a single overtake for the lead in the last ten laps of any race. (Two days later MotoGP 2023 got its first winning overtakes in the last ten laps.)

This obviously isn’t good for the show, on which everyone in MotoGP exists, because if there’s no show, there’s no money and if there’s no money there’s no championship.

I blame the usual suspects: the proliferation of downforce aero, ride-height devices and so on.

Formula 1 deals with such issues by tweaking its rulebook at the end of each season to ban new technologies that may hurt the show or increase costs.

For example, Mercedes won the 2014 F1 title using a hydraulic ride-height regulator (basically a 2000-part hydraulic computer). Mercedes was allowed to keep this tech for the entire season – well done guys, clever job etc – but at the end of the year F1 banned ride-height regulators, for cost reasons.

This same technology arrived in MotoGP a few years ago – when Ducati introduced its ride-height device (designed by German engineer Robin Tuluie, who also created the Mercedes system) – and is still there, despite misgivings from many quarters. Why?

“Fortunately and unfortunately MotoGP isn’t a dictatorship”

One of the main differences between the two championships is that MotoGP manufacturers have greater control of the technical rules than F1 constructors have over theirs.

The current system was established in 1992, when Dorna bought motorcycling’s grand prix world championships from Bernie Ecclestone’s Two Wheel Promotions company, after Ecclestone had given up his dream of owning both F1 and bikes. The technical rules are negotiated every five years by Dorna, teams association IRTA and the MSMA, the manufacturers’ association. The MSMA has power of veto over the rules, but only via unanimous vote.

The idea behind giving this power to the manufacturers was to give them a stake in the series, otherwise why would they want to invest hundreds of millions in GP racing?

In fact Dorna has tried to do something about some of these new technologies. Last year it put two options to the MSMA: ban all ride-height devices from 2025 or ban front devices from this year.

“They all voted for option B,” says Ezpeleta. “What we want to do with the rules and what we can do are two different things, like everything in life.

“Fortunately and unfortunately MotoGP isn’t a dictatorship, so we have to see what the industry wants. As much as we’d like to implement changes in the regulations, by closing some doors or whatever, that’s still changing the rules.”

“And we only started the current five-year rules term last year! Wings already existed when we negotiated the current rules and ride-height devices already existed on some bikes, but no one came to me and said, ‘We’ll only sign our participation agreement if you get rid of this and this’.”

“The biggest thing the manufacturers request when they sign their participation agreements is that the regulations stay the same during those five years,” adds Cecchinelli. “They don’t want us to continually to adjust things. The reason F1 changes things every year is because they can afford it…

“Continually changing the rules doesn’t limit costs, it increases costs. Also, you may end up with the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve, because, for example, when you do something to control the performance of the fastest factories, you may damage the slower factories because they’re working to catch up and you destroy their work.

“One of the main reasons KTM has caught up this year is because it’s finally got a good ride-height system. So if we had banned ride-height systems for this year, maybe KTM would be further away from Ducati, not closer.

“Of course, I don’t know 100%, but this is the problem: you can never be sure…”

Which brings us to the woes of Honda and Yamaha, MotoGP’s last remaining Japanese manufacturers, which so far this season have been humiliated by their European rivals.

I start off by suggesting that the new format – introduced to accommodate Saturday’s sprint race – should be revised to make Friday morning’s session a free practice session, so teams can focus on trying new ideas, rather than doing time attacks, because the session currently counts towards Q1/Q2.

“I did this exercise,” replies Ezpeleta. “I worked out how many times FP1 was faster than FP2, before this year [when it didn’t count towards qualifying], and it was less than 2% at all events. So clearly you could test in FP1 98% of the time and not be damaged.

“Even before the sprint format some riders wanted all practice sessions to be free practice. I said, ‘Perfect, no one will watch!’. Have you watched Fridays in F1? They’re abysmal!”

Which brings us to what was a scoop at the time of the interview but isn’t anymore.

“Of course! I’m worried sick about losing Honda and Yamaha”

“If your question is, ‘Do we want to revise the concession points system?’, that’s a different question,” adds Ezpeleta, who went public with this information two weeks later.

“I personally think concession points is one of the items we will need to speak about.”

I assume Ezpeleta is worried about MotoGP losing Honda and Yamaha.

“Of course! I’m worried sick,” he says. “And not only about that – I’m worried about their top riders saying, ‘I’m out of here’. So there’s a concern about those factories and there’s a concern about some factory teams not having top riders.

“But the regulations are what they are and we can’t change them until 2027, unless all the manufacturers agree.”

Dorna wants to change the concessions rules by adjusting the points system, which gives concessions to any factory that doesn’t score a podium during a season. Thus Honda and Yamaha currently won’t be eligible for 2024 concessions because they’ve already scored a podium each this year (and only one each): Honda’s Álex Rins won at COTA, where Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo finished third.

“I think all the manufacturers are closer to each other now than they’ve ever been,” says Ezpeleta. “So not being on the podium for a whole season is unrealistic in what counts towards being competitive or not. So I think we may need to fine-tune the concessions concept.”

But Ducati and the other European manufacturers will never agree to that, I say. After all, they’ve all struggled to the top under the present system.

“Maybe they won’t,” adds Ezpeleta. “But maybe they should remember how generous the rest [i.e. Honda and Yamaha, who were dominant when concessions were introduced a decade ago] were with them.”

My other concern is MotoGP safety. Many riders say the class is getting more dangerous, due to a combination of high speeds, pack racing and the new format, which forces them to push to the limit and beyond from Friday morning.

The stats back this up. After this interview I compared the number of crashes at this year’s first eight races to last year’s first eight races: crashes have increased almost 20%, with more than half the riders breaking bones or undergoing surgery. And that’s on top of a 60% increase between 2013 and 2002!

Surely, both top speed and corner speed need looking at, because riders are running out of run-off, especially at faster tracks, like Mugello and Phillip Island.

“It’s not a big secret that we’re working on new regulations for 2027, which will have a number of performance-decreasing factors,” Ezpeleta continues. “I think there will be a significant performance drop in 2027, then the factories will start regaining that performance and in ten years’ time you’ll come back to me and we’ll be having the same conversation!

“But how much of a downgrade do we want? We’re not five seconds faster than World Superbikes and, compared to five years ago, we’re only 1.5 seconds faster than we were then.

“Clearly, I feel there’s room for improvement. I think power is one conversation, aero is another, ride-height devices is clearly another and tyres too.”

Some of these factors are related to improving the show, others to improving safety, but it’s not easy to do either, let alone both together.

For example, when I suggested to Ezpeleta that he should turn Friday morning into a free session, he answered, “So you want more development, for faster bikes, for less safety…? I think that all improvements made to the bikes make them less safe, because they go faster.”

Reducing corner speed may be a factor in improving safety, but again, it’s not easy.

“If we go to a safety commission meeting where the riders are complaining about a specific tyre spec and we say, ‘We don’t care what you say because we don’t want to increase corner speeds’, we’d be in a very difficult position. And are we actually going to go down a route where we say to Michelin, ‘We want worse tyres?’.”

Cecchinelli’s law of unintended consequences also applies to tyres. Michelin made a new rear slick for 2020, with longer-lasting grip, because its previous rear was running out of grip, so the lead group of riders rode around, saving their tyres for the last few laps, when they finally unleashed hell. Arguably, the racing was better then, so that’s another factor in the less than scintillating racing we’re seeing now.

“For me, good racing comes when there’s tyre management,” affirms Ezpeleta.

In other words, when the tyres are worse!

“About aero, maybe from the outside it seems very easy – just get rid of wings,” Ezpeleta goes on. “But at this point it’s quite straightforward – there’s no getting rid of the wings when you can already buy street bikes with wings, which are racing in World Superbike.”

Fair enough, I say, but ban ground effect, because most people I know in car racing have been shouting this at me for the last few years, “Don’t let MotoGP go down the ground-effect road because it’s a disaster!”.

“We are only in the current situation because all the factories have tried to go faster,” says Cecchinelli. “There was never any goal to make the show worse!”

All the above sums up Dorna’s situation – it’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. Whatever it does to solve one problem, creates another. And whatever it does to please one stakeholder, angers another. And it can’t move this way or that without the support of all the factories…

“At least you now know how difficult our job is!” grins Cecchinelli as we conclude the interview.