The 800cc MotoGP prototypes are in many ways the worst racing bikes ever built. And yet the ‘09 season has been such a nail-biter that some are whispering about the start of a new golden age.
Worst ever racing bikes? Well, yes, to the riders and by extension to the spectators. In all measurable ways they are clearly the best ever. Lap records prove that. And this year, Pedrosa’s Honda hit 349.3kmph, 1.9kmph faster than the 990s. The 800s are also the most electronically advanced racing bikes ever. This is a big part of their problem.
So what is bad about them? A combination of science and regulations makes them rather difficult to actually race against one another. Each rider tends to find his best lap time and then to circulate within a few tenths of it.
Regulations cut the engines from 990 to 800cc in 2007 in a magnificently misguided factory-led safety initiative. It changed the character of the power. Instead of gutsy mid-range, all the beans are found at the top of ever-higher rev ranges, nearing 20,000rpm in the Ducati’s case and they are delivered in such frenetic style that the bikes are virtually unrideable without ride-by-wire throttle over-rides, and traction-control software.
The consequence was particularly clear at Assen’s long power-on corners. Once you could hear riders delicately feeding the power on and off, tiptoeing on the edge of wheelspin. Now you get an earful of flatulent traction-control: engines popping, banging and mis-firing. But as Stoner says, “You can’t live without it. The rules won’t change. They will put it as a safety issue, and traction control does save a lot of people a lot of pain.” (Stoner’s gift, by the way, is not to put faith in TC, but to find ways to ride around it.)
The other improvement that has acted against elbow-to-elbow combat is tyres. Grip is so good, especially on the side, that corner speed and lean angles have shot up. With the peakier engine performance, riding them is, Rossi points out, “Like a 250. I’ve had to forget everything I learned on the 500 and the 990.”
There have certainly been processions in 2009. Even at Phillip Island, which encourages elbow-to-elbow like no other the riders spaced out and followed each other home.
But not only has the championship been an epic, 2009 will be remembered for some fantastic racing. And it wasn’t only between Rossi and Lorenzo either. Pedrosa had a couple of memorable rides, including the French race.Edwards had some real charges, like at Donington. And it was always interesting to watch Hayden battling to get to grips with the Duke, in the midst of his many mid-field skirmishes, often full of argy-bargy and elbow work.
The heartening truth is that in the end, the riders still make all the difference. Rossi says that the 800s make it harder for him to do so, but it’s true in the wider sense.
Among riders, Rossi has made the most difference. As a result, everyone is scared of his departure - increasingly imminent, if still two or three years away. What happens to rider-led racing when Rossi goes?
Jorge is working on it. He has emerged as strong a threat as anyone Valentino has ever faced, and stronger than most, being on an identical bike. His best lap time and Rossi’s are often indistinguishable: a measure of Rossi’s experience and race-craft that he managed to emerge on top in the end.
Lorenzo’s fame-games aren’t like Rossi’s: he has his own sense of theatre, tending to grandiose themes of gladiators and the like, while Rossi goes for the pantomime-dame end of the casting couch. But elaborate pre-planned post-race amateur dramatics was certainly a Rossi invention.
Jorge has come close to plagiarism in other areas: note the odd-coloured boots, and the helmet design: sun and moon for Rossi; devil and angel for Jorge. So there’s a strong irony, also in the current war of words between the two. Egged along by the Press, Jorge obliquely accused Rossi of copying his settings. Rossi demurred laughingly, then Jorge’s manager – scary big Brazilian Marcus Hirsch – waded in, insisting it was the case. Ramon Forcada, Jorge’s crew chief, was “working for two”, said the heretic Hirsch.
Nothing will be done to change the bikes in the foreseeable future, though elbow-racing fans are clinging to the hope that sooner or later one-litre production-based engines might supplant these over-finicky prototypes.
It remains up to the riders. And in that sense anyway, the phrase “golden age” may not be too far from the truth.
