MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

After many long months of negotiation and analysis, the FIM and Dorna presented the technical rules for MotoGP due to be introduced in 2027. A capacity reduction to 850cc, a reduction in maximum bore size to 75mm, a ban on ride-height devices and further restrictions on aerodynamics are meant to reduce top speeds and give MotoGP circuits some breathing room, to slow the rate of progress.

Will it work? The history of MotoGP rule changes is that new restrictions tend to turbocharge innovation, as engineers try to find ways around the new rules put in place to obstruct them. So the task ahead of MotoGP's rule writers - Director of Technology Corrado Cecchinelli, ably assisted by Race Director Mike Webb and one or two other Dorna and IRTA staff - is to phrase the rules in such a way to prevent MotoGP engineers from driving a coach and horses through them.

In an interview I did with Corrado Cecchinelli for the Paddock Pass Podcast, he explained the ideas and concepts behind the new rules. Cecchinelli told me he defines the concepts he wants the rules to control, in agreement with the manufacturers who make up the MSMA [Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers' Association], and then Mike Webb turns those into the text to be included in the FIM Technical Regulations.

To find out more about how Mike Webb approaches writing rules as specifically as possible, without opening the door to factory engineers exploiting the loopholes accidentally left open, I spoke to the MotoGP race director at Barcelona. We talked about the process of agreeing rules with the MSMA, how trying to be very specific about definitions can inadvertently open more loopholes than it closes, how rules are policed on the ground, and the lessons learned from the explosion of aerodynamics inside MotoGP.

Q: What process do you go through turning a concept such as static height to ban ride-height devices into a set of words that engineers will have a great deal of difficulty in getting around?

Mike Webb: Going back some years, I was Technical Director and writing those rules, and trying to do it from a non-engineering point of view and writing vague concepts. It's changed now, where we've got Corrado on board, who's an actual engineer, and what he'll do is, in something like this... a lot of the technical regulations now have got his signature on it, if you like. You can see real precise technical engineering knowledge.

So, especially for ride-height devices, aero, all of those sections are more or less written by Corrado. He'll send it to me in a raw form of engineering English, if you like. And all I do is tidy that into English that is clear in its meaning for non-English speakers. Because the vast majority of the paddock are not native English speakers.

So I all I do is make it a bit easier to read, keeping the engineering concepts in there. So, technical regulations, it's a lot of Corrado's input into that as an engineer. Sporting regulations, that's basically me, because it's not an engineering thing.

And what we have to use a lot, is the really simple sentence at the bottom of almost every technical regulation, "in case of dispute, the technical director's opinion will be final".

So Danny [Aldridge, MotoGP Technical Director and in charge of ensuring that the technical rules are complied with - DE] in consultation with Corrado will write, outside of the rule book, a set of guidelines. They're not in the rule book because the wording is not precise enough, but this is what we mean with aero, and the meaning is we don't want you to do this, or on ride height, this means the target is this.

It's a guideline that the manufacturers all get, and he can change that during the year. Because rules need the Grand Prix Commission to change them and that's fairly unwieldy, but guidelines can be updated going to say, OK, that's the rule, but this is what we mean...

Q: Which is a bit like what we saw with the clutches with Aprilia and KTM, which were banned at Phillip Island last year?

MW: That's exactly that. Because it was a loophole we hadn't closed. And that's where the guidelines are going. If we can see a loophole and say, oh, that's not in the technical regulations as written, and because we've got this understanding with the MSMA that we can't just change technical regulations overnight, because there's so much lead time, what we can do is in the guidelines is explain that the interpretation of that rule is we don't want this. So for example, from this event onward or this date onward, we're going to clamp down on that.

Q: So the MSMA have input into the Grand Prix Commission [MotoGP's rule making body - DE]...

MW: Big time, yeah...

Q: So Corrado would have gone to to the MSMA and said, we want to ban ride-height devices. Would the MSMA come back with yes or no, or would they come back with, this is how we want to see it implemented?