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Assen MotoGP Post-Race Subscriber Notes: Bagnaia's Reign, Ducati's Michelin Mastery, And Tire Pressure Injustice

By David Emmett |

The Dutch TT at Assen is in glorious good health. On a coolish, windy, partly overcast and partly sunny day, nearly 109,000 fans packed the TT Circuit, some 1200 fans shy of officially selling out. They came for a lot of reasons: tradition - the circuit was handing out certificates to fans for their 50th, 60th, and even 70th attendance at the event - location, and because of the excellent state MotoGP is in at the moment.

It certainly helped that the Dutch fans have a local hero to cheer for, Collin Veijer coming within three corners of immortality before Ivan Ortolá snatched victory from him in Moto3. But given there were only 3,000 more fans at Assen than in 2023, there is not much room for the extra fans Veijer might bring in.

That last lap maneuver, and the tension of Ortolá chasing down Veijer in the last two laps, turned Moto3 into the best race of the day. Moto2 was close but strange, Fermín Aldeguer finding another way to rob himself of victory, being handed a penalty for track limits while leading the race comfortably. MotoGP had an air of inevitability about the outcome, Pecco Bagnaia showing once again that he is untouchable around Assen, despite Jorge Martin giving him a run for his money.

The entertainment came from further down the field, the antics of Marc Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio, desperate not to lead the group in an attempt to keep some heat in the left hand side of the front tire and avoid the fate which would befall Pedro Acosta, crashing out at the fast left of Ruskenhoek. But while that was entertaining in its own way, it was not quite exhilarating.

What did we learn from the Dutch TT at Assen? We learned that Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin have something extra at the moment, consistently two or three tenths faster than the rest of the pack. We learned that Ducati has been better than the other manufacturers at extracting the extra potential from the 2024 Michelin rear tire. We learned that the weather and layout at Assen make managing tire temperature and pressure difficult. And we learned that if you are forced wide by another rider, your race is effectively over, regardless of where you actually finish. The changes to the tire pressure rules for 2024 have been very effective, but they leave an injustice baked in, one that needs addressing.

8
2024
MotoGP
Assen, The Netherlands
Ducati
Francesco Bagnaia
Jorge Martin
Marc Marquez
CormacGP
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Comments

Minimum starting pressure is no good, too easily fudged and too inconsistent. 

I mean what constitutes “the start”? When the lights go out after wildly varying speed sighting laps from all riders or they eere left waiting by a canny dawdler at the back? On the dummy grid where all teams have totally different tyre warming strategies and equipment? 

What stops a team warming their tyres/rims to a higher temperature than normal just prior to the measurement? They hit the mark only to have the tyre/rim cool to normal afterwards, meaning the pressure drops well under the minimum.

Any single point measurement just becomes a point to be gamed. And it’s a worthless measurement as tyre damage does not occur instantaneously, it is work put into the under-inflated tyre over time that does the damage.

Which is why I support the current time period/laps based approach. 

And for all the gnashing of teeth over Marc only being 0.1bar under, the flip side is they could have simply added 0.1bar “fat factor” to allow for just such a very common racing scenario…but they chose not to.

I hope they don’t start fiddling with it, it seems like the best of the bad choices. As long as it is applied consistently it’s all good by me, start arguing fault/blame it just get’s even uglier.

 

The wheel/tyre volume is known, the pressure/temperature is measurable and recordable. Michelin know their tyres, have sufficient data to predict wear - they do that already - and could provide a value that can be calculated by those computer thingies which teams can verify.

I take your point that it could be more complicated than one static measurement ahead of the race. However, your heated rim example could be easily policed with a thermal temperature gun measuring the temperature of the rim at the time the pressure is measured. 

To your point about over warming the tires, I find that unlikely on the basis that overheating the tires may damage the compound and reduce the tire's performance. I would also expect Michelin to set the warming temperature anyway based on their tire design. Michelin and the teams know what the temperatures/pressures are when the tires are sitting on the grid under tire warming blankets, have Michelin provide a minimum pressure under those conditions that keeps them comfortable. Keep the live data feed, and have the system capture everyone's pressure on the grid as close to the two minute board as is practical, then classify tires as hands off to changes after the measurement is taken. The teams are responsible to make sure their tire pressures are all above board at the deadline.

I dunno, I’m thinking we would be swapping one “sub-optimal” solution for another: instead of Marc/Gresini complaining how it wasn’t their failt they lost a measely 1 second worth of tyre temp we’d be listening to teams at places like Assen or Phillip Island with a cold wind whistling through various lumps of track infrastructure/grand stands etc. 

After getting pinged for a minor pressure infraction they’d be (rightly) complaining they were experiencing the full force of a Phillip Island southerly direct from Antarctica, vs other bikes in a more sheltered position.

We’re just in a ball-ache situation, but the current rules seem like the softest kick in the balls. The only real issue I have is the size of the penalty which seems a lil’ too savage. It needs to be worse than any possible benefit but not orders of magnitude so.

Uccio said last night that VR46 had just met w Duc and that the current plan is one '25 top kit bike to each of VR46 and Gresini. 

I think that is a good thing. Do you?

 

So today I see what Sponge referred to below. Gigi says their current plan is THREE '25's and three '24's. One going to VR46. Saves money. 

(I too see Marc as simply insisting on a top kit bike and getting it, more than being a grand schemer).

DiGia is looking quite valuable right now. Good for him! May as well stay at Yellow and get both a raise and a Factory bike. Repeating myself, but being in The Factory team is not always the best decision these days. But that bike sure is.

I may have heard only three '25 Ducatis next year. It may have come from a Dall'Igna interview at motogp.com. And Simon Patterson is running with a story that Lewis Hamilton is trying to buy the Gresini Ducati team.

Marquez blames Bastianini for bumping him off the track, yet Marc engaged in a late braking battle with the Beast. Didn't Dovi and Rossi get into one of those at Assen back in '19 or so? Neither one made turn 1. They late braked themselves off the track and off the podium. Marquez refused to cede the position and got punted. Sounds fair to me. That's what Marc has done many times over the years when he had the inside line. Or forced an inside move.

How about no tire pressure rule? If someone runs too low pressure or too high and has their performance affected, that’s on them. Being penalized is pure BS. I agree with dirt, if tire pressure has to be regulated, check it before the race, not afterwards.

…was complaining about the bump. What he was saying that he was bumped off track rather than running wide from his own mistake and that should reduce the penalty. Fair enough too I think.

This sort of occurrence is part and parcel of racing, especially in Marc’s vicinity, surely you would add just a smidge of pressure to allow for something so common? I mean, even club racers don’t just carry enough fuel for the 6-8lap sprint, they plan for a red-flag restart etc and carry a little extra weight “just to be sure to be sure”. Everyone knows the rules, you don’t complain about not carrying enough fuel for the restart, you took the risk and lost.

Same here: they rolled the dice on a race going to a particular plan and paid the price when it didn’t. 7P’s from my apprenticeship: proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance.

So I don’t have an issue with the rule, the fault is the teams for being caught out by something entirely expected. If, as they are lamenting, “it is only 0.1bar!” why not simply run an extra 0.1bar for insurance? Slower? Change your setup, build it into your race/bike strategy…or suffer these exact consequences. 

...that Marc would have liked a 'drop one position' penalty imposed for the move.

In my limited view, he has only himself to blame for the runoff. When I got outbraked from the inside, I gave way to avoid such off-track excursion in my racing career. The dumbass that tried to squeeze me from the outside going into a turn got the treatment Marquez got from Bastianni everytime!

The Michelin debacle makes just as much sense as Oliveira's long lap penalty debacle. 

 

MO88 having to do another long lap due to running off into the gravel on the outside of the penalty loop is unreasonable. 

 

Michelin producing a new rear tire that can finish the race 30 seconds faster while only producing excuses about fears of upsetting the delicate balance of the bikes for front tires is unreasonable. 

What I don't understand is how it is possible for Michelin to have introduced a new rear tyre when they are allegedly struggling to get the new front in, which might alleviate some of the pressure issues?

Were Marc to ‘get his act together’ for the rest of the season the points he lost may be important ones. It’s all very well saying “those are the rules” but fairness is supposed to be part of sport and the management are acting like donkeys whilst the lions are risking plenty to get slapped over a badly written rule, and a failure to just tell Michelin to sort themselves out and make this problem, of their literal making, go away.

  1. Gresini/Marc (I’m assuming a shared decision) screwed up by running the margin too close. He was balked for 1 sec off track…1 sec…If that is all it takes to screw up a whole race that is on Gresini/Marc, NOT the stewards

  2. This is absolutely NOT a problem of Michelin’s making. The opposite actually: Michelin are being asked to clean up the complete mess created by aero and ride height devices run amok. 

    Fix the cause, not the symptom. The cause is increased load on the front tyre from aero reducing wheelie and increasing downforce under brakes. Combine this with ride height devices increasing acceleration so bikes are approaching corners at a higher speed, COMPOUNDING the issue.

    No way is this on Michelin, this is on Dorna and the MSMA. Blaming Michelin is like complaining about the quality of your Panadol while still banging your head against the wall.

     

I agree that any margin around a limit just becomes the limit. Add in a +/- and if there is an advantage at the extreme, that's where the teams will be. 

However, I'm not so sure that aero is the cause of this issue. With or without aero, if the rules permitted, teams would run pressures below the current minimum. That's because there is an advantage in doing so. The minimum pressure was always there but not enforced. Concerns about the extra loads brought by aero have led to the limit being enforced. 

I still think that complaints about higher pressures are mostly complaints about lap time and not about danger. After the minimum tyre pressure limit was enforced last season there were fewer crashes and few infringements. The few infringements that did occur were teams taking advantage of the first offence warnings. The racing was better too. 

I think the current system is not good. I think they should set a minimum pressure that must be there before the warm up lap. They can set a temperature window and minimum pressure. If the rider is not within those limits, start from pitlane and only allowed to leave pitlane when they are within the limits. Then let them get on with it. This bike or that bike might be different but not so much as to destroy their race or give them a huge advantage. That starting pressure, set high enough, would give 'safe' pressures during the race. It would remove the need for 60% of this that or whatever. Possibly a rider taking a trip through the gravel would gain an temporary advantage if his pressures dropped but it would not compensate for the off.

I dunno.

https://motomatters.com/analysis/2022/10/09/why_motogp_needs_the_new_michelin_front.html

Reading back this great 2022! article just makes me laugh.

You know what? Use the free weekends from the cancelled races to organise tyre test weekends. Use the money you got from the organizers to pay for the damn things.

I’ve heard enough excuses. Just do your jobs and find a way.

The main problem is the poor management of this issue by Dorna. 
Dorna should make the rules fair and also sort the technical.

Yes aero is problem, as are carbon brakes, but Dorna should sort one or all of them

Agree that Michelin have been handed a problem of bike development but as has been said elsewhere they seem to have sorted the rear. We have another year of this nonsense and IMO Michelin should sort the front and they are a year late with that.

This isn’t banging your head on a wall it’s being AWOL and drunk on grip when they need to sort the heat, or get out of the kitchen.

Per MM’s own comments, he was low on lap 8! when he tried to let DiGi by to follow and heat up his tires. Whined after that the Beast pushing him wide caused the TP penalty. Complete BS. Clearly Gresini started him too low and he was in TP trouble from start. Had he started with reasonable tire pressure like literally everyone else who didn’t get a penalty, the push wide would have made no difference. I also don’t buy that being pushed wide for tenths/hundredths of sec does anything significant to TPs. How is it any different to taking a different line thru a corner, running wide on an overshoot, etc. MM the only one whining. That should tell everyone something. 

^ Easy folks, some of us including me see it differently. His garage thought he'd be battling in traffic, but he wasn't so much. Mistake, yes. I thought Marc was fairly matter of fact and gracious.

Btw, I was reflecting yesterday on how much I loved and enjoyed Rossi in his heyday. No particularly colored lenses here. I do not see poor character in MM93, more a highly driven competitor singularly focused. He may get attributed with motive and method that are projected upon him.

I predict next year will be at times tricky but mostly a bridge building one between Pecco and Marc. Hope old hatchets can be buried. 

Want to get depressed? Go read today's article from Cycle World. Remember these? I certainly do! "Middleweight Sportbike Shootout." This one has the precursor of "Modern."

"Suzuki GSX-8R vs. Triumph Daytona 660 vs. Yamaha YZF-R7

Modern middleweight sportbikes go head-to-head in this sub-$10K comparison."

75-82 Horsepower. Only one has adjustable suspension. The Triumph 660 "Daytona" is just sad, garbage suspension. All three have steel frames. The R7 is the sportiest of the bunch.

Takeaway? I need a hug. Buy yourself a low mileage 12 yr old sportbike and customize it to your liking. "When the World is running down you make the best of what's still around..." 

Me too Jerry, listened to it on my new Sony Walkman miracle device. Family excursions in the VW bus got better in my own little music world. I am often still in it, Spotify and good Bluetooth headphones. (2014 Triumph 675R, if I didn’t have it a similar yr GSXR750 or R6 would do fine). 

Always, well mostly ;-), a voice of reason in the comments section. 

I get it that not everyone warms to Marc, but he's a multiple world champion for a reason, and that is his drive (or should that be ride) to be the best, and take the knocks he's had to endure to achieve his goals. That should be admired; as it should in every one of these guys who push themselves to, and beyond, the limit to realise their dreams. Some I warm to more than others, and we see only a miniscule part of who they are in real life, but it's not a popularity contest and I respect every one of them for being, arguably, the best in their craft in the world; and not all are lucky enough to get a Ducati on the grid. I hate it when commenters give them stupid, disrespectful nicknames, which is why this is the only site I follow.

I'm no racer, but have ridden, and fallen off, enough over 50 years, to admire immensely even the backmarkers. I also love the knowledgable contributors here who share their experience with us lesser mortals. I look forward to seeing MM93 on the GP25.

To be fair this series of events is not something done to Marc, these are things Marc has largely done to himself, he has very much authored his own demise..

From the original injury: he had already crashed once in that race, then carved through the field making everyone else look very average in an amazing recovery, but not content with 3rd (after crashing/recovering!) he had to push for 2nd……and crashed again, breaking his arm. 

It wasn’t just dumb in terms of the race but in terms of the championship, being so early in the season with all the time in the world to recover a handful of points.

Then foolishly trying to come back at the very next round with the freshly broken arm completely cocked up his recovery (he attributed later breaking the plate in his arm to that ill-fated attempt).

That’s all on Marc. It is not unfortunate or unlucky, it is a series of deliberate (poor) choices.

Another poor choice was bike development: Pol Espargaro put his long ‘n low RC at the top of the time sheets in 2022 pre-season testing, while Marc was down in 9th on his preferred short ‘n tall bike.

History informs us Honda chose the past rather then the future, continuing down Marc’s short ‘n tall development dead end.

The irony is not lost that he had rediscovered himself on someone else’s long ‘n low bike.

He’s incredible in so many ways, he’s defined an era really, but he’s also responsible for some really crap decisions. 

Couldn't have said it better. MM is not a victim, he caused his problems. And the problems of a few others he has binned over the years. Kinda like his tire pressure problem this weekend. Everyone else on the grid figured it out.

He is so incredibly skilled, and yet the red mist still takes over, even at this point in his career. 

Clearly different definitions of whining exist.

To me, he all but whined about it. He was asked about what happend and explained. That’s all. He even agreed with the penalty. How in the world that constitutes as whining is beyond me. Bias plays its part I guess, but that’s a purely personal opinion that can be discarded entirely.

On a sidenote, you say literally everyone else started with reasonable tire pressure. It’s clear Diggia also ran into trouble and he said as much. Any others? Hard to tell. So no, he wasn’t the only one.

Second sidenote, I like the use of TP for Tire Pressure as I read it as Beavis and Butthead used it. Thanks for that.

All of the riders struggled with the hard front. It's not a stoppie track. If they are struggling to turn the bike then they are struggling to work the front and struggling to keep it up to temperature. End result, pressure drops. It's a race, of course they try and run as low as possible. 

He accepted he was outside of the rules but appealed to see if there could be any margin given for the circumstances. Worth the appeal because currently a long run through a cold miserable Silverstone gravel trap could land you a lovely 16 second penalty...unless of course they should also take that possibility into account while at the same time trying to win the race. The tyre choice this weekend was a bit busted is all.

In many ways it's no different to track limits. If there is a limit and being on that limit is an advantage then that's where we will find the riders. It would be more surprising to find a rider leaving a significant safety margin because they don't want a penalty. Pecco and Martin...they had a margin, in pace. Marc not. Maybe the other riders were lucky, or never finished, or were too slow because they left too big a safety margin in pressure.

Remy being called back up is something I've been waiting for since he went to WSB. He's in excellent form right now and seems to like Sachsenring - 15th in MotoGP in 2022, first in Moto2 in 2021, and qualified second in Moto2 in 2021 (DNS after a morning warm-up crash).

Hopefully he finishes the race weekend safely and has a good Sunday.

If we leave character assessments to the side for one minute - I think the issue is this: Of all the current riders (and maybe for all time...), is there anyone who has spent more time leading a race, or having only one or two battles for a podium, than MM? I don't think so - I think he is simply not that accustomed to being in the middle of a dogfight and finds it a little bit surprising and confronting when he is. Additionally overtaking cleanly is now harder than it was, with the exception of the occasional Bastianini recovery program. Whack in the absurd distraction of the tyre pressure thing - itself related to the things (Aero and Ride Height) that make overtaking harder, and I think you have an example of why MM might want to have a bit of a moan about things this round. Almost no one performing anything at this level is entirely selfless in their actions or reactions. But if we doubt the character of MotoGP riders in comparison to athletes in any other sport, I think they all come off really well. 

And yes, Go Remy. 

 

If we leave character assessments to the side for one minute - I think the issue is this: Of all the current riders (and maybe for all time...), is there anyone who has spent more time leading a race, or having only one or two battles for a podium, than MM? I don't think so - I think he is simply not that accustomed to being in the middle of a dogfight and finds it a little bit surprising and confronting when he is. Additionally overtaking cleanly is now harder than it was, with the exception of the occasional Bastianini recovery program. Whack in the absurd distraction of the tyre pressure thing - itself related to the things (Aero and Ride Height) that make overtaking harder, and I think you have an example of why MM might want to have a bit of a moan about things this round. Almost no one performing anything at this level is entirely selfless in their actions or reactions. But if we doubt the character of MotoGP riders in comparison to athletes in any other sport, I think they all come off really well. 

And yes, Go Remy. 

 

Marc was citing front tyre temps / pressures as the issue that caused Vale to believe Marc was deliberately playing with him a long time before big aero and ride height devices. Attributed, IIRC, to the Michelin switch to 17" wheels rather than the 16.5 of Bridgestone.

The mindset of these guys can't necessarily be judged fairly by average guys like us (which is the next simplification). From my standpoint these guys are extremists, willing to go far beyond almost any boundaries. So if he (and his team) decides to set TP as low as possible to extract maximum performance, they decided to take the risk of overstepping a boundary. I remember Rossi doing burnouts in practice sessions on his starting spot to give him an advantage at the start ( did this led to the practice start excercises after training sessions?).

I'm for sure not a Marquez fan, but he took penalty without much drama so i guess he knew what he was doing in setting up the bike for the race.

From Svetozar Pavlović at AS: "The Seven-time world champion and Mercedes team driver is reportedly in talks to buy MotoGP’s Gresini Racing"

Re: Hamilton's love of motorcycle racing; expanded market opportunities via Liberty Media; leveraging Hamilton's 37 million Instagram followers (8M+ on Xwitter)

 Who knows? But it just adds to the insane levels of excitement about MotoGP and its future.