MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The Buriram MotoGP test confirmed Ducati as the preseason favorite, with Aprilia a close second and KTM possibly on the prowl. But what about the Japanese manufacturers? After a couple of years in the wilderness, are they any closer to regaining competitiveness?

Much of the attention at the launch of Aprilia's MotoGP project for 2025 centered on the question of whether Jorge Martin would run the #1 plate or continue to run his traditional #89. It was never really going to be a question, Martin explained as he unveiled his bike. "I didn't have any doubt about running the #1, because I've been fighting for this all my life." Perhaps there is a generational shift taking place, with riders preferring to run the #1 plate again after Pecco Bagnaia broke the perceived curse in 2023.

The unveiling was done well, though it wasn't captured on the live video stream. As Aprilia PR boss Antonio Boselli spoke to riders Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi before the livery was unveiled, the backdrop behind Martin showed his old number, #89.

It is hard to overstate just how MotoGP has changed in the last five or so years. Where once bikes were short and high, to maximize turning and pitch under braking, now they are long and low, with a focus on acceleration and power. A lot of the change has been blamed on aerodynamics, as the most visible difference between, say, 2019 and 2024.

That is certainly how factories first saw the role of aerodynamics, but that too has changed since 2019. "Some years ago, if you looked at the telemetry, you can easily understand that one of the most important problems of the bike is wheelie," Ducati Corse CEO Gigi Dall'Igna told me in an interview in 2022. "You cannot accelerate as much as you think because of the wheelie. So you have to try to understand what you have to do in order to reduce this problem. So we started to develop the wings, we started to lower the center of gravity on the bike."

Michelin will not be introducing a new front tire at for the 2025 season. At a breakfast organized for the media at Misano on Friday morning, Michelin's head of two-wheeled motorsport, Piero Taramasso explained that although the feedback from the tire test at Misano had been positive, the tire still needed work to be ready.

Taramasso later explained to Simon Crafar on the MotoGP.com live feed some of the background to the test. The test had been good, and the comments of all of the riders had been the same. "For example, they said, yeah, the tire has more grip, we feel more contact patch, but the bike is heavy," Taramasso told Crafar. "They said the tire, we feel a good potential, we can push, but it moves too much. The movement is good, because it gives feedback, but it moves too much when you try to brake hard." Some riders liked the new front, others liked it less, and others were caught in between.

For the past four years or so, there have been growing complaints about issues with Michelin's front tire. The increasing loads put on the front by the ride-height devices and by aerodynamics have raised temperatures and pressures, and the increasing size of aerodynamic wakes have made harder and harder to find fresh air to cool down the front tire by pulling out from behind the rider in front of you.

To address that, Michelin have been working on a new construction front tire. Initially, Michelin had planned to test it in 2020 and introduce it in 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to that, with testing halted during that year, and by the time a normal testing schedule resumed, the bikes had changed so much, the role of ride-height devices and aerodynamics increased so much, that Michelin had to go back to the drawing table and redesign the front for the massive loads it now had to endure.

Testing after a race is always tricky affair. There is a weekend's worth of Michelin rubber on the track, and then another 24 riders spend all day laying down yet more rubber - a grand total of 1706 between all of them, for a total distance of 7545.638 kilometers. By the end of the day, the conditions are just not going to get much better.

That means you have to treat the times with a touch of caution, and as a MotoGP rider and team, be careful how you interpret what you are feeling. "We know that every time the tests are a bit unrealistic for the grip level," fastest rider Fabio Di Giannantonio told us at the end of the day at Jerez. "For this reason, the focus was to understand what a part does, let's say. Just about the comments, not about the lap time or whatever. Just to understand the characteristic of that part and whether to use it or not at the next few rounds."

Pedro Acosta gave us a reminder of why we say that the season starts for real once the paddock returns to Jerez. "The problem here is that everybody is so fast," the GASGAS Tech3 rider said on Friday. "Because since the CEV they were doing many laps here, like hell. Imagine how many laps in winter tests or with Panigales or whatever. Everything is so close, so close. I am sixth but the gap until tenth is less than one tenth, for this it is quite difficult." Acosta's time of 1'36.439 puts him exactly one tenth of a second ahead of Alex Marquez in tenth, and a time of 1'36.539.

Here, the paddock is back on terra firma, at a track they know well and understand. At Jerez they have a baseline, and a starting point to work. And that makes the job of finding an advantage that much more difficult. The top 16 are all within a second of each other, with little to choose between them.

The two preseason tests for the MotoGP class are two entirely different beasts. Sepang is like Christmas morning, when the kids rush down to unpack all of the new toys laid there by Santa. Or in this case, the engineering groups of assorting motorcycle manufacturers.

Qatar, on the other hand, is more like the morning of departing on a long trip. There's a big list of things to check before you pull the door closed behind you and depart on your adventure. In this case, the 2024 MotoGP season.

In effect, Sepang is the filter, and Qatar is the finalization. Sepang is the place where the 2024 package is assembled, Qatar is the place it is knocked into shape ready for the race here in three weeks time.