MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

After the race weekend at Motegi, a few loose ends remain to be picked up. Though the race was hardly captivating, there were several things worth noting in Japan. So here's a quick rundown.

Champ

We have to start with the 2024 Moto3 champion. David Alonso showed the kind of speed and maturity in winning the race that brought him the title. He kept a calm head, stuck in the front group, and worked his way forward when it counted. There was never any real doubt he would win the race once he hit the front.

There is good reason to believe that Alonso is special. Winning 10 races in a season is impressive. Doing it in the space of 16 races even more so. Joan Mir and Fausto Gresini managed the same number of races in a Moto3 or 125cc season. Mir took 17 races to get to 10 wins in 2017, the year he won the Moto3 title. Gresini won 10 races in a row to win the 1987 title, though it was actually 11 in a row, counting the last race of 1986.

Alonso has one more race to win to match Valentino Rossi's record of 11 wins in a single season in the lightweight class. Rossi did that in just 14 races, in the year he took the 125cc crown. But with 4 more rounds to go, there is a very good chance Alonso will break that record too.

The next challenge the Colombian faces is how he tackles the move to Moto2, the biggest jump in motorcycle racing. But he is to remain with the Aspar team, who he has been with since he was 11. He is in capable hands.

Damage limitation for the GP23

News leaked out of Motegi that Ducati had made changes to the GP23 after Marc Márquez' engine blew up at Mandalika. Some digging by Simon Patterson of The Race revealed that the part changed was the external flywheel of the bike.

After the summer break, Ducati had introduced a lighter flywheel, in an attempt to reduce the inertia of the engine and help with the problem of Michelin's grippy rear tire pushing the front. The Ducati GP24 doesn't have that problem, as the engine is different and already has less inertia, and the electronics to handle it.

The advantage of a lighter flywheel is that the engine will rev more eagerly, and also drop revs faster when the throttle is closed. That allows the bike to accelerate more quickly, and gives it a different engine braking character.

But that advantage can also work against it. An engine that can rev more quickly will also be more prone to over-revving, unless it is managed by the electronics. But Márquez' exploding engine suggests that the GP23's electronics were not quite ready to handle the faster response of the lighter flywheel.

Listening to the onboard video of Marc Márquez, you can hear how he accelerates hard coming out of the corner, changes up through the gears, before the engine stops very rapidly. That is the sound of an engine expiring due to over-revving, the power dying immediately.

To avoid a repeat - probably because Ducati do not have a large reserve of physical engines to draw from to supply the teams using GP23s, especially as the bike is due to be scrapped next year - Ducati decided to switch back to the older, heavier flywheel. This is less prone to over-revving, as it spins up less eagerly. But it also doesn't slow as quickly when the rider shuts the throttle, pushing the front tire on corner entry.

Marco Bezzecchi confirmed to reporters that a part had changed on his bike, though he did not confirm what part that was. He gave a very cagey explanation for what had changed. "Let's say that this was the thing that was improving a bit the problem that we have. So now the feeling is again a little bit worse," the VR46 rider said.

The problem is great on tracks with a lot of grip, Bezzecchi added. Which was one reason why he had few problems at Mandalika than at Motegi. That will be a concern at Phillip Island and at Valencia, which have relatively new surfaces. But it will be less of an issue at Buriram, where Michelin bring the less grippy heat-resistant rear tire, and at Sepang.

Out of bounds?

After being the victim of a communication issue during qualifying, which cost him the chance of a second shot at a fast lap, Marc Márquez had the issue of track limits fall in his favor in Sunday's race, along with Brad Binder. Both Márquez and Binder exceeded track limits on the last lap of the race, which is regarded as an infringement when closely fighting for a position. The normal penalty is to drop one position.

Although the FIM GP Regulations only state that exceeding track limits is subject to penalty, the exact details of when penalties are applied and exactly what the penalty is only set out in protocols used by Race Direction and the FIM Stewards. The regulations state clearly that a penalty will be applied if the stewards deem that a rider gained an advantage by exceeding track limits.

At Motegi, we found out exactly what limit the Stewards apply to define when two riders are 'closely fighting' for a position, to use the words of Race Director Mike Webb. In the FIM Stewards report for the race on Sunday, they defined 'closely contesting' a position as a difference of half a second, or precisely 0.500 seconds.

In the case of Marc Márquez and Brad Binder, they both exceeded track limits on the exit of Turn 4. Binder crossed the line 0.869 ahead of Marco Bezzecchi, well outside of the half a second window. But Marc Márquez finished just 0.536 ahead of Enea Bastianini, squeaking through the window by 0.036 seconds.

To put that into perspective, the bikes are traveling at around 280 km/h when they cross the finish line. At that speed, the bikes travel just under 3 meters in 0.036 seconds. That is just under two bike lengths. If Enea Bastianini had been just a fraction closer to Márquez, he would have been handed a podium, though he could not have known it at the time.

It is possible that this could end up costing Enea Bastianini a sizable amount of money. Bastianini is now just 2 points ahead of Marc Márquez for third in the championship, instead of 8 points if he had finished on the podium instead of Márquez. Third in the championship will often pay a handsome bonus, from team and from sponsors. There is still a lot at stake here, but equally, there is still an awful lot of racing still to be done.

Yamaha in the doldrums

It was another tough weekend for Yamaha at Motegi. With more grip, and at a stop-and-go circuit, both Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins suffered through the weekend, while wildcard Remy Gardner brought up the rear. Yamaha didn't even win the battle of the Japanese manufacturers, Johann Zarco finishing just ahead of Fabio Quartararo.

The reason for Zarco beating Quartararo gets to the heart of Yamaha's problems. Quartararo ran short of fuel just before crossing the line, losing eleventh position to Zarco. "Already just before the bridge I started to feel it, and then out of the last corner of the bike just stopped," Quartararo said after the race. "So yeah, it was basically in the last corner."

This is the second time in three races this has happened, with Quartararo running dry just before the end of the second Misano race two weeks ago. That left the Frenchman furious. "It appeared again as we look a bit stupid again. Two times in three races, I think is a bit too much," he said.

Running out of fuel points to a deeper problem. "For me, it's just that they are not still OK with the electronics," Quartararo said. "They maybe want to try a few things, but they are not trying in a good way. And I think the strategy that we're trying is clearly not working, so."

Yamaha have been struggling with grip on the edge, and with an aggressive bike all year. Part of that they have addressed with a different engine character, reducing the power to improve the agility of the bike. But a large part of the equation is electronics, and managing drive out of corners. Once Yamaha's strongest point, the M1 has gone backward in that respect in the past couple of years.

This is an area where the addition of two more bikes will be a big help. Doubling the amount of data is going to allow Yamaha to work faster, adapt the electronics strategies more easily, and experiment with different strategies at the races. Yamaha have made big steps so far this year, but there is clearly much more work to do.

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