IN
THE
WIND
P52
Yamaha Back
to the Future?
H
as Yamaha gone back three
years to solve their MotoGP
chassis problems? And have they
robbed star rookie Fabio Quartara-
ro—after he proved its worth—to give
it to favored factory man Maverick Vi-
nales? That's what it seems like after
the Brno round of the 2019 MotoGP
World Championship.
Quartararo has achieved his three
poles and two podiums with a some-
what secret hybrid, using the 2019
engine in a chassis used initially by
Jorge Lorenzo in 2016, and subse-
quently by Johann Zarco, whose
own debut in the premier class was
similarly sensational.
Now the rookie's success has
inspired Vinales to demand a go on
the same frame, while Quartararo
has been "rewarded" with the 2019
chassis, on which both Vinales and
Valentino Rossi have been variously
struggling.
That's how technical guru Neil
Spalding, author of the definitive
MotoGP Technology (which we
reviewed last year, click here to read
it), calls it. Minute studying of the
chassis structures and weld patterns
give the game away, he said.
If so, it didn't work very well.
Rookie Quartararo had a reasonable
race to seventh at Brno, yet another
top 10, while Vinales was back to
the previous pattern of a dire start
and poor early laps, and an eventual
distant 10th.
Michael Scott
Maverick Vinales has
apparently copied Fabio
Quartararo's frame choice,
but it still wasn't enough
to beat him at Brno.
Aprilia's New Ride Coming
V
ery few secrets emerged at
the annual MotoGP techni-
cal briefing, held at the Brno
MotoGP, where HRC's Yo-
koyama was joined by Aprilia's
Romano Albesiano and Suzu-
ki's Shinichi Sahara. But all the
delegates agreed that while any
chance of looser regulations
in the new five-year period,
which will begin in 2022, was
potentially exciting, it was also
ruinously expensive.
Aprilia has "reached the
limits" with their current V4,
and was to introduce an all-new
bike next year, according to
Albesiano. This would be "a
really big step," but without
significant changes. It would
be a V configuration in line with
the company's DNA, while the
regulations already specify a
maximum of four cylinders and
a maximum bore size of 81mm
(a three-cylinder engine with
that bore size would have an
unfeasibly long stroke.)
Different engine designs,
said Albesiano, raised the
specter of "balancing regula-
tions," as used in world super-
bikes, mainly through rev limits,
which was "a big problem" in
superbikes. Also, the effect on
the budget would be explosive
if we changed the bore size.
"If we had real technical dif-
ferences, we could see
30 seconds between
first and fourth place,"
he said.
The current technical
conformity had yielded
much closer racing.
Michael Scott
Don't worry,
Aleix! Your new
bike is coming…
eventually.
