Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Dunlop'r internotionol motorsport monoget Jeremy Ferguson, either doesn't grip, or it gripr okay and doesn't last, or the grip's okay but it doesn't handle, or it handles okay but it chatte6. You go 'round this circle of problems over and over again, What's changed with I'1otoGP is. you've got signifi- cantly more horsepower, in a bike that's heavier than the 500 was, but much lighter than a Superbike, The sheer straight-line speeds mean the temperature gener- ated in the rear tire is enormous. At one time you had problems getting the tire up to working temperature. Now the problem is controllin8 the temperature. When I started in racinS many yea6 ago, we had three com- pounds- And you could race virtually any circuit on a fac- tory bike on those three compounds. But to get the per- formance levels that we need in IYotoGP bikes, the compounds work in a much narrower window of tem- perature. So you end up with a lot more compounds to choose from. The influence then of machine setup, track tempera- ture and ambient temperature is much Sreater. So you really have to be very very careful what you choose. Ferguson: You're seeing more and more now that it is circuit-dependent. Horses for courses - rear tires, not so much front, especially now we're into the area of multicompounds. Where you have which compound is very much circuit-dependent. Changes from one circuit to another The tires you use here may not be useful at any other circuit you go to. At the moment, the tires come later - the motorcfcle is designed first. ls there any move for tire engineers to be involved at the design stage? Would that help? Male: lt's happening now. We have some new people and some new technologr that enables us to work effec- tively in the virtualworid with the bike and the tire. To start to see exacdy how the interrelationships work. Once upon a time, we didn't have that. The whole thirE wEs down to David l/Vatkins. technical manaSer] and his team, and their fundamenrai undersrandinS of whar was going on. Now we can demonstrate a level of understanding so we can Eo away to a completely off-track environ- ment, and simulate that. So we can say: lf we change this, what effect will it have not only on the tire but also on the bike? Or if we change this on the bike, what effect will it have on the tire? We're starring to see those interrelationships. They used to call tire design "a black art." ls it now the software desiSn that is the black art? Male: lt's a balance at the moment. Yes, we're gen- erating a lot more data, and doing a lot more simulation, and seeing more of what is going on. But you still need a designer at the end ofthe day to interpret that into what actually to put in the tire. That's the tricky bit. Deciding to make it stiffer or soft- er is one thing, but then taking that requirement into the design for that specification of tire is a different problem. lf you had a Honda team, would you make dif. ferent tires ,rom those on the Yamaha? Ferguson: Possibly- Quite probably. Even the d'Antin Ducati has a different requirement from Yamaha. Pan of it is a rider thing. Some are harder on the front than oth- ers. Or they require stiffer constructions or compounds because of the way they ride the bikes. But also the bikes are fundamentally different. Male: The geometry's different- Weight distribution and power delivery are different. Soon as you start play- ing around with those things, you start to change the tire requirements. Even within the same motorcycle... lf we were runnin8 with Valentino [Rossi], we'd probably be running different things than with Tech 3, because his demands in specific areas of performance are different- Wth the Yamaha, Michelin has run into big chat- ter problems here at Jerez. ls it the sarne for you? Ferguson: Yes. Basically. a similar experience. We have mostly been able to dial it out. But it's not gone away completely. When we read their press release, it sounds quite familiar. So you'd be looking to the motorcycle to fix it. Ferguson: Yes - at the bike/suspension interface. What causes chatter? Male: How big a book have you got? Fundamentally, you have to imagine that the tire has a spring and damper rate of its own, and this is attached to another set of springs and dampers that are attached to the motorcycle. lt's possible, if you get a misrnatch, for those things to start to excite each other. And as soon as one starts to vibrate, it's magnified by the other. And the chassis too? Male: The chassis has its own harmonic. too. Sometimes it's very difficult to find out where it starB... whether it's coming from the rear under engine braking, whether it's coming from the front under cornering load. lt's significantly better than it was two weeks ago. Sometimes you chase it 'round the motorcycle. Fix it at the rear and it moves to the front; fix it at the front and it reappears at the rear. How lonS has chatter been a problem? I don't remember the MV ASusta riders complaining about it. Male: At least 30 years, because it was one of the first things I learned about when I started in motorcycle racing. Cenainly since slicks have been around, since the mid- 1970s. It's been a couple of years now since Goodyear took control of Dunlop. Now there is an American involvement, along with the estab- lished British and Japanese. Has that made any difference? Fergu5on: Not really. For the motorcycle business, it's Dunlop. Goodyear are not involved in motorcycles at all. We have three global motorcycle centers, On the race side, two major development and production cen- ters, in Japan and the UK. And these are now... I would say seamlessly integrated. Certainly the way people work on a daily basis, the communication by e-mail or video conference is now permanent. As you see, we have Japanese engineers and compounders appearing at ever/ race, alongside their UK counterparts. It's far too simplistic to say that, tire is Japanese, and this one is English. You will found compounds or poly- esters in one that have come from the other place. You are back with a factory team after a long absence, At what cost? Ferguson: Clearly, at an investment. The global com- pany decided we needed to be back in MotoGP at a level that reflects our position in the industry and our technical ability, and in order to do that, we understood it was necessary to make a significant investment, And we made that investment. You, like most of the press and most of the riders, have been skeptical about the performance level of our tires in MotoGP Clearly, we had to put in place the nec- essary structure ofteam and rider to close off this skep- ticism, which we felt was largely unfounded anyway. How much are you spending? Fergrson: Sorry not able to give you a specific answer. Obviously we have increased our overall global MotoGP budget substantially to support the Tech 3 project. The reason for your reputation was the stop- watch - though of course there were all sorts of reasons. That would be a fair comment now we have a facto- ry team, and a rider who has been around longer than anybody else. When you were looking at the times, say, WCM was doing, and saying this, it's clearly not fair. The problem of reputation was self-propagating. Ferguson: And there was only one way to stop it. By putting your hands in your pockets? Ferguson: Yeah. Male: But even before you do that, you have to find someone who has enou8h faith to want to work with you. Ferguson: lt is not iust a question of that. We've been building towards it for a period of l5 or l8 months, It didn't just come out of the blue. The situation where Yamaha were happy for their satellite team to run on Dunlop - that situation had to be arrived at as well. Circumstances surely helped you, with the rvithdrawal of sponsors and the subsequent confusion? (One victim was Checa, whose ride on Michelins with Camel Pons Honda evapo- rated when the team was rt/ithdrawn.) Ferguson: To some extent. The way the situation evolved, particularly late in the winter, with the sponsors and riders, did help us, to be honest. ls it true that Carlos Checa took some convinc- ing before he accepted the tires? Ferguson: lt didn't seem to take that long. Obviously. if you ask a rider what he prefers [tire- wise], what answer are you Soing to get? You know what he is going to say. But that was not an option. And after that... it was accepted. Cl{ CYCLE NEWS . APRlL l9,2006 29 :''Es!i I This is all a question of developing software, is it? Hale: Oh, yeah. lt's impossible to know where the competition is, but our software, in the last five years, has advanced in leaps and bounds, \-/ ti, \ :- I ) al \. IT I - a t,

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