VOL. 52 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 13, 2015 P63
and then also in the wet. I
should have won this race, but
for the bad luck of the conditions
changing."
it was going to dry I would not
have made such a push in the
first laps.
"I was the fastest in the dry
Briefly...
In a late rush of still apparently be-
wildering development and reverse
copycat, winglets sprouted from
new places on the red Ducatis, and
returned to the factory Yamahas af-
ter a tentative debut last time at Ara-
gon. At Motegi, Ducati was already
using the biplane configuration of
their existing winglets, seen ear-
lier this season. The third small wing
was added to the top of the fairing,
either side, which is where Yamaha
has put their single canards. So far,
however, riders and engineers have
been very vague on the actual effect
of the wings. As Yamaha's Massimo
Meregalli told Dorna's interviewer:
"The riders have a different feeling,
but the lap time is the same." Over
at Ducati big chief Gigi Dall'Igna was
typically somewhat abstruse. "The
main reason is for anti-wheelie, but
it was not the only reason," he said.
The downforce was also beneficial
for braking. But, as he continued,
in race engineering "everything is
a compromise. If you reduce the
wheelie you can change something
else on the bike to gain another
thing. You can use the efficiency for
acceleration."
Much is made of the heavy brak-
ing at Motegi, where Brembo's data
identifies seven hard braking zones,
three of them subjecting riders to
1.5G or more. But another fatiguing
element, for men and machines, are
the gear changes associated with
the radical speed changes. A Motegi
race requires 1,008 shifts, some-
thing like double the usual average
of around 500-550.
had finished lap one 26th
and 25th respectively, and
had been slashing their way
through, the rookie and the
veteran changing places sev-
eral times as they did so.
Kornfeil, Suzuki, returned
injury victim Locatelli and
Bagnaia took the rest of the points;
the remounted Binder was 17th.
Kent (244) is 56 clear of Bastianini
(188), and can afford to lose six points
to him in Australia to be crowned
champion. The battle for second is
closer. Oliveira is 11 adrift on 179, and
Antonelli closing on both with 161, hav-
ing displaced Fenati (155) from fourth
overall.
Antonelli has been
coming of age in 2015
and will be a real title
threat next season.
