‘The physical limit of the bike is one thing; the mental limit of a rider is another'

Yes, to entirely manage this kind of bike we now have engineers in the back of the garage that constantly check data and try to find the best compromise.

Without doubt, the crew chief needs a higher level of technical knowledge compared to, say, twenty years ago. Because, if we’re talking about aerodynamics you need to know how aerodynamics work, so you need to know this fairing will do this and that fairing will do that. Of course, you also have other guys that take care of the aerodynamics more deeply, but for sure without university knowledge it would be 100% more complicated.

In the old days crew chiefs were usually former riders and self-taught engineers, whereas now we see more and more people in pit lane coming from university, so they understand the science more deeply…

I think what’s really changed is the balance between experience and knowledge. Experience will always be very, very important, but now it isn’t enough to do your best, so you can’t really do this job anymore without the knowledge.

Obviously the Ducati has been the best bike on the grid for three years now, so what’s so good about it?

The balance – all the different areas together. When I came back to Ducati in 2017 the bike was already a very good bike, but it was still suffering a lot in some precise areas.

Everyone talked about turning – the bike didn’t turn and every Ducati rider complained about that. Since then we’ve grown a lot in this area. They did a really good job on this at the factory. Turning still isn’t our strongest point, but by improving a little bit in every area, the total balance is now very good.

And we know the bike is good because different riders with different riding styles can perform quite well on it – the average performance is very high. This is the demonstration that we’ve reached a good balance.

Does some of your increased turning performance come from aerodynamic development: diffusers in the fairing that give some ground effect, which gives you more grip and therefore better turning?

It’s a little complicated for me to speak about that! [This is the first time Gabarrini’s rules of engagement kick in, but not the last! By ducking the question, I think he’s answering: ‘Yes’]. I can’t speak about it deeply, but I can say, just for an example, that the aerodynamics of a plane are mainly to lift the plane and to have as little drag as possible, so the efficiency is the relationship between lift and drag.

It’s different with a motorcycle, because the position of the bike in relation to the ground changes constantly. The bike needs to turn quickly, and you can use different aspects of aerodynamics technology to reach different targets, but if we push too much in one aerodynamic direction, for sure we will lose in another, like turning. So I come back to what I said before – you need a good balance and a good compromise to maximise performance.

No motorcycle is perfect, so what do you need to make the Ducati better for 2024? For example, Pecco isn’t a big muscle man, so he’s always talking about the manoeuvrability of the bike, which is now much better since you reduced the size of the fairing.

Yes, I’ve never heard a rider say that any bike is too easy to handle or has too much grip, for example. With the power that we have now, for sure rear grip is one of the main issues and it will never be enough.

It’s the same with the handling [manoeuvrability], because the rider must be quick in changes of direction. But it’s difficult to talk about one area, because as soon as you move the balance of one area of performance the consequence is that the points of balance of all the other areas also move, so you must always consider everything together.

Pecco says that this year’s bike has more rear grip, so he must wait a little longer before opening the throttle, otherwise the bike pushes the front…

You can never have enough rear grip because as soon as you get more grip you increase the performance. But I agree with Pecco – if you move the [traction] balance towards the rear of the bike then the rider must adapt himself and his riding style to this new way. For sure Pecco has had to change the way he manages the bike in that area, but also the way he manages the bike when he is entering corners, trying to slide in the entry.

Pecco also says Jorge Martin has a slight advantage exiting corners, so what does Pecco need to exit like Jorge?

It’s really difficult to say, because they’re not that different in riding styles but for sure their riding styles are a bit different.

Most of all, the situation at the moment is different [we are talking at Sepang, on the eve of the Malaysian GP] because Jorge has nothing to lose [Martin was 13 points down on Bagnaia going into the Sepang races], so he can push more in, let me say, dangerous areas. For example, apex lean angle. Whereas Pecco has to be more a bit more conservative.

After that it’s difficult to say Jorge is faster here and slower there, because they are both very fast and they are both very good at adapting to different track and grip conditions, so sometimes Pecco is better in one area, but then you go to another track and it’s the opposite, because we are always talking about tiny differences.

I’d say the biggest difference now is the mentality of the two riders, because one has nothing to lose. Even if Jorge finishes second in the championship he’s won [Gabarrini is talking generally here], whereas on Pecco’s side it’s completely the opposite.

Pecco makes the difference in corner entry and he’s had a few front-end crashes, even this year. Is this because his technique is a bit risky because he’s chasing micro-tenths in a tricky area?

I don’t agree 100% with that, because if you look at Pecco’s crashes with the front they are never in corner entry, except in the wet in Argentina. They always happen later [in the corner] and this all depends on many things, about which I cannot speak deeply [rules of engagement again!]. Pecco isn’t risking more than last year or two years before. It’s different because every crash happens for singular reasons.

Pecco says the reason he crashed out in India was because his front tyre was over pressure. This must be a massive stress for everyone in the team because you must go higher than the sweet spot and try to stay in the window between the legal minimum of 1.88 bar and 2.0 to 2.1 bar, when the tyre loses grip. And you have to guess what kind of race Pecco will have, so you need to be able to see into the future.

Yes, this is completely correct. The problem is to predict. If we know in advance how his race will go it’s easy to predict and calculate what pressure we will reach, but we don’t know in advance, so we must take risks in predicting how his race will go.

In general it’s not such a big disaster if you go a bit higher than the pressures you mentioned. Of course the riders feel it, but I think they can manage it. In general we haven’t changed so much the way we take care of this. But now there’s a rule, so we must stay over a certain value.

So you must err on the safe side?

In the past we never raced with the front at 1.65 because the bike is unrideable and 1.7 is already very low. Without the rule, you could use 1.8, no problem. Now you cannot.

Last year Ducati made some mistakes with its engine spec going into pre-season testing. You seem to have learned from that, what about 2024?

For sure, no revolutions. Of course we are working in every area and we’ve learned from what happened in the past, so we are a bit more conservative now. Just small evolutions, to improve a few percent in some areas.

There is less testing now and less practice, due to the new weekend format, so presumably this makes computer simulations more important, which leads to machine learning, artificial intelligence and so on…

In some areas, computer simulations are very, very important, because in those areas the simulations are very, very close to reality. In other areas it’s difficult to make good simulations for many reasons.

First, if we compare MotoGP to Formula 1, the rider is not sat inside the machine and every rider is a different size and moves around the bike in a different way, so you can have the best simulation, but it’s not close enough to reality to base everything on that simulation.

In some areas – aerodynamics, for example – simulations are a lot more advanced compared to motorcycle dynamics simulations, because many people in F1, aerospace and so on use aerodynamics simulations, so there are more experts, more software and more experience in this area.

Öhlins now has two types of front fork – the standard and a longer-stroke version. But Pecco still prefers the standard fork, why?

At the moment, yes. We tested the longer fork last winter but Pecco didn’t feel better with it. Sometimes, it’s better to stay with the same material, because you know where you are. I think the longer fork can have some advantages, but I cannot talk about that!

Most riders like to get close to the bottom of the fork stroke to get more turning, but Pecco says he likes to always bottom the forks on the brakes…

Pecco speaks too much!

Bottoming the forks all the time is incredible to me – it sounds terrifying!

There are two main things that a crew chief and engineers must take care of. The physical limit of the bike is one. The other is, let’s say, the mental limit of the rider. The mental limit of the rider is what makes tenths in the lap time, so the physical limit of the bike can only make tenths if the rider is mentally ready to use it.

[This is the equivalent of what Jeremy Burgess, the most successful crew chief of all time, told me years back, “If the rider wants gold handlebars, give him gold handlebars”. In other words, if you make the rider feel happy on the bike, he will be fast.]

Which brings us back to front tyres. Franco Morbidelli told me that he loses 40% of front-tyre performance when the tyre goes over pressure, so they are locking the front from 320kmh/200mph and then the front is tucking into corners…

Yes and then this 40% becomes 20%, because the rider gets used to this kind of feeling! I always say the perfect setting doesn’t exist. It exists maybe on a computer, because you base your calculations to the physical limit of the bike, but the perfect setting is the one that allows the rider to do his best.

You can do whatever you want to the bike, but if the rider doesn’t feel good then stop using it. If the rider doesn’t feel good with a new setting, he’ll only use 75% of the bike’s performance. So even if the new setting gives a better physical limit of the bike, he’ll most probably be better with the old setting, because he’ll be able to use 100% of the bike. So sometimes we need to stop being too much engineers and try to understand the rider’s side because he’s human.