How to win in MotoGP: ‘The whole game is to make the tyres work – all the other stuff doesn’t matter’

F1 computer systems – and budgets – are much bigger than they are in MotoGP, but the central question is always the same: what will this or that set-up change do to the tyres?

“In F1 it’s pretty much the only question they ask,” says Michael Russell, who races classic bikes and works at ESI, one of Britain’s biggest automotive computer simulations companies. “Everything else is what compromise do you make to keep the tyres in their operating window?

“The first thing is how do you make sure the tyre is in its temperature window and keep it there? The rest is creating compromises around the bike and rider for the benefit of the tyres: what kind of load do you want on the tyre and how do you achieve that load through changes to geometry, suspension, whatever?

“F1 engineers tell drivers stuff like, ‘Please turn into Turn 7 three metres later’, and that’s probably to make the tyres last longer. You may lose 0.001sec in that corner, but the tyres stay in their operating window for three or four laps longer, which is much more important.”

One obvious question before we go any further into this tyre-analysis thing: how does a MotoGP tyre work?

Basically, it’s all about exploiting the viscoelastic properties of rubber polymers. Warm rubber is malleable – more viscous and elastic – so it grips the road better. Grip is generated in two main ways. First, by the tyre distorting to merge with the roughness of the road surface. Second, by the molecular chains of the rubber polymer bonding with the asphalt.

Upon these basic principles are millions of man hours spent by tyre analysts working in the vehicle dynamics departments of teams contesting F1, MotoGP and every other major championship.

Another quick question: what is vehicle dynamics? This is the scientific study of how a motorcycle gets around a racetrack, so it includes everything: chassis behaviour, engine character, suspension, brakes, electronics, downforce, tyres and so on. And how these factors affect the machine’s dynamics, through handling, steering, pitch, roll, yaw, flex etc.

Obviously, most of these have always been part of racing, but they can be examined much more minutely and effectively now, thanks to the growth of data gathering over the past few decades.

Some say that all this science takes the romance out of racing, and they’re right. But the world keeps changing and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Arguably the king of analysis and modelling of race tyres is MegaRide. The Italian company, which works with teams in MotoGP, Moto2, World Superbike, F1 and other car series, is an offshoot of the vehicle dynamics department at the University of Naples. MegaRide signed an exclusive MotoGP deal with Ducati in 2017, the second year of Michelin spec tyres, when the French tyres were still a mystery to MotoGP engineers.

That was the year Ducati started challenging for the title again, with Andrea Dovizioso. Several of Dovizioso’s six victories in 2017 were achieved by racing with the soft rear, while his rivals chose harder tyres, assuming they’d last longer. In fact Dovizioso’s soft rear lasted better, because it gripped better and therefore caused less wheelspin, so it degraded less. Rival manufacturers only learned this through Dovizioso’s victories.

We don’t know how much of a part MegaRide played in these victories, but one thing is certain: the more data streams you have, and the more advanced your tyre-analysis software, the more accurate your modelling and simulations will be.

MegaRide’s founder and CEO is Dr Flavio Farroni, a professor of applied mechanics at the University of Naples who used to do tyre modelling at Ferrari. Farroni’s work focuses ‘on the development of interaction models accounting for friction and thermodynamics phenomena in the field of contact mechanics [that’s the contact between tyre and road]’.

There probably aren’t many people who know more about race tyres than Farroni, so he’s a good person to explain the details of how MotoGP tyres work.

“Grip is affected by a mix of external tread surface temperature and inner temperature, which we call the tread core,” he says. “Tyre cornering stiffness is affected by a mix of carcass and tread-core temperatures.”

Of course, understanding tyres is only half of the game, which is why all MotoGP manufacturers take asphalt samples of every track they visit.

“We won’t be able to fully understand tyre-contact mechanics if we don’t understand road surfaces,” Farroni adds. “Therefore improving race-tyre performance requires mastering polymer science and surface roughness.

“Motorcycle tyres, due to their high camber and lean angles, have a more complex behaviour compared to car tyres, because the contact patch between tyre and road moves across the tyre, according to lean angle.

“Tyre performance is mainly a matter of balance – it’s not always about getting the maximum possible grip. To win the race your average grip has to be higher than your rival’s average grip. You don’t want terrific grip only for a few laps, so the global tyre optimisation picture is a complex recipe: the microroughness of the road surface, thermodynamic evolution and the prediction for tyre wear and degradation. All these factors allow simulations of race scenarios with various bike set-ups, tyre pressures and so on.

“The target is to be able to manage the tyres, with set-up and riding style, to keep the grip of both tyres within a certain, properly defined range.”

Thus it’s not only engineers that are involved in the process of tyre strategies. It’s also riders, who are advised how to manage their tyres over race distance, to extract maximum performance from the first lap to the last.

One challenge with tyre analysis in MotoGP – and other spec-tyre series – is that teams and manufacturers aren’t allowed to cut tyres to take samples or take tyres home, so all tyre analysis must be done at the track, without dissecting the tyres.

Therefore tyres are analysed with all kinds of gadgets, beyond the usual temperature probes and rim-mounted pressure and temperature gauges. Lasers are used to measure how heat spreads through a tyre. Ultrasonic probes are used to evaluate the thickness of a tyre’s inner layers. And during the last few seasons, MegaRide has introduced a special gadget that can read and analyse tyres without taking them apart.

The VESuvo device is designed to analyse each tyre’s viscoelasticity and other parameters.

“A small rod rebounds on the tyre’s tread, indenting microscopically without leaving a mark,” explains Farroni. “This rebound is executed at various temperatures and frequencies and is analysed thousands of times each second by a sensor. The rebound creates a sort of fingerprint of the elastic and viscous responses of each tyre compound.

“The aim is to monitor tyre degradation, check that nominally identical tyres are actually identical, which isn’t always the case, objectivise the differences between different compounds and predict the optimal thermal working range.”

It’s unlikely that anyone would choose a tyre based solely on what this gizmo tells them, but MegaRide gave Ducati a data stream no one else had. This may change very soon, because MegaRide’s deal with Ducati is no longer exclusive, so the company’s know-how is now available to other teams and manufacturers.