Kropotkin and the cost of factory racing

 On the heels of Noyes' posts at SPEEDtv.com, Kropotkin posted up an
interesting series this week on what to do with MotoGP to control costs:


http://www.motogpmatters.com/opinion/2009/01/08/saving_motogp_part_1_why_is_motogp_so_ex.html

http://www.motogpmatters.com/opinion/2009/01/09/saving_motogp_part_2_how_to_encourage_th.html

http://www.motogpmatters.com/opinion/2009/01/10/saving_motogp_part_3_avoiding_the_traps_.html

While he's certainly right about some things and presents some
interesting ideas, I think there are some areas where he's just wrong
and barks up the wrong trees. First up is this basic notion that the
factories are the bad guys in racing, which is incredibly pervasive in
any of the conceptual discussions that have been going on since the
800cc experiment went wrong and DMG bought the AMA.

His first aspect of this is that the factories are all colluding against
non-factory teams, that the factories view them as the real threat, and
his claim is basically that the factories outspent their non-factory
rivals to drive them out - WCM, Blatta, Proton, Ilmor. Of course he
never substantiates this in any way, he doesn't show how they increased
spending when these teams "threatened" or why it would be more important
to beat these teams than to beat their fellow factories, the people they
compete with on the showroom floors. Nor does he make any case that
these guys ever have represented a truly serious threat to the factories
at any point. In fact they are just grid-filler, other than when KR ran
Honda 990 motors. This notion also exists at the AMA level, the
"Privateer's Lament", and is equally flawed there. The factories in
racing today have only one serious form of competition, the other
factories, and that's who they're racing. I know it denies one of the
romantic notions in racing, but until one grasps that the discussion
goes nowhere.

His analysis of why some of the proposals put forth recently won't work
is pretty sound, but once he starts making his own suggestions he gets a
bit off track. Of course he may be just trying to broaden the debate,
encourage creative thinking. His idea of putting no limit on
displacement to make horsepower cheap is horribly flawed. Under whatever
winning formula eventually emerges the factories will still build it
better than anyone else, and in the meantime they spend even more money
figuring it out. His suggestion that restricting motors to
gasoline-driven four strokes is equally a problem is equally flawed,
because it opens up the racing even more to the development of a winning
formula by one builder that isn't matched by anyone else for some time,
and during that time there is no competition on the track. Of course the
underlying thought here may well be that someone, either a private
builder or a European OEM, will build a two-stroke motor that beats the
four strokes. That thought may be sourced from anything from residual
"pure racing machine" two-stroke love to the anti-factory "Privateer's
Lament" to anti-Japanese factory hate (because they are unlikely to
respond in kind).

He then addresses the top speed problem, and his notion of capping speed
electronically is laughable. Not that it wouldn't work, but does anyone
want to watch bikes drive down a straight toward terminal speed and then
suddenly their progress freezes as the hit the cap, they hold position
until they hit the braking zone? Could the artificial constraints on the
racing be more obvious? I think he also misses the boat on fuel
limitation, which he thinks could be used as the power constraint with
unlimited displacement. Looking at the Ducati's superiority the last
couple years, which in part has been attributed to superior fuel
management, and the struggles Honda had with fuel management on their
pneumi motor in '08, my guess would be that fuel management thru
electronics is a hugely expensive development issue. Increase fuel
capacity and that cost is reduced, power is increased marginally, and
the racing is assumedly closer. The tradeoff, I suppose, is the loss of
R&D in an area that benefits everyone related to production motorcycles.

He ends by circling back to the "evil factories" concept, which is just
a waste of time. The reality of professional racing, at the GP level and
at the AMA level, is that the teams who have the most money are likely
to be the teams who have the fastest bikes (unless they are also
pursuing something other than absolute performance, which the Japanese
OEMs are occasioned to do). Another reality of bike racing is that the
teams with the most money are inevitably factory teams, because the OEMs
have proven to be the biggest spenders.

So how do they deal with that? First, accept all investment in racing as
the same and is good, so don't disparage OEM money or put it in a
different class. Second, accept that the money flow into racing varies
wildly over time, so the basic concepts of class and rules must be
structured to deal with this. It's in this area that MotoGP is so
vulnerable, because it's prototype racing. Kropotkin makes the point
that the difference in cost between GP and SB is an accounting balance
sheet issue, that much of the R&D in SB is covered by the product
development folks and not the race department, and that cost is covered
(in theory) by the sale of production product. That's true, but doesn't
quite go far enough. In the reality of SB racing, race departments have
spent significant amounts of money, the example of the RC45 in the '90s
being the common example, with more spent on that than the NSR500 at
that time.

That spending was significantly reduced or even eliminated more
recently, when the Japanese OEMs left WSB and went to war in MotoGP
instead. But WSB and SB elsewhere survived, because they still had the
production source for the machines. And I think that's the best, and
perhaps ultimately the only answer for GP, they have to make it possible
to source basic motors from production machines. That means GP can
survive when the OEMs aren't spending so much, and it also gives them an
avenue, a reason, to stay in the game when money is short.

Kropotkin says part of the problem is that the OEMs control the
machinery rules, but I think part of the problem is that they are so
influenced by others. There are so many whose thinking is fixated on
some notion of GP tradition, and those are the ones who say 250 and 125
must be replaced by similar machines, very light bikes with very modest
power, and this notion of displacement relativity must be maintained as
well. That kind of thinking is part of the problem and not part of the
solution. And I have to think that's part of the 600cc cap on the new
GP2 class floated, instead of adapting the SB world notion of including
675cc triples and 750cc twins, which among other things probably
eliminates any hope of including European manufacturers. And of course
what's been happening in the AMA the last 10 months shows what happens
when race promotion business people have the power to decide class rules
without sufficient OEM input.

So to me the ultimate answer for MotoGP is allowing production 1000cc
fours, 1100cc triples and 1200cc twins. In the shorter run and to keep
the factories in they probably should do things like eliminating carbon
brakes, increasing fuel tank capacity, potentially capping rpm, adding
to minimum weight if that will really save significant money. I don't
see where extending engine life and limiting two-rider teams to three
bikes do anything worthwhile. Increasing prototype displacement probably
eliminates any hope of including production-sourced motors, so that's a
bad idea. Allowing in production motors to see how that works before
eliminating the prototypes (in a GP2-like concept) is probably wise, and
testing the GP2 concept in that support class before adding it to GP1 is
also wise. Unintended consequences, you know.

So, where do you think the answers lie?

 
I didn't read it quite like that. Perhaps due to the current crisis at
Kawasaki. And its hard to separate the cause and effect in this dilemma.
The teams and especially factories will use any means possible to beat
the other teams. And some times that includes trying to manipulate the
rule formulation process to make it hard for their competitors. The key
question here is how much Honda were involved in pushing for the 800cc
limit in the knowledge that they could afford the switch but some other
teams really couldn't.


- MotoGP has to reach some agreement with WSB. Hard to see how that can
happen. Its still not clear to me that WSB (FGSport/FIM) will allow the
new 600 formula
- Handicap rules have to be formulated to equalize 800-4 prototypes,
1000-4 and 1200-2
- How is a rule restricting rpm any different from a rule restricting
top speed? And how do you enforce it?
- Increase fuel capacity? To what? What are the real implications of
that?

I don't think Krop's approach of basing the formula on fuel consumption
or total energy and opening up capacity and/or fuel type will help much.
It shakes everything up for a few years and would produce some alternate
designs, but only until everyone converged on a workable best
compromise. At which point we're back into the spiral of money chasing
diminishing returns.

I do think we should ban carbon brakes but mainly because of the effect
on the entertainment value of the racing. Even that is awkward because
it may be hard to ban carbon while allowing experiments with ceramics.

I think it is worth raising the weight limits again. If only because it
wouldn't affect the racing much but would cut out one costly aspect of
the design.

No matter what rule changes are brought in its highly likely that
factory Honda-Yamaha-Ducati teams will dominate with Suzuki getting an
occasional look in. So if we're to get back to grids of 24 or more
competitive rides we need to find a way of getting another 6-8 bikes on
the grid. One way to do this is to get the factories to produce
affordable machines for satellite teams. I don't see how this can happen
while the bikes are so expensive and rebuild costs are so high. If Honda
won't allow anyone else to touch the engines and they require 300km
rebuilds in Japan, we're stuffed. The other possibility is to find a way
for Aprilia, KR, Illmor, WCM, KTM, BMW, MV-HD etc to compete. Which
means, relaxing the prototype rules, reducing the costs, and most
importantly attracting sponsors. And the sponsors need to be rewarded
with attention even if the bike is on the back of the grid.

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
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                         Closed For Alterations

 Julian Bond wrote:

I see it quite differently - the riders and teams will do almost
anything, but I don't necessarily see that behavior from the Japanese
factories. The original 220hp cap is an example - it was Aprilia and
Ducati who violated that constraint, which must have been intended to
create competition and control costs for all the factories.


I don't have much of an idea of how that change took place, but in the
end Honda has only one vote on the MSMA, so others must have been
willing to go along. It's been represented in this debate that it was a
reaction to Katoh's death, but I've also heard that it was intended all
along, that the original 990s were selected only because they had to hit
a point where the original four strokes could and would beat the two
strokes still on the grid, and it was felt that would be the power
point. After the whole grid migrated to four strokes and the technology
matured enough, a displacement reduction would take place.


It strikes me that not requiring production parts may be what makes it
workable; we haven't seen any reaction from FGSport yet, have we? And if
the FIM believes this sort of move is necessary to save GP and isn't
just an encroachment on WSB territory, they will likely line up on GP's
side. We really don't know what those contracts say, and it may well end
up in court anyway. Once the new GP2 shows up and starts running proddy
parts the door is open, and allowing a production-based option (next to
800cc prototypes) is a short step.


Not really, it's likely that the initial rules will be intended to have
the 800s faster than the production machines, and that's relatively easy
to do. Matching up twins and fours might not be that big of a problem,
depending on the level of modifications allowed - the higher they are,
the less likely that it'll be a problem. But if these bikes take over
and everyone races them, then this question becomes very important,
sure. Of course, GP balances various motor configurations now, using
minimum weight.


I'd guess rpm would be pretty easy to measure using a control device of
some kind, or perhaps an active control that kills ignition once rpm
reaches a certain level. Top speed is different, it's harder to measure
and slight differences are very visible. Imagine two different bike
battling for the lead along one of the long straights in GP, and every
time one of them creeps ahead very slightly, because its control
mechanism is set slightly higher. And of course there's no drafting,
because it's speed that capped and not rpm, which can allow for drafting
through overgearing. Power development and aerodynamics still matter as
well, but not so much with a speed cap.


I don't know, but it seems going back to 24 liters might be enough to
make a material difference. Maybe you don't cap fuel load at all, but
minimum weight only applies to the bike without fuel. I don't know, what
do you think? It seems like you've been very mindful of the impact of
the 21-liter maximum.


Right, and in the meantime we might well have reduced competition.


It makes sense that they only use what can work on the street
eventually. Pretty easy to ban certain materials, and SB bans carbons now.


I think that all depends on how much they spend just trying to hit
weight. At the current weight it might not be all that much.


I'm not sure that focusing on how to get another 6-8 bikes on the grid
is the right answer, because you're locking in the current formula that
has Yamaha, Honda and Ducati winning everything. You have to look at why
they win and perhaps attack that. If it's that they spend the most on
motor development, then you do something that levels that part of the
playing field. Production-based motors is one way to do that, it
generally seems to work in SB (when the rulesmakers have the will, that
is, which they really haven't had in WSB and BSB regarding Ducati). That
automatically makes room for BMW, Aprilia, KTM and also non-factory
operations, who can build their own machines without factory involvement.

So I feel it's worth a complete rethink, seriously considering changing
the formula in a manner that reduces costs or allows for reduced budgets
when that's important, balances competition some, and allows room for
smaller factories and non-factory teams to fill out the grid, even if
they don't do any winning. I have no idea what would draw in sponsors,
other than greater popularity of the sport in general. So Dorna should
try to do what they can to make that happen. Which means more compelling
racing than we've seen the last couple years, but also means not
catering so much to the Spanish and Italians who can supply only so much
popularity. GP2 is perhaps a good start.