Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati) capped a perfect weekend at Mugello with victory in Sunday’s main event. Bagnaia was chased by Jorge Martin (Ducati) throughout the race, but Martin was unable to close the gap to the race winner and finished second. Johann Zarco (Ducati) benefitted from a crash by Alex Marquez (Ducati; unhurt) and took the final spot on the podium.
Bagnaia extends his points lead in the championship, which visits the Sachsenring next weekend. For full results of today’s race, take a look here.
When Suzuki quit last year while Quartararo appeared to be barely hanging on I was seriously wondering if I should continue watching. This time I turned off the race as soon as MM crashed and I don’t know if I’m motivated to keep watching anymore. Congrats to Ducati.
Congrats to M Marquez … he crashed out without taking down another rider. No harm no foul. Honda must really love this guy.
Mick. 2 things.
1. Show us on the doll exactly where the bad throttle by wire man touched you.
2. Please give us the locations where the motorcycle design engineers secretly meet to discuss making their motorcycles as heavy as possible in order to piss you off.
Yes, I’d like to know what the objection is to electronic throttles. My only bike with one, a Ducati HyperStrada, allows me to select a throttle response to suit my mood (exclusively Touring, as it happens) without needing to alter the hardware. In all other respects, it behaves just like any other throttle control. Mick’s complaint can’t just be about electronic reliability because there are plenty of other systems on a modern bike that rely on electrons going to the right place!
I used to despise the CV carbs that came on street bikes and welcomed the fuel injection that put them in their well deserved grave. Throttle by wire, for me, brings back the bad old days of indirect throttle control.
So when the wife wanted to buy me a new bike for my 60th birthday, I refused to buy a new one. I bought a 2012 1100 Hypermotard SP Corse with 1100 miles on it instead. I always liked the engine in the 2003 and 4 Multistradas that we use as the two up bike. And it’s pretty much the last best bike Ducati made with a throttle cable.
Reliability for throttle by wire is not my concern. Though I do refuse to buy a fuel injected two stroke dirt bike for reliability reasons. The CEO of Sherco came right out and admitted that Sherco will be carbureted until they can’t be because he says that fuel injection doesn’t do anything positive for a two stroke.
Of course Europe, being Europe, is banning carbureted two strokes for 2024. So it looks like nothing but used dirt bikes are in my future. That’s OK, there’s always a nice super low hour bike laying around somewhere. Find one, buy it, you’re good.
This is top kek
I have my standards. I will not apologize for them. If you want to ride some ridiculously heavy throttle by wire bike, you go right ahead. I refuse to settle for what is offered.
I ride two stroke dirt bikes first and foremost. They are excellent pieces of equipment. I expect similar excellence in my street bike. I will not accept some crude piece of equipment made to resemble someone’s vision of something they wanted before they started wasting their youth.
Throttle by wire is there so they can still fight the horsepower war. I have no interest in that. It’s bad enough that I have to tolerate that rubbish in our cars. Super lame. Fortunately I am not passionate about cars. They are appliances. I don’t want any appliance features on my motorcycle. Overweight overpowered nanny controlled styling exercises are for someone else’s garage.
Oddly enough, all I really want is a budget bike engine system in a premium chassis. To me it doesn’t seem like much to ask for. But apparently, I might as well be asking for a vacation home on the moon. Whatever, don’t build it, I won’t come. I spend a lot of money on bicycles instead. I got a thing for hand made titanium bicycles. Do I buy electronic shifters? Nope! The cable ones work just fine.
OK, so now we now. Blind prejudice rules, facts not so much, nor actual experience. Not sure this is the place for introducing your tastes for high-end pedal cycles but I’d be pleased to describe my other interests and how they inform my views on motorcycles. Any takers? No, I didn’t think so…
I sometimes agree with Mick, on rare occasion, but he’s basically the internet equivalent of a hemorrhoid
Nosebleed insurance rates (among the handful of insurers who will cover sportbikes) and the demise of easy, cheap financing for any moron who had a job and could write an ‘X’ on the contract killed sport bikes. And the few survivors of those days now can’t ride more than 30 minutes bent over in a check-my-prostate pose. And honestly, the idea that anyone can walk in with zero experience and buy a 200hp bike makes my blood run cold.
These are different times than 25 years ago, and new generations have different outlooks.
MotoGP is not about selling bikes any more than F1 is about selling cars. Both are just about bragging rights. Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki are all huge conglomerates with more than enough money to participate in MotoGP. Seems they just don’t want to. From what I’ve been reading it’s not the electronics that is the big expense, it’s the aero. The cost of aero is why Suzuki left. Get rid of the wings and the cost will come down dramatically.
I see a lot of, “get rid of the wings”, its not going to happen. its a new, to mc, way to go faster, I doubt they will ever get rid of it. How its regulated, might change, I dont see it going away. A bikes fairing, could be considered a wing, should they ban fairings? you see? Yes, right, its the aero package. small winglets, the hump on the riders back, elbows in down the straight, butt up high in the back, sitting on a small extra pad, ban all of that? how do you write the rules? Might as well say, “get rid of the brakes”, or other nonsense. This is the pinnacle of motorcycle racing, yes, I agree. They banned Honda’s electronics, made everyone use Ducati’s. I think it was Fabio that said, they used to stop wheelies with electronics, now they use wings, keeping the HP. With the squat in the rear, the wings change down the straight, brake in the corner, the rear end pops up, and wings angle down again. Not everyone understands it all, the side scoops on the Ducati, pulls air off the sides when leaned over, making a ‘bank effect’, hugging the bike to the ground, is that a “wing”, so ban the flat sides of the fairings? you see, its not as easy as you say. its the time in the wind tunnel, thats expensive, not the carbon wings. its just how they are made, where they are put, and all of them working in unison. At this time, few have a clue as to how all any of it really works. imho
Re. aero and its associated costs: My best understanding is that Ducati, Porsche, Audi and VW have combined ownership. Conversely, Honda MC, Honda passenger vehicles, Honda jets, Acura, Honda marine, Honda mowers and generators have combined ownership. Which has more disposable cash to spend on aero? Both entities compete in F1 with huge and ongoing aero budgets, consistent with similar aero tech for both Honda and Ducati.
Whatever explains Ducati’s superiority in MotoGP no one can argue against Ducati likely winning the 2nd straight OEM factory trophy. In the last 2 races combined (Italy Sprint and MotoGP) Ducati owned pole and the first 11 spots.
This was also telling: Peco was on soft rear, #2 finisher Jorge on medium, consistent with Jorge having and advantage in the last half. Peco said he had no trouble maintaining is sizable lead to the end. Can someone explain that?
Barring some catastrophe, I’d bet Peco wins again and possibly the all-time earliest point in the season.
And MM93? Yes, as the Dorna announcers are so fond of repeating, ridiculous and ad nauseum, “The old Marc Marquez is BACK!!!” YES! If you mean the MM93 of the past 2 years +, crashing million-dollar MotoGP bikes like they are going out of style.
I would subscribe just to see MM93’s misery up close and personal. Could not happen to a more deserving schmuck. Let’s go, MM93!
“Could not happen to a more deserving schmuck.”
That’s some good kek.
Both racing disciplines are about selling things, car/motorcycle brands among them. While you can’t buy either of the actual vehicles, racing builds brand image.
European and Asian kids buy Aprilia, Honda, and Yamaha scooters with race livery on them because of racing and then become brand loyal in adulthood because of that. Just an example and for sure I think we’re seeing a diminishing return on that investment based on the commitment of the Japanese makes.
Yes they are. I wonder if Cadillac (not a motorcycle) will get more customers in other regions then US. I’ll always prefer 883. Do not hold it yet.
Personally, I believe we have seen the end of the sports bike era on the streets. it was a generational thing. im 61, my generation grew up with Eviel Knievel, motorcycle commercials on TV, magazines, mini bikes. Kids today are raised in a tech environment. Look at all the lame motorcycles being made today marketed at this generation, insipid parallel twins… is just the way it is.
This exactly. Kids today don’t want motorcycles. It means nothing to most of them. Sportbikes are expensive, ridiculous to insure and require a lot of practice to become proficient. They had their time in the sun and now that ship has sailed. I’m extremely happy that I got to participate in the heyday but we won’t see it again. Bikes will eventually go electric which will make them even more unsuitable as sportbikes. The passion for the ICE will die with our generation. The same thing is happening with the milsurp gun crowd.
I agree. We all seem to want what he had, or wanted as kids. Few of todays children, seem to even want a motorcycle. They have been raised with everyone telling them to wear a helmet you could kill yourself, riding a childs 3 wheeler. All they know is video games. Virtual reality. NOT reality. At all the mc events I go to, its mostly old people like me, and the events get smaller and smaller every year. And thats how it is, here now in June 2023. I am 72 now. Still have dozens of motorcycles, it is who I am.
Modern sportbikes are more powerful, lighter, and faster than professional superbikes of 30 years ago. They’re too much bike for anyone on the street, and only a professional rider can fully exploit their capabilities on a track.
That’s why people are gravitating towards other styles of bikes. If you still want the thrill of a sportbike, a Street Triple 765, or a Duke 890 is more capable than most street legal sportbikes of 20 years ago.
Oscar I partially agree but your time frames are arbitrary. 20 years ago (2003), super sport bikes were ridiculously powerful and certainly as capable, if not more so, of scaring/killing their riders as the bikes you cite above.
All of the good 600’s were right @ 400lbs with over 100hp (these have hardly changed in all this time), the Yamaha R1 (152hp) and Suzuki GSXR 1000’s (162hp) were also bonkers and their performance is still very high today. That’s without any of the electronic aids that have become commonplace these days. Somewhere there is a recent article where a refreshed 2005 GSXR 1k lapped a track as fast as a current Panigale V4.
These bikes were too much for the street then and are still now.
“your time frames are arbitrary”
No kidding. Pick your own. It’s an opinion on an internet comment section, not an engineering white paper.
Excellent racing on a wonderful circuit. It would be a dream trip to visit Italy and attend a Moto GP event.
and then check out the art in florence.
Amen! The other track and area that makes me wet is Valencia, Spain. Scratch that-just spend one entire season following the circuit flying first class and staying in 4-5 star hotels.
A guy has to wonder what the Japanese are thinking about the big reshuffle of road racing twenty years ago. They went from having the 600 sport bike being their number one seller and every road race being and ocean of Japanese bikes to what you see now.
Instead of team Japan being a fairly predictable first three finishers then. You have to go back 16 spots in the sprint and 13 in the race to find three Japanese bikes. And in the race that third Japanese finisher was also the last Japanese bike that finished the race at all. Viewership for GP is down also. Is it any wonder? The real world still contains a lot of people who ride Japanese bikes. If those people want to feel good, they watch a motocross race.
When there are only 4 Japanese bikes out of 22 total bikes, that’s what happens. Two Yamahas. Two Hondas. The others have abandoned MotoGP.
Looking at the results, the Yamaha’s finished 10th and 11th at Mugello.
It’s an oversimplification, but a guy has to wonder what they were thinking to agree to spec electronics made by the supplier for the big D. Lots of woes started right there.
The electronics were starting to cost more than the bike and rider combined. But yeah, how even is even in the application on the standard electronics package. The races have a certain questionable vibe from were I sit.
This series has a lot of fans. I’ll not speculate on just why the fields are so close and varied.
Sounds like an excuse. And a pretty bad one.
Sounds like a fact to me…. As soon as there was a spec ECU the Ducatis suddenly had a chance. Yes they’ve developed from there but at that point the Japanese were too far down that electronics path and it just knocked them sideways.
Now of course things have moved on, like it or not aero has become way more important – Cameron over at CW recently had a piece talking about how downforce is ultimately the better solution for anti-wheelie than electronics (take a top speed hit vs an acceleration hit)….
The fact that the Japanese bikes continued to dominate for a long time after the ECU spec change tells us that it hasn’t been much of a factor.
They’re not selling sportbikes, nor any other class of bikes, based on racing results anymore. Hence can’t justify the expense of racing based on product sales.
And since they, unlike the West, already had their crash, they can no longer keep levitating their share prices and “finances” with ever greater walls of fresh-print, regardless of the performance of the underlying business.
I think it’s more egg than chicken. They aren’t selling sportbikes because series like WSB and AMA Superbike were destroyed by the cost of MotoGP. Those races sold sportbikes. Big time races used to a race track near you. Not anymore they don’t. Motocross races do. And what is all the rage now? The ADV bike. Bikes with a motocross bike appearance. Sportbike Con doesn’t come to town anymore. Dirt Bike Con still does. Track sportbike sales and you’ll find that the decline started when factory support was pulled from the AMA and WSB. Now only two Japanese manufacturers bother to show up with. And those two manufacturers have a total of four bikes. The European manufacturers all have at least four bikes each. Why? Most of the MotoGP races are in Europe. Oddly KTM only sold a handful, well 30, RC8C to people who paid a lot of money up front, to get a lightly modified Kramer GP2-890R. I find it odd that KTM doesn’t have a regular consumer sportbike. Why race on Sunday if you have nothing to sell on Monday?
It all seems pretty ridiculous to me. But John Q Public is highly suseptible to advertising. I don’t watch television. But I can tell just by the buzz around me what is being advertised on it. People start buying things they normally wouldn’t buy. Doing things that you would never guess they would ever do. All like it’s some sudden craze that came out of nowhere. Well, it doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from television ads. Just go to some bar, airport, waiting room, or some other place that you can’t escape the darn television and there you’ll see the origins of the unexpected behaviors you have been seeing around you.
Personally, I believe we have seen the end of the sports bike era on the streets. it was a generational thing. im 61, my generation grew up with Eviel Knievel, motorcycle commercials on TV, magazines, mini bikes. Kids today are raised in a tech environment. Look at all the lame motorcycles being made today marketed at this generation, insipid parallel twins… is just the way it is.
I actually like the idea of the parallel twins. I rented an MT07 in France and have nothing bad to say about the engine. It apparently has a stallar reputation for reliability as well. What is frustrating is the fact that the 700 engine only comes in budget bikes. Take that engine and put it in a lighter chassis with lighter wheels, good suspension and brakes and I’m all over it. A few more horsepower would be nice, that engine has been around unchanged for quite a while now. But not if it comes with a ride by wire throttle. Ride by wire is what renders a motorcycle so equipped unbuyable for me. Sadly now, it’s only the budget bikes that don’t have it. I’m also 61. And it’s looking like I’ll never buy a new street bike again.
Kids not buying sportbikes? I maintain that is 100% because they ruined roadracing. When I was young there were a whole bunch of American roadracers who had household names. Think about it. You could rattle off dozen of them pretty easily. Name a current one. I certainly can’t. Sportbikes are dying because roadracing is dying from a self-inflicted wound. Just look here. It has been about ten years since there has been anything at all about AMA races and six or seven for WSB. Both were regular staples here at Motorcycle Daily twenty years ago. Now it’s MotoGP only and those posts generate the least comments.
All sports go through boom and bust. (American) People stopped buying sport bikes despite racing having gone on as it had. The manufacturers divested their interest in racing in response to the market signals that it was no longer driving sales.
KTM does have things to sell on Monday, they’ve just realized that these things don’t need to be or even look the same as the things they race on Sunday. This is becoming true of all the most popular motor racing classes.
I need to see reliable numbers that viewers are down. Le Mans attendance was a new record 4 weeks ago. IIRC over 130k in Italy this last race. Attendance #s indicate increasing popularity.
Attendance was down in Austin for sure. I was there. The General Admission grass areas were somewhat full but the grandstands were maybe 50%.
I can see viewership being low in the US. We used to be able to watch the whole season on network TV, then it was cable specific channels (Speed TV, etc.). Now that requires a specific paid subscription in most markets.