The weather factor, the other key in the MotoGP race

Sunday March 20, Indonesian GP 2022. The heavy rain that fell on the island of Lombok and flooded part of the Mandalika circuit threatened to cancel the MotoGP race. Desperate to salvage the situation, the Grand Prix organizer summons a local shaman known for his alleged powers to make it rain and stop it. Under heavy rain, the shaman came out of the ‘pit lane’ and began his prayers against the rain. The scene was curious and all the journalists were stunned.

Meanwhile, in the pits of the teams, the engineers – completely away from witchcraft and more confident in technology – focused their eyes on the evolution of the storm and the weather information that reached their computers. Real-time data tracking, highly accurate, and definitely more reliable than local animist summons.

All MotoGP factory teams are strictly compliant information provided by weather radar throughout the Grand Prix weekend. To compare forecasts, they use different sources of information. Some do this by comparing and analyzing the forecasts of different applications that exist in the market or web pages such as www.myweather2.com; www.windy.com or www.weathernews.com offering a service called Motor Sport Weather at www.racecastweather.com.

Others, like KTM, have contracted the service of the same company that specializes in providing real-time weather information used by top F1 teams. In the case of Suzuki, for example, they receive information from Hamamatsu, a Japanese company that specializes in measuring meteorological factors. In both cases, this information covers any place on the planet, no matter how small, with great accuracy.

During training days and qualifying sessions The ability to ride motorcycles suitable for track conditions is essential. But on race day, being impeccable is key. It is even important to know how to react in time if the weather suddenly changes. Many MotoGP races have been won or lost due to the management of weather information.

In the aforementioned GP held in Indonesia, on Sunday morning the Hamamatsu weather information service warned that rain would begin to fall on the circuit at 2:15 pm, that is, 45 minutes before the start of the race. The prediction was only wrong by a few minutes.

Be that as it may, the meteorological factor and predicting whether or not it will rain and how hard it will be is one of the keys to determining the strategy of all teams at every Grand Prix. Although it may seem counterintuitive, preparing for a race in the rain is no more complicated for drivers and teams than doing it for one in the dry, except for the understandable inconveniences for the former as they are forced to drive in more slippery. surface and expose themselves to the dangers that come with it.

Complications arise when there is great uncertainty about what conditions the race will be held in, or when conditions change during the race. This second assumption poses a challenge for the drivers due to the difficulties involved in adapting to the opposite of the asphalt conditions and for the team manager who has to analyze the data and decide on the strategy to follow. That is, the moment when you have to decide whether to change your bike or not. A mistake there could be fatal or it could mean glory.

For technicians, changing from dry to wet or from wet to dry mid-race is not too much of a problem. The key is to have another bike ready to compete with the necessary settings to change from dry to wet or vice versa and to swap it out if needed.

The strategy to follow: who decides?

It is very different when it is not clear what the circumstances are in which the race will start and what may happen in its first stages: the asphalt is dry but rain threatens; the asphalt is wet but not much; What tire to mount? What kind of set-up to start the race, dry or wet?

And then there is another dilemma. If the situation is likely to change in the first moments of the race: What configuration is applied to the bike that is at the garage door as a reserve in case of a problem in the warm-up lap? Like the bike that started on the grid or already has configuration B in case the situation changes quickly before the race?

To resolve these doubts we spoke Manuel Cazeaux, the experienced Argentinian track engineer of the Spanish rider Álex Rins: “In cases like Mandalika or Buriram, where it went to the grid with heavy rain, the bike in the box was also prepared with a wet setting. In the same way that when the race is expected to be dry, both bikes are ready for dry conditions”, he explained.

“In cases of doubt, two different strategies can be used. The first is to have two bikes with different specifications, so in case the rider has a problem in the warm-up lap and is forced to change bikes, at least he was ‘sold’. Option two is to have the two bikes identical and change the configuration of one out of the box as soon as you leave. Converting a bike can take five to ten minutes.”

The decision to do it one way or another depends not only on each team, but is agreed between each driver and his technical leader. Time and again there have been situations where the choice of one strategy or another has been decisive for the result, both for and against.

A good example: Marc Márquez’s experience at the Czech Grand Prix in 2017

Two extreme situations in this regard were starred at the 2017 Czech Republic GP Marc Márquez, when he came in to change bikes on the second lap. A strategy planned by Márquez with his team waiting for the start of the race on the starting grid. As they first crossed the finish line, the team notified their driver that everything was ready; on the next lap he entered the ‘pit lane’. The strategy caught other teams off guard. As Márquez flew through a fast drying tarmac, the other riders had to continue riding with bikes set up for the rain, while their teams changed the details of the bikes in the pits. The HRC driver won that race by more than 12 seconds margin.

The opposite situation occurred this season in Japan with Aleix Espargaró, where a technical problem forced him to change bikes after the warm-up lap. In his case the motorcycle was ready at the door of the prepared for a rain that never came. Aleix, fighting for the championship, finished 16th, 25 seconds behind the winner… These are just two examples of how important ‘weather management’ is in a competition at MotoGP level. And it is, sometimes, even with the most sophisticated prediction systems you can’t be calm. Nature has its own ‘whims’.

The differences between a motorcycle for dry and one for wet

How different are bikes with wet settings compared to those prepared for dry, beyond a softer suspension setting to avoid sudden reactions of dry bikes, a flat power delivery or a different gear ratio? … What about fuel consumption? Does consuming less in the rain reduce the amount of fuel entering the tank?… And the aerodynamics? Do engineers play with the aerodynamic load on bikes with rain settings?

“It is true that in the rainy season motorcycles consume less” explained Antonio Jimenez, track engineer with nearly four decades of World Championship experience. “You go out with the same fuel as in the dry, because imagine the weather conditions change quickly and you start running almost every race in the dry. Imagine running out of gas!… Right!”

“The aerodynamics are the same because only two homologations are allowed per year, so you can’t ‘burn out’ one of the options for a wet-specific aero setup. Downforce in the wet helps the same way it helps in the dry. Imagine that the steps on each curve are somewhat lower, making the effect proportionally smaller. What changes are the suspensions because the forces transmitted to the asphalt are less with wet tires. So the suspensions are generally less stiff.”

There is one last important factor in precipitation, one that one might not think of as the main tire pressure. The variations that usually occur in a wet race are a nightmare for the technicians responsible for the tires. The pressures can vary greatly, whether the conditions are wet or wet on the asphalt. And the difference between ‘getting them right’ or not, because in the end it’s a pure bet and in this detail can be a title! that they ask Fabio Quartararothat a tire pressure error cost him the points a few weeks ago at Buriram in the final race for the championship.

In other words, after talking to pilots and engineers, the conclusion is that despite the satellites, despite the radars, despite the availability of information in real time, total control over the weather does not exist. And it is in the open window where experience and bold decisions make the difference.