Tech Talk (made somewhat easy)
Okay so, I've been compiling some motogp tech info for the past year-ish (sourced from blogs on here, random blogs elsewhere, and a lot of mat oxley articles)
I figured I'd post it here in lieu of Le Mans, but if any of this stuff is incorrect please correct me! :D
Gears
-Gear shifter near left foot (^ it's the lever the hand is pressing on)
-Pull up to downshift (i.e. move down in gears like 5-4-3, also this needs to be down sequentially similar to manual cars)
-Press down to upshift (this is notably opposite to how street bikes because the extreme lean angles of motogp would make it hard to wedge your foot under the gear shifter)
-There are 6 gears, however unlike normal bikes where Neutral is between 1 and 2, in motogp bikes Neutral is actually below 1 (so you need to downshift into it) to avoid accidentally going into Neutral during races
-"Short-shifting" is upshifting during low RPM (rotations-per-minute, so basically during corners) to avoid sending too much torque through back tire and losing traction
-This site explains it all in a bit more detail, but still in simple language
Dash
^ This image is from 2018 Honda, the only team to use square-shaped buttons as seen in green, orange, and blue on the left (this is just a design preference thing)
-Clutch lever on left handle, only used for starting the bike (specifically race starts, not for turning on the bike)
-Throttle on the right (twist the handle itself)
-The more leaned down the bike is (i.e. during turns), the less throttle should be used
-Three mapping buttons to control torque, engine braking, and traction control (I believe it's the green, orange, and blue buttons on the left, but I have no idea how these specifically work tho)
-Kill engine switch on right (the square red button)
-Bike can turn off automatically after crashing (this is why you see riders sometimes slam their ass on the bike when they're trying to rejoin the race, they're trying to turn the bike back on)
-With that in mind, the bikes do not have an internal starter (it's too heavy) so they need to be externally started, the rear wheel-rollers used to be how it was done but I believe the handheld starter (where you stick it in a hole in the bike's side) is more common now
-Dash can display messages from race control, like ride through penalties or red flags
-Big circular bolts are the top of the forks (the rods that connect to the front tire, these are golden on the Ducatis) used to tighten or untighten suspension
Brakes
-Front brake lever on the right handle, with a long lever guard to protect from accidental presses by other bikes (^ as seen in the image above)
-Brake coming into corner, let off fully by apex (middle/peak of corner), then apply throttle
-Rear brake pedal near the right foot peg & thumb rear brake on the left handle for right corners
-It's important to be able to feel how much pressure is being applied to the rear brake pedal, Valentino used a rubber-band method to to make it stiffer so he could more accurately feel how much he was pressing on it
-Bigger brake discs can (can, not will) make braking easier, especially for bigger riders (this is one of Pecco's preferences, although it's only allowed at a specific few tracks)
-Brake adjustment screw changes the point at which the lever engages the brake pads to the disc, helps with tire heat (sourced from this reddit post, which explains it more)
-The "disc" btw is the silver metal brake discs on the front and rear tires, this lets you.... well, brake lol (this brembo article, motogp's brake providers, goes into a bit more detail about them)
-Front brake is used mostly, rear can be used for going into corners, this is also why you get the occurrence of "glowing brakes" where the front brakes get hot as shit and glow red (mostly seen in the Qatar gp)
-Talented riders use throttle and front brake simultaneously to "load the front more" and stop chatter (take this one with a grain of salt, I believe I learned it from a motoamerica rider's vlog and have no idea how common it is in motogp lol)
"Corner Speed" Turning
-One of two (2) ways to approach corners
-Rider applies the brakes during corner entry, continues to brake as they are increasing the lean angle, usually slowly releasing the brakes as the lean angle is increased
-Fully release the brakes before reaching the apex, are at "full lean" for a longer period around the apex
-Smooth curve, works best for long & fast corners as it keeps the momentum
-Preferred by bikes with inline engines (so like the 2024 Yamaha)
"Point-and-Shoot" Turning
-The other way to corner, apparently adapted from motocross!
-Requires the rider to come off the brakes while wide (away from apex) and traveling slower, and quickly turning in before accelerating out of that quick turn on the exit
-Produces a late apex if done early, produces an early apex if done late (visually opposites, I had diagrams for these but I somehow lost them!)
-Are at “full lean” for a shorter period of time, so the rider doesn't need to have that consistent grip at full lean for as long
-Loses the momentum from the corner, works best in small corners
-Preferred by V4 engines (so currently every bike on the grid right now, I believe, although cornering style can also be a rider preference thing)
Engine
-Four-stroke engine
-Torque is how hard/fast the engine spins, which goes to the wheels(? I think?)
-V4 means engine cylinders are arranged in a V-shape
-il4 (inline) means engine cylinders are arranged in a line
Too much "engine inertia"
-Inertia means the resistance of an engine's rotating and reciprocating parts (at least according to the google ;-;)
-The engine keeps pushing the bike forward even on a closed throttle, causing the rider to lose the front when attacking corners
-Imagine you’re braking into a corner with a stuck throttle, so the rear tyre is accelerating while the front tyre is decelerating
-Sorry I've explain this so poorly it's because I have no idea how engines work
Front Tire
-Three different kinds of slicks (aka dry condition tires): hard, medium, soft (hard has more durability but is slower, soft has less durability but goes faster)
-Three different kinds of wets (aka rain condition tires): extra soft, soft, and medium (I think this is because the colder temps don't wear out the tires as much so they don't need the durabilities of the hards...? also, they're treaded for extra grip, while slicks are baby smooth)
-Michelin actually provides 10 different kinds of front tires HOWEVER this is mostly only something to consider when looking at grid-wide performance as the kind of hard, soft, or medium tires provided each race will be the same for every rider (so, for ex: the kind of hard tire between Le Mans race v.s Indonesia is different)
-Thinner than the rear tire, need tire warmers before use (as does the rear)
-Tire warmers btw are used to keep the tires from getting too cold because when they get cold, they get stiff and unresponsive (which is dangerous)
-Extra grip (like on Michelin rear) with a stiff chassis can cause chatter, can be especially bad on harsh lean angles
-Tires can be mixed and matched, so you can have a hard front (lmao) and a medium rear
Rear Tire
-Similar info as to the front tire, although for rears Michelin has 20 different types of rear tires (again, only think about this when thinking of grid-wide performance as the hard tires provided in a single given race will the same grid-wide, but may be different compared to the hards of another race)
-Thicker, current Michelin rear tires have more grip on them than front (this has caused a few problems with certain teams not be able to adjust to it, such as Honda)
-Need tire warmers before use, just like front
-During corners, you can use the rear brake, throttle midway through, use extra spin on rear to propel out of corner (altho take this note with a huge grain of salt lmao)
-Cornering with a spinning rear causes oversteer and helps finish corner better (grain of salt, again)
-Sliding comes from an issue with braking on corners (too fast or slow? idk)
-Heat (which causes tire degradation) can come from riding too close behind another rider for too long, create some distance (or overtake) to cool down
-Swingarm connects the rear suspension to the rear wheel, distributes weight to the rear (this motogp facebook video goes into more detail about how it affects tire and grip)
-Shorter swingarm is better in the wet because it puts more weight on the rear (god know where I got this info from, so take it with another grain of salt lol)
Fairing
-The colorful shell of the bike covered in the sponsor names
-Ground effect aero (on the lowest part of the body) creates low pressure so the tires are sucked into the asphalt for more grip (this is similar to how if you open a window just a little, the air will come in with a much stronger force than opening it fully)
-Ground effect aero is used heavily in F1, and in motogp it's been noted by some riders (mostly Marc bcs he's old) to make it difficult to save a potential crash bcs of how much the aero pulls the bike so strongly into the ground
Aero
-Wings on front, body, and back
-Primarily to increase downforce (aka the air pushing the motorcycle down and into the ground, increasing traction/grip on the tires, it's similar function-wise to ground effect aero, it just pushes down instead of sucking to the ground)
-Can also be used to filter air through the bike to cool down tires or engine
-Also, these have been a subject of debate recently as the 2027 regulation changes will be REDUCING the max size of the aero (however the bikes will still have aero, just a bit smaller)
Forks
-Absorb suspension (or at least I'm pretty sure that's what they do)
-Attach main body of the bike to the wheels
-Adjustable height, for example Pecco likes to have them very low so he can feel more feedback from the front tire (Pecco is just very particular about his setup lol)
Height Devices
-Holeshot device specifically lowers bike at moment of acceleration during race starts
-Rider height device (separate, but related thing) lowers rear height during braking and raises it during acceleration, this is what caused Fabio to DNF at the Silverstone 2025 race because it got stuck and wouldn't lower (which happens unfortunately often)
-Both can cause a severe case of the wiggles
-In 2027, both the holeshot and rider height devices are being BANNED
Helmets
-Two-four clear tear offs, first one's tag is on the right (idk where the other tags are), these are used to quickly clear stuff from the visor like debris, rain, bugs, etc.
-Riders will also sometimes tear it off at the beginning of the race and yes, they do just toss it somewhere on the grid which can cause severe issues to riders behind them (or sometimes themselves!) as it can get stuck in the tires
-For the visors themselves, there are several types that range in how they deflect glare and shade the rider's vision (there's a great aprilia tiktok with Sava that goes over this is in more detail)
-It's generally self-explanatory bcs it's like how sunglasses work, but notably clear visors are used for cloudy/rain races
Leathers
-The airbag is inside the leathers and contains three sensors: main body, left, right (I believe in the arms...?)
-Green or purple light means 'armed and ready'
-I thiiiiink the color variation just depends on the manufacturer, as most Alpinestars leathers have a green light but Bez's dainese have purple?
-also, Marc was basically a guinea pig for the current airbag system because they used his constant crashes to help figure out how to get it to activate lol
Problems
-Basically this section just goes over Bad Stuff that can happen during races
-Losing front grip causes lowsides (lowside is when the bike just kinda slips out and slides away)
-Losing then regaining rear grip causes highsides (highside is when the bike bucks like a horse and launches them to the moon)
-Too much throttle used for lean angle and then trying to close (reduce) it causes highsides
-Chatter is when the bike basically jitters by losing then regaining grip rapidly, mainly occurs on corners when releasing the brake or applying torque to the rear wheel (Honda had this problem last year and fixed it by making their riders just ride a bit differently lol)
-Chatter can be caused by chassis stiffness, engine design, clutches, electronics, the asphalt itself, etc. (a lot of things, usually multiple things)
-Finish braking and open throttle too early on a corner, front wheel doesn't have enough pressure on it and can push out from under bike (causing a lowside)
-Too much pressure on the tires from heat causes the tires to wear down and lose grip (one of Pedro's main problems and why he loses so much pace in the latter half of races)
-Late braking leads to heavy wear on the tire, and while it can let you overtake other riders it can cause problems later in the race
Miscellaneous
-Riders have preferred seats, tank grips, and sometimes even handlebars (also I think front brake lever size?)
-Different riders use a different amount of fingers to press the front brake lever (Casey uses one, Marc uses one now although he's experimented with a variety, Vale uses three)
