“…The other major lesson – perhaps two major lessons – we learned today is the depth of reliance on electronics that modern-day MotoGP bikes have. Nicky Hayden’s miserable race – his words, not mine – were down to the ECU being confused and thinking that the bike was somewhere completely different on the track. Hayden’s lap times kept appearing as he crossed the timing loop on the back straight, rather than on the finish line, and the bike was altering the power map on the fly – as all these bikes do – for each corner where it thought the corners were, rather than where they actually were. Where it needed power, the GP12 had its power cut right back. Where it needed less, such as at the chicane, it had full power, making it difficult to control.
Without confirmation from Ducati – and good luck getting that – it seems that there were two problems with Hayden’s bike. The first is that the ECU was reading the wrong timing loop, and thinking that the one where the second split is measured was the one at the finish line. The second is a more fundamental programming one, of trusting your data. Using just a single parameter – the timing loops which run under the circuit – to measure your position on the track, and extrapolating from there – is efficient, but as Nicky Hayden found out, occasionally prone to error. Better to confirm your assumptions against the data gathered from the bike: Estoril’s front straight and back chicane are such clear markers in terms of gearing, revs, throttle and lean angle, all of which are logged, that it should not be too difficult to recalibrate the position of the bike using that data.
Alternatively, you could just use a GPS, or at least you could if they were not banned. Only the GPS provided by the organization is allowed to be used, and that only to provide information for the TV feed and live timing app. A relatively cheap part and another input requiring little extra programming would have saved Hayden’s race.
If you’re determined to cut electronics, then the way to avoid situations like this is by removing the ride-by-wire from the primary butterfly valves which are operated electronically in each throttle body. Currently, both valves are under electronic control, and that means that the bike provides the the power that it thinks the rider needs, rather than what the rider wants. In some corners, Lorenzo’s crew chief Ramon Forcada explained to me, when you open the throttle, the actual butterfly valves may open just 50%. If those valves were operated by a cable, then the would provide exactly as much throttle as the rider had asked for. These riders are professionals; they can handle that. “Thanks to asphaltandrubber.com