CRT MotoGP regs.... ber?
Discussion
So, filling the gap between motorsport seasons by trying to get up to date with some series I've lost (technical) track of a bit and noticed people refering to MotoGP CRT regulations. These have completely passed me by.
I looked into it and, as far as I can tell, it feels a bit like asking if some teams fancy running GT1s with F1 engines on the Formula One grid to make up the numbers.
Am I wildly wide of the mark on this? Can anyone explain it better?
I looked into it and, as far as I can tell, it feels a bit like asking if some teams fancy running GT1s with F1 engines on the Formula One grid to make up the numbers.
Am I wildly wide of the mark on this? Can anyone explain it better?
Hmm sort of. Right let me get this right; The CRT bikes must use a prototype frame, so chassis-wise they're pretty similar to the full MotoGP machines. The engines are allowed to be production based and heavily modified though, up until now anything that resembles a production based engine has been outlawed (the old WCM machine got kicked out because it had R1 part numbers on a few choice engine components). So that effectively gives you WSBK engines on steroids in a prototype frame, with a higher fuel limit too (yet to be confirmed entirely, but they've tested with a 24 litre capcity rather than the 21 litres of the prototypes. This may be increased though). Any CRT team can buy a winning rival's engine for 20 grand though, and they can't refuse.
There's a bit of a fuss being stirred up by Aprilia at the moment though, as they have become a CRT chassis AND engine supplier. Yep, you can buy a works Aprilia frame, and a CRT spec engine from the factory (a modified RSV4 lump with the bits outlawed by WSBK rules bolted back on), fit them together and give yourself basically a works Aprilia. If it becomes anywhere near competitive I imagine a few other manufacturers will follow suit too. Long term this seems the way the entire MotoGP class is heading (if Dorna have their way).
There's a bit of a fuss being stirred up by Aprilia at the moment though, as they have become a CRT chassis AND engine supplier. Yep, you can buy a works Aprilia frame, and a CRT spec engine from the factory (a modified RSV4 lump with the bits outlawed by WSBK rules bolted back on), fit them together and give yourself basically a works Aprilia. If it becomes anywhere near competitive I imagine a few other manufacturers will follow suit too. Long term this seems the way the entire MotoGP class is heading (if Dorna have their way).
Ah ok, that's much clearer, thanks - I think I had the engine/chassis regs mixed up.
I read that one of the Honda satellites will be running an RCV and a CBR in MotoGP - so, does this have nothing to do with it being actually a CBR chassis and is just them using a different model designation to differentiate between the CRT and MotoGP regs bikes using what could be described as 'appropriate to the bikes relative position' nomenclature?
Essentially, isn't this like a spec series (ish) running on the same grid as MotoGP?
Am I still missing something, or is the general consensus that this idea is actually really odd?
I read that one of the Honda satellites will be running an RCV and a CBR in MotoGP - so, does this have nothing to do with it being actually a CBR chassis and is just them using a different model designation to differentiate between the CRT and MotoGP regs bikes using what could be described as 'appropriate to the bikes relative position' nomenclature?
Essentially, isn't this like a spec series (ish) running on the same grid as MotoGP?
Am I still missing something, or is the general consensus that this idea is actually really odd?
MrKipling43 said:
Ah ok, that's much clearer, thanks - I think I had the engine/chassis regs mixed up.
I read that one of the Honda satellites will be running an RCV and a CBR in MotoGP - so, does this have nothing to do with it being actually a CBR chassis and is just them using a different model designation to differentiate between the CRT and MotoGP regs bikes using what could be described as 'appropriate to the bikes relative position' nomenclature?
Essentially, isn't this like a spec series (ish) running on the same grid as MotoGP?
Am I still missing something, or is the general consensus that this idea is actually really odd?
Yeah Gresini are running a satellite RCV3 (not full "works" spec as Marco Simoncelli would've received, but as the 1000cc regs are new for next year it'll be pretty close to it at the start of the season) and then a CRT bike. It'll be a prototype frame (Moriwaki or FTR I think??), the CBR designation just relates to it using a modified Fireblade engine (which will be supplied by Ten Kate who run the Castrol Honda WSBK squad as well as the electronics package). I read that one of the Honda satellites will be running an RCV and a CBR in MotoGP - so, does this have nothing to do with it being actually a CBR chassis and is just them using a different model designation to differentiate between the CRT and MotoGP regs bikes using what could be described as 'appropriate to the bikes relative position' nomenclature?
Essentially, isn't this like a spec series (ish) running on the same grid as MotoGP?
Am I still missing something, or is the general consensus that this idea is actually really odd?
It's not a spec series as such, because the potential for different engine, chassis and electronics packages is pretty vast. It's been done more as a way to entice bikes on to the dwindling grids and remove some of the manufacturers' stranglehold on the class. Right now with the state of the grids, Dorna have been worried about upsetting the apple cart too much in case the remaining teams clear off and start a rival series or something, effectively ending the MotoGP class. With CRT rules being established it's not so important, if Ducati Yamaha or Honda spat their dummy out over rule changes or something, Rossi, Lorenzo & Stoner et al could jump ship to another team running CRT bikes and the best riders stay in MotoGP rather than disappearing with the manufacturers.
Cost is a massive issue too, with the factory teams effectively dictating the rules as they've stood since MotoGP's inception, the cost of fielding a satellite team has sky rocketed, which is what has led to the small fields. With a more affordable way to enter the premier class, Dorna are hoping that it'll be much better subscribed. If it does eventually go CRT style only, those who are entering the fray now will be much better equipped and prepared should it happen.
Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 4th January 08:17
Yeah it's going to be interesting to see how it develops for sure. I think everyone accepts that they won't be competitive with the factory prototypes this season, but with a year's development and another winter behind them I thik the gap will slowly come down. The achilles heel will be how reliable they can keep highly strung road engines I reckon.
Rat_Fink_67 said:
Yeah it's going to be interesting to see how it develops for sure. I think everyone accepts that they won't be competitive with the factory prototypes this season, but with a year's development and another winter behind them I thik the gap will slowly come down. The achilles heel will be how reliable they can keep highly strung road engines I reckon.
I strongly suspect that the rules will be [considers words carefully] "held under continuous review" to avoid any possibility of a CRT bike getting too far up towards the pointy end of either the grid or the final results under normal conditions. Quite rightly too in my view, MotoGP is supposed to be a thorobred "prototype" class and I'd like to see it stay that way, I want to see the big manufacturers continuing to produce 100% bespoke racing machinery and Honda won't be spending big money developing an RC2xx (or whatever) if there's a chance of getting beaten by a hot-rodded 'blade motor (no matter how highly developed) in somebody else's chassis .I'm more than happy to see lower barriers to entry to bring new teams onto GP grids and drive innovation from specialist chassis constructors[1] but I think it should really be a stepping stone rather than a direct route to a potential championship win and I don't want to see the lines between prototype (MotoGP) and production based classes (WSB) getting blurred.
I certainly hope and expect to see the odd giant slaying exploit when weather and/or track conditions conspire to level the odds though!
--
Jonathon.
[1] I own and used to race a "Super Mono" single cylinder racer with a Yamaha XTZ based motor in a bespoke Harris frame (actually derived from their TZ250 GP chassis) and it is truly a thing of great beauty. Just the standard of the welding can bring tears to a man's eyes and I sometimes go into the garage just to look at it...
I think given the lack of money floating around CRT style regs will become the norm in the future. Not so much the claiming rules, but factory engines in 3rd party chassis. Yamaha are struggling to shift units from the showrooms and once Philip Morris inevitably move on from Ducati they won't have quite the same spending power either. I think we'll see the class head towards a big Moto3 class, where factories can still support or even field their own team with "works" (and not necessarily production based) engines and then farm out the chassis and electronics to specialis companies. Similar to the ROC Yamaha entries in the 90's.
Rat_Fink_67 said:
I think we'll see the class head towards a big Moto3 class, where factories can still support or even field their own team with "works" (and not necessarily production based) engines and then farm out the chassis and electronics to specialis companies. Similar to the ROC Yamaha entries in the 90's.
Or, indeed, like Formula One. Chassis builders independent of engine manufacturers, but engine manufacturers can be chassis builders too: Ferrari/Ferrari, McLaren/'Mercedes' and Red Bull/Renault.bigbadbikercats][1 said:
I own and used to race a "Super Mono" single cylinder racer with a Yamaha XTZ based motor in a bespoke Harris frame (actually derived from their TZ250 GP chassis) and it is truly a thing of great beauty. Just the standard of the welding can bring tears to a man's eyes and I sometimes go into the garage just to look at it...
Erm... PICS!(not cuz I don't believe you own it, I just wanna see the thing!)
Good descriptions and an interesting debate.
In essence, the motorcycle on the grid currently hasn't developed significantly for a number of years, overall if you could cost it the biggest cost is the continual changing of the rules by Dorna. 990's, then 800's, now 1000's and CRT's. Every time the factories have to go through another significant design and redevelopment process and it's only the factories that can afford it.
The reasons the grids were higher historically was two fold, based on the generation. One where you could arrive with pretty much anything, but common to have works engine in a proto frame, harris et al or later when into the 500's when the factories passed down the previous years machinery and this also provided an income stream for them to develop this factory bike and so on and so on.
That process went on for a number of years in 500's, performance was effectively governed by the age of the kit and the spec of the tyres available to the non factory teams, however it was still possible to get on a podium, even win occassionally on a satellite bike.
Since moving to 4 strokes, there has been one satellite race winner, Elias at Estoril. Otherwise there have only been podiums and mainly for full factory bikes in satellite team colours such as Simoncelli.
Ducati has been desperate to resurrect this model, just note the number of Ducati's on the grid in 2011. It's another reason why gaining the signature of Rossi was seen as so important as they believed Stoner couldn't develop the bike and they needed it to be saleable to the other teams. Noww the rules have changed again this has further hurt the process.
A period of stability for MotoGP would really help the situation. Moving to 800's was a real mistake and made the gap between factory and satellites even further at a time when the economic situation also started to really effect factories abilities to support additional bikes on the grid.
Overall the area the manufacturers are most interested in is the electronics. The motors are well developed and will be tweaked each year, but since any adoption of F1 tech such as pneumatic valves has been done already and the use of exotic materials is more strictly governed then there's not likely to be a revolution. As for chassis, they've not changed radically for a number of years, each year a slight tweak, but nothing fundamental.
Therefore electronics is the battlefield of modern bike racing and the consequence for the CRT teams is that they have to get this piece right to be vaguely competitive. Initial testing has them about 4 secs off the pace, this will ebb and flow depending on circuits and conditions, but I do expect with the increased engine allocation, increased fuel limit, testing ban changes, tyre allocations etc that the gap will close.
Guy Coulan (zpelling) from Tech3 is a good read in interviews regarding this, especially after his experience with their Mistral M2 bike.
Dorna are trying to break the strength of the manufacturers in the class and therefore I reckon there'll be plenty more battles in the boardrooms of Dorna and the Manufacturers associations etc etc . ..
Overall, I'm not sure it's the right thing, I don't think the racing/spectacle will improve because of it and having 2 different classes on the same grid is OK for lower level motorsport, but at the pinnacle of the sport pick one way or another. I think CRT will win in the end, but WSBK will have to get back to its roots for this to happen, long term stragtegies though . .
In essence, the motorcycle on the grid currently hasn't developed significantly for a number of years, overall if you could cost it the biggest cost is the continual changing of the rules by Dorna. 990's, then 800's, now 1000's and CRT's. Every time the factories have to go through another significant design and redevelopment process and it's only the factories that can afford it.
The reasons the grids were higher historically was two fold, based on the generation. One where you could arrive with pretty much anything, but common to have works engine in a proto frame, harris et al or later when into the 500's when the factories passed down the previous years machinery and this also provided an income stream for them to develop this factory bike and so on and so on.
That process went on for a number of years in 500's, performance was effectively governed by the age of the kit and the spec of the tyres available to the non factory teams, however it was still possible to get on a podium, even win occassionally on a satellite bike.
Since moving to 4 strokes, there has been one satellite race winner, Elias at Estoril. Otherwise there have only been podiums and mainly for full factory bikes in satellite team colours such as Simoncelli.
Ducati has been desperate to resurrect this model, just note the number of Ducati's on the grid in 2011. It's another reason why gaining the signature of Rossi was seen as so important as they believed Stoner couldn't develop the bike and they needed it to be saleable to the other teams. Noww the rules have changed again this has further hurt the process.
A period of stability for MotoGP would really help the situation. Moving to 800's was a real mistake and made the gap between factory and satellites even further at a time when the economic situation also started to really effect factories abilities to support additional bikes on the grid.
Overall the area the manufacturers are most interested in is the electronics. The motors are well developed and will be tweaked each year, but since any adoption of F1 tech such as pneumatic valves has been done already and the use of exotic materials is more strictly governed then there's not likely to be a revolution. As for chassis, they've not changed radically for a number of years, each year a slight tweak, but nothing fundamental.
Therefore electronics is the battlefield of modern bike racing and the consequence for the CRT teams is that they have to get this piece right to be vaguely competitive. Initial testing has them about 4 secs off the pace, this will ebb and flow depending on circuits and conditions, but I do expect with the increased engine allocation, increased fuel limit, testing ban changes, tyre allocations etc that the gap will close.
Guy Coulan (zpelling) from Tech3 is a good read in interviews regarding this, especially after his experience with their Mistral M2 bike.
Dorna are trying to break the strength of the manufacturers in the class and therefore I reckon there'll be plenty more battles in the boardrooms of Dorna and the Manufacturers associations etc etc . ..
Overall, I'm not sure it's the right thing, I don't think the racing/spectacle will improve because of it and having 2 different classes on the same grid is OK for lower level motorsport, but at the pinnacle of the sport pick one way or another. I think CRT will win in the end, but WSBK will have to get back to its roots for this to happen, long term stragtegies though . .
Great post Johno.
It certainly seems that it's a way of making MotoGP cheaper without The Big Boys throwing a strop about the sport being changed... kinda like the two-stroke tantrum in reverse!
Also, there's nothing wrong with having more than one class in top-level motorsport. Sports car racing has been doing it forever, and it works very well.
Either way, it's certainly going to be interesting.
It certainly seems that it's a way of making MotoGP cheaper without The Big Boys throwing a strop about the sport being changed... kinda like the two-stroke tantrum in reverse!
Johno said:
Overall, I'm not sure it's the right thing, I don't think the racing/spectacle will improve because of it and having 2 different classes on the same grid is OK for lower level motorsport, but at the pinnacle of the sport pick one way or another. I think CRT will win in the end, but WSBK will have to get back to its roots for this to happen, long term stragtegies though . .
While I'm not sure it's the right thing, I'm becoming more convinced by it... the idea of top level motorcycle racing being 'affordable' in the way it once was is appealling.Also, there's nothing wrong with having more than one class in top-level motorsport. Sports car racing has been doing it forever, and it works very well.
Either way, it's certainly going to be interesting.
My biggest fear with the new rules, is that we'll end up with 2 races within a race... 6 factory bikes up front in one race... And the CRT's half a lap down in another...
Let's be honest, the most exciting class to watch for the last 2 years has been Moto 2..... Maybe moto GP needs a similar format.... But with bigger engines??
Let's be honest, the most exciting class to watch for the last 2 years has been Moto 2..... Maybe moto GP needs a similar format.... But with bigger engines??
Lunablack said:
My biggest fear with the new rules, is that we'll end up with 2 races within a race... 6 factory bikes up front in one race... And the CRT's half a lap down in another...
Let's be honest, the most exciting class to watch for the last 2 years has been Moto 2..... Maybe moto GP needs a similar format.... But with bigger engines??
It's my concern as well, but to be fair we have that now as the satellite teams other than Gresini's full factory bike under Simoncelli, occasionally Bautista on the Suzuki or the Tech 3 bikes very occassioanlly, there is a 2 tier championship, no different than historically but at least they were all racing bikes to the same rules.Let's be honest, the most exciting class to watch for the last 2 years has been Moto 2..... Maybe moto GP needs a similar format.... But with bigger engines??
Now the division will be even greater, the CRT bikes even slower, the rules different, so the MotoGP winner of 2012 will only really be riding against 7 or so other bikes built to the same rules, the rest are grid fillers currently. It's a cynical view however . .
Allyc85 said:
Cynical, but probably true!
I cant say im looking forward to Moto Go this year, infact im more looking forward to the new Moto 3 class, which replaces the 125s.
Likewise..... Plus I suspect I'll have far more interest in what Bradley, Scott, and any other Brits are up to in Moto 2 than the supposed premier class...I cant say im looking forward to Moto Go this year, infact im more looking forward to the new Moto 3 class, which replaces the 125s.
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