With a small break in the racing this week, you'd think we’re taking it easy. But unsurprisingly for a sport in which speed is everything, things can move quite quickly and your hosts Mat and Peter have some big things to discuss this week.
So let's turn back the clock to last week, when Sunday's race was immediately followed by Monday's tests. And this is a big one, because there won't be much time until Valencia and then the pre-season testing in December. A new bike is always exciting, but this year's batch is extra special because we're saying goodbye to the current 1000cc bikes and welcoming a new generation of 850cc machines. It seems a downgrade, but there's some solid reasoning here: bikes are getting too fast, which means dangerous situations and impossible tracks. Also, it just doesn't give us very exciting racing. So sometimes, change can be good.
There's just one slight problem: these new bikes are really, really bleeding fast. In fact, they seem to be way faster than the current generation! While exact lap times aren't available publicly, it appears these new machines might shave off as much as a full second. It's ironic, but imagine the disappointment of spending potentially millions of dollars on developing a new engine - only to then discover that your racing bike is now too fast. They reduced the power, but they didn't reduce the performance.
So what's going on here? Are we looking at an accidental miracle of engineering? Or is there something else going on? With all due respect for the brilliant engineers working in this sport, Mat and Peter think it might be the latter that's at fault here. But to understand that, we first need to take a look at how the performance of a bike isn't just dependent on raw power alone. Instead, speed is a package deal. There’s tires, aerodynamics, weight, electronics and all the other things that make you fly. And all of those elements are subject to new rules and sometimes even whole new manufacturers, causing the end result to be something quite volatile and unpredictable.
Luckily, Mat and Peter are just itching to get to that whole picture and analyse it from every angle. Sounds like a good time? Yeah, I thought so too. Cheers everyone!
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