KTM to go winter MotoGP testing with ‘modular-concept’ RC16
MotoGP
The Austrian factory, now working with Red Bull F1 aerodynamicists, will use a modular KTM RC16 to optimise aero/engine/chassis design for 2023 MotoGP season
Testing for the 2023 MotoGP world championship gets under way at Valencia three weeks from today. This is when KTM will start focusing 100% on its eighth season in the premier class.
Although KTM is having another up-and-down season – from second at Motegi and victory in Thailand to tenth at Phillip Island, albeit only 5.9 seconds off the winner – the Austrian manufacturer still has an outside chance of finishing second in the 2022 constructors’ world championship.
One important factor in KTM’s preparations for 2023 is its work with aerodynamicists from the Red Bull Formula 1 team, which recently secured its second consecutive Formula 1 drivers’ title. The idea is to find the kind of downforce aero advantages currently used so effectively by Aprilia and Ducati, who took much of their aero knowledge from F1.
In fact KTM already went big on aero for 2022, equipping its RC16 with much more downforce.
This had interesting consequences, which illustrates how downforce aero affects the entire motorcycle and its set-up. For example, during the Spanish GP at Jerez, Brad Binder was losing the front every lap through the fast rights near the end of the lap, because the downforce at that speed was so extreme it was compressing the forks too much and causing the front to slide.
KTM entered MotoGP four years ago and is already battling with rival manufacturers who have been racing in the premier class for decades. Only Yamaha has won more races since…
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This was obviously a big problem, but once KTM engineers had studied the data they worked out they could fix the problem by raising the front and dropping the rear, which at the same time improved braking performance.
Thus 2022 has been another learning process, track by track, with KTM’s best results so far coming in the rain-affected Indonesian and Thai GPs, where Miguel Oliveira used the RC16’s strong wet set-up to win both races.
KTM’s best dry results are Binder’s runner-up finishes in Qatar and Japan. Motegi was significant because the 27-year-old South African scored his first front-row start there. Getting the maximum out of soft tyres over one lap in qualifying has long been an issue for the RC16.
Overall, KTM has struggled to really progress from its breakthrough 2020 season, when it scored its first MotoGP victories. Pol Espargaró ended 2020 fifth overall, averaging 14 points per race. Last year Binder finished sixth overall, averaging 11 points per race and this year the South African currently lies sixth, averaging nine points.
So we asked KTM’s MotoGP project leader Sebastian Risse to tell is about KTM’s 2022 and its plans for 2023…
KTM’s mid-season aero upgrade is on the right. Note Gurney flaps (arrowed) at trailing edge of the upper section’s lower wings.
A Gurney – invented by car racer Dan Gurney in the 1960s – increases downforce with a minimal increase in drag
What have been the positives of 2022?
The positive is that we solved the acceleration issues we had in 2021, using the whole concept we made with this year’s bike, starting from the aerodynamics and together with the set-up we adapted to the aero. This was the target and we achieved it.
If we have any acceleration problems remaining we relate them to the turning, not to picking up the bike or exiting the corner.
“Jack Miller can use a riding style that will fit this bike well”
The RC16 used to use V-shaped cornering lines, but now it uses more U-shaped lines. Why?
At the moment we take a wide radius in corner entry. The bike still stops well, I wouldn’t say better than the others, but basically we have to stop even more than them and take a little bit more of a rounded line, because we struggle with turning the bike.
Why do you struggle with getting the bike turned?
I think the others got better, it’s that simple. It’s a competition – everybody gets better, we didn’t get worse, but we need to get better at this.
Does the RC16’s wider-radius lines also mean using more lean angle for longer, which can burn the tyres?
In the end lean angle is also turning, but when you have the possibility to use three degrees more lean for a short time in the middle of the corner, then you have the room to use less lean before and after. And that’s where the contact patch gets bigger and that’s where you gain performance.
KTM’s MotoGP project leader Sebastian Risse worked on the company’s Moto3 project and before then, on the RC8 superbike
KTM
How do you make your cornering lines shorter?
We’re working on this in all areas and we have found something which we proved in the [September] Misano tests, with Brad in particular, and now we have to put it all altogether.
Binder recently said the bike now works better with softer front tyres, so that must be a big step, because you’ve always struggled to use softer fronts?
Yes, it’s an interesting trend. We still have to see how long it lasts and how general it is but we’ve had this impression at the last few tracks.
Binder rides aggressively and you’ve signed two more riders with aggressive styles for 2023 – Pol Espargaró and Jack Miller – so is this a case of hiring riders to fit the RC16?
I would say that in the case of Brad it’s clear that he’s here because he performs well on our bike and for sure it’s due to his riding style. His style isn’t too different from Pol’s but a bit more rounded. Brad is aggressive but he sweeps through corners more than Pol, who really accentuates the V-shaped cornering line. Pol’s riding style fitted our bike when he last rode for us [2017 to 2020] and it will still fit the bike because the bike hasn’t changed too much since then.
We have a long history with Jack. I’ve known him since he was doing the German championship [Miller won the 2011 IDM 125cc championship], before we even started all of this and I think his approach adapts very well to different bikes. He can use a riding style that will fit this bike well and he is one of those riders that can manage different front tyres very well, which I think will be a good contribution to our whole project – to understand where somebody like him can take it and how we can help him to exploit this further, because we are still a bit stuck [with front tyres], that’s clear.
KTM introduced longer exhausts during 2022, which make the RC16 engine perform more smoothly
Red Bull
The biggest change for 2022 was the RC16’s aero – you added a lot more downforce, maybe too much?
With the concept of the 2022 bike we approached the aerodynamics in a different way and prioritised things in a different way – we tried to make the bike around the aero, rather than taking a bike and seeing if more aero fits it well or not.
So we formed each aspect of set-up and geometry, testing and retesting all items, trying to get the best out of the package and, because it worked well in winter tests, we committed to this direction.
We knew we had room to play with the set-up to compensate further, but then it was quite a learning curve to do this at every track in all conditions, especially because the correlation with the tyre allocation is quite tricky, which means that when you arrive at a track where the allocation is different you have to learn how far you can take it. At some races we did this well and in other cases, not.
“Working with the Red Bull F1 guys is about merging their knowhow and our knowhow”
Now we have arrived at a point where we have quite a stable [set-up] situation. We also have a package with less downforce available [KTM’s first 2022 aero set], so in case we can’t deal with what we’re using most of the time, we can go back to that. But at the moment the higher-downforce version is usually the better package for us.
We see Aprilia and Ducati using ground-effect fairings and diffusers to increase cornering grip, so will we see you doing the same in 2023?
It’s not that we don’t already use aero that emphasises cornering behaviour but for sure we can do it better. Of course we can go into details and make it more trick – and I’m sure that where we are now is not the end of the aero story.
I think we can make a smoother compromise of what we are running at the moment – a rounder package, with all the details tuned aerodynamically. But during the season you can’t do this – you have to tune the bike from all the other aspects to make your homologated aero package work.
Remy Gardner sometimes raced without the RC16’s lower aero pods, because he felt they unbalanced the bike, reducing rear grip, which he needs for his riding style
KTM
We know you are working with aerodynamicists from the Red Bull Formula 1 team – this could be a big help…
Working with the Red Bull F1 guys is about merging their knowhow and our knowhow to get the best out of each. For sure F1 has much more knowhow in certain areas. You see the trend that other MotoGP factories [Aprilia and Ducati] were trying to get this knowhow – for sure it’s easier to work with people who already have the knowledge than it is to build it up completely on our own.
Will the 2023 RC16 look very different?
I think so, yes. We are working on a modular concept which means we will be able to replace each area of the bike with another one. We want to really prove each of the individual areas, to not have three areas that are better and one that’s worse.
Once again your results have been up and down this year.
This is learning curve I mentioned earlier. This year we took a different approach and we took it consciously. We knew we would suffer in some places but the more you suffer the more you learn.
Also, at the start of the season you could see Ducati not running all smooth and perfect but they have the manpower and the knowledge to quickly get to their real level again, which we expected from them and that’s what we need to do.
I worked out by comparing race times that your performance is 99.6% of Ducati’s, but you’re nowhere near winning the title, which shows how madly close MotoGP is at the moment.
This is what makes it interesting and made it a really spectacular series during recent years.
The more limitation there is, like with the unified electronics and spec tyres, the closer it gets and the harder the fight for the last tenths and hundredth of seconds.
But also it’s getting a bit tricky because there’s all the aero, which can limit how aggressively a rider can ride when he’s with other riders. So this is two things clashing.
Pol Espargaró – with KTM crew chief Paul Trevathan and Sebastian Risse – returns to KTM (aboard a GASGAS-badged RC16) in 2023 after two difficult years with Honda
KTM
What are your views on the various new technologies of the last few years: downforce aero, ride-height adjusters and holeshot devices?
Starting with ride-height systems, the problem we have with them is that while it’s fascinating technology, the rules, or the spirit of the rules, almost forbid them but don’t. [When MotoGP banned electronically adjustable suspension many years ago they assumed they had banned all adjustable suspension – they never guessed that clever engineers would create mechanically/hydraulically adjustable suspension.]
Even though it’s fascinating for us as engineers, and I think we’ve done a good job with ours, which now works very well, it’s something from which you can take no knowledge to your production bikes. You can’t even use it marketing-wise because all production bikes [with electronically adjustable suspension] are ten levels above what you can achieve with this technology.
We would rather they were gone. Also, it makes the bikes even faster, so in the end it’s more danger.
We don’t have a big problem with holeshot devices but we wouldn’t mind if they also weren’t there. Starting was one of our stronger points before the holeshot devices arrived and afterwards as well, so we don’t see this issue from a very political view. But there’s no real need for them.
We see downforce aero from a sporting point of view – it’s making the races boring, so it does nothing for the spectators. Also, it makes the bikes much faster, so we believe it doesn’t serve the safety aspect either.
Binder leads Takaaki Nakagami, Marc Márquez, Enea Bastianini Alex Márquez and the rest at Mugello in May
Red Bull
Next year MotoGP will for the first time enforce the 1.9 bar minimum pressure limit for the front tyre. We know some teams currently run below the minimum to get more grip, so what kind of a challenge will this be?
It’s going to be a big challenge at some tracks. It’s going to be the same for everybody, so it’s a technical challenge that each factory will face, so let’s see how good we are at it. We already have a clear idea of how we want to manage it.
Of course it will be a limiting factor and the problem is that it also comes into an area where, whichever direction you take [lower or higher pressure], it’s a safety issue. Michelin says we cannot go lower because of safety concerns, but higher is very dangerous for the riders. We made some statistics about our riders – how often they crashed and at what pressure – and it couldn’t be clearer that there’s a certain threshold of high pressure, which if you go over it you will barely survive race distance.
What’s it like having eight Ducatis on the grid?
It’s a political thing that gives the leverage to achieve something, but I think Dorna has the interest of marketing the sport and they have to take care of it. Sure, the imbalance in the MotoGP class doesn’t help and it’s very clear that usually Ducati has one opinion and the rest of the grid has another opinion, but more than half of the grid comes from other manufacturers, so from that point of view I think the message should be clear to Dorna.
What are your priorities for 2023?
We have to improve every aspect of the bike: power, power delivery, aero, also in terms of top speed, the electronics and so on. Having a focus shouldn’t mean someone can sit there twiddling their thumbs – we must work on all aspects.
