Ducati move to open class machines

It has been confirmed today by Gigi Dall’Igna that the Ducati MotoGP team will be moving from Factory machinery to the open class.

Although this will be a blow to Cal Crutchlow who moved to Ducati on the promise of Factory machinery, it appears that Andrea Dovizioso has had a much better test on the open bike and has been able to post much quicker times against the Factory Ducati.

Ducati's analysis points towards the Open class as being a more viable option, although restricted by the control ECU from Magneti Marelli it means they will get a softer option of Bridgestone, more engines and an extra 3 litres of fuel.

MotoGP 2014 Teams & Regulation Changes

For those of you who haven't caught up with the rule changes for this year, here is a brief overview:

The majority of technical regulations stay the same for 2014 with the exception of 3 restrictions. Factory bikes (Honda, Yamaha & Ducati) remain full prototype machines, still limited to 4 riders per manufacturer. Yamaha and Honda have both developed production bikes that comply with the new ‘open’ class regulations, these bikes can be hired by customer teams to complete under the new open regulations. The regulations also allow teams to develop their own bikes such as the PBM chassis'd Aprilia.

This table below explains the regulation differences between the classes.

	Electronics*	Engines	Fuel
Factory	Factory Software	5	20 litres
Open	Standardised	12	24 litres

*all bikes must run ECU Hardware provided by Magneti Marelli

It is still unknown whether Ducati will switch to their open bike for 2014, they have until the 28th February to decide. For now, here is a split of which teams & riders are running which bikes.

Factory Teams / Riders

Honda Racing Corp

Marc Marquez

Dani Pedrosa

Yamaha Factory

Jorge Lorenzo

Valentino Rossi

Ducati Factory

Cal Crutchlow

Andrea Dovisioso

GO&FUN Gresini Honda (Satellite)

Alvaro Bautista

LCR Honda (Satellite)

Stefan Bradl

Tech3 Yamaha (Satellite)

Bradley Smith

Pol Espagaro

Pramac Ducati Racing (Satellite)

Andrea Iannone

 ‘Open’ Teams / Riders

GO&FUN Gresini (Honda)

Scott Redding

Pramac Racing

Yonny Hernandez

Cardion AB Racing (Honda)

Karel Abraham

NGM Forward Racing (Yamaha)

Colin Edwards

Aleix Espagaro

Avintia Racing (Yamaha)

Hector Barbera

Mike Di Meglio

Drive M7 Aspar (Honda)

Hiroshi Aoyama

Nicky Hayden

Ioda Project Racing (Aprilia)

Leon Camier

Danilo Petrucci

PBM (Aprilia)

Broc Parkes

Michael Laverty

Marquez leads in Sepang

The first day of the 2014 MotoGP test season has kicked off at the Sepang circuit with Marc Marquez starting where he left off... Leading from the front. He leads Rossi by 0.5s with Pedrosa jumping ahead of Lorenzo 0.1s further behind.

The talking point running up to the first test was the split between the Factory and Open bikes. With only 5 engines, 20 litres of fuel and a control ECU against the open class' 12 engines and 24 litres the gap is rapidly closing between the two, Espagaro posted a 2:01.419 which is only 1.1s off Marquez's time.

Eyes will be firmly fixed on Ducati who are once again lagging far behind the other factory bikes and have reportedly made a move towards switching to the open class. We should probably hang off any judgment just yet, it's day one and there's plenty of time for a Ducati resurgence, but I won't be holding my breath!

Full Timings can be found here:

Sepang Test - Day 1