How Honda exposed MotoGP's inadequate tech rules

While Honda scored its first win of the 2019 MotoGP season in Argentina thanks to a sublime performance by Marc Marquez, behind the scenes the Japanese manufacturer secured perhaps an even more significant victory off-track.

Following the FIM's ruling that Ducati's controversial rear winglet was indeed legal, Honda submitted a design of its own for MotoGP technical director Danny Aldridge - who had given Ducati the all-clear to run its appendage in Qatar - to approve.

It took two goes, but this strategy was deliberate. And in getting its winglet design through at the second time of asking, Honda succeeded in its main aim: exposing the current rulemaking process in MotoGP, at least for aerodynamics, as the shambles it is.

Ducati general manager Gigi Dall'Igna, known for regularly stretching MotoGP's technical rules to their limits, found a major loophole in the current aero regs by arguing that the primary purpose of his winglet was to cool the rear tyre, something explicitly permitted by Aldridge in the technical directive circulated among the teams on March 2.

This was effectively the point of no return. Once Ducati was permitted to run a winglet in the dry for cooling purposes (Yamaha ran one in the wet last year to clear water away from the rear tyre), a precedent had been established. Whether that winglet also generated downforce became a moot point.

The protest in Qatar lodged by Honda, Suzuki, Aprilia and KTM, was thrown out on the grounds Aldridge had specifically approved Ducati's device, and the FIM was never realistically going to throw Aldridge under the bus by overturning his ruling in the subsequent hearing of the Court of Appeals in Switzerland.

And so Honda contacted Aldridge the following week in Argentina to say it had created a winglet with the express intention of creating downforce. This isn't allowed, and under the current letter of the law, Aldridge could not approve its use.

When Honda submitted the exact same design, but instead stated it was for cooling, hey presto - Aldridge had no choice but to give the all-clear, as he had done for Ducati.

The argument put forward by the four protesting manufacturers in Qatar was not that the winglet was illegal per se, more that Aldridge had been duped. Depriving Andrea Dovizioso of his victory was not the aim, at least according to new Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola.

It's hard to imagine the late Charlie Whiting having to make a unilateral ruling on whether a new front wing a team had brought to a race was legal or not

The other teams did not buy the claim Ducati wanted to run the device to preserve tyre life, especially as track temperatures at Qatar (where the action takes place at night) never exceeded 25 degrees Celsius. But Aldridge - the only man whose opinion counts - did.

And therein lies the crux of the matter. Ultimately, the stated purpose of any particular part, aerodynamic or otherwise, is subjective. It cannot be empirically proven or disproven. And yet, MotoGP's technical rules as they stand essentially rest on one person's personal interpretation; they are not there in black and white, as they should be.

Part of the problem in this case is that the FIM has no means of policing whether a particular part generates downforce. Nor does Aldridge. And you can't exactly create a rule that you have no way of properly enforcing.

This is partly why MotoGP's aerodynamic rules concerning the fairings are relatively simplistic. As long as a bike fits within Aldridge's 'check-in box', it's legal. Manufacturers are free to do whatever they like, as long as they stay within set dimensions and don't come up with a design deemed unsafe.

After the Qatar controversy, Aprilia's new racing boss Rivola revealed that his firm had contacted Aldridge in the winter asking if it could run a similar winglet to generate downforce (although not going as far as submitting a design). It was told 'no'.

Aprilia consequently dropped the idea, and was later enraged to see Ducati being allowed to run something it had been told specifically was illegal. Had Aprilia said its winglet was for cooling, it would have almost certainly been allowed.

It's no surprise that ex-Ferrari sporting boss Rivola, with his Formula 1 background, was the driving force behind the Qatar protest. The Italian comes from a series where technical matters are policed much more strictly; it's hard to imagine the late Charlie Whiting having to make a unilateral ruling on whether a new front wing a team had brought to a race was legal or not.

Traditionally, technical disputes in MotoGP have been resolved inside the manufacturers' association, the MSMA. That's what happened when Ducati finally conceded the argument on fairing winglets at the end of 2016, giving rise to the weird and wonderful sculpted aero bodies that teams have adopted in their place.

But Rivola - in no mood to conform to MotoGP convention - wanted the dispute out in the open, to resolve matters one way or the other once and for all. The FIM's ruling did just that, albeit perhaps not in the way the four protesting teams had hoped.

Ducati's Dall'Igna of course was not happy with this approach, warning that "there is the risk of becoming like a far west town in which the sheriff has also been killed".

"We are quite puzzled," Dall'Igna told the official MotoGP website after the Qatar protest.

"Before Qatar, all discussions regarding the regulations (and we've had many) had always been solved at the heart of the MSMA through the organisation itself and with the technical director.

To return to Dall'Igna's "sheriff" metaphor, one person cannot be expected to govern the whole Wild West alone

"This is the first time some teams decided to lodge a complaint against another one due to a technical question. This makes the clear difference in comparison to the past - a negative difference."

In a subsequent press conference in Argentina, Dall'Igna reiterated this stance, pointing out the high cost of the appeal - equivalent to half of Ducati's annual spend in the windtunnel. But he continued to emphasise the winglet's primary purpose was cooling, even revealing that testing had shown the piece to deliver on average reduction of seven degrees Celsius.

While denying that the part had been tested in the windtunnel, Dall'Igna also divulged that it creates 300 grams of downforce at 180km/h (112mph) - meaning much more load at higher speeds. But because this was a mere "secondary" effect, he rightly argued that this didn't matter.

While Marquez was probably correct in his assessment that the Ducati winglet didn't make any real difference to events in Qatar, it's not hard to see how a future Aldridge ruling, caused by vague rules, could have the potential to influence the championship.

At least now, thanks in part to Honda's audacious manoeuvres in Argentina, everyone knows where they stand. Expect the Honda winglet to make an appearance on-track in the not-too-distant future, perhaps in the next round at Austin, and the remaining manufacturers to be sporting something similar probably by the Jerez post-race test in early May at the latest.

Of course, they will all have to go through the motions of saying their winglets are designed for cooling, and Aldridge will have to allow them on that basis - even though all concerned know this is pure nonsense.

To return to Dall'Igna's "sheriff" comparison, one person cannot be expected to govern the whole Wild West alone. He or she needs deputies, and Aldridge - the sole authority on technical matters not only in MotoGP but also Moto2 and Moto3 - doesn't have any.

Because of the tendency for disputes to be resolved inside the MSMA in recent years, Aldridge's role hasn't come under too much scrutiny. But now surely the FIM and the teams must consider whether it is really wise to hand one person so much power.

Either MotoGP needs to expand its technical team, allowing for a number of experts to have their say before a final ruling is reached by Aldridge, or better still write the rules in such a way that they do not need to be interpreted one way or the other in marginal cases.

After all, considering the series has six manufacturers ploughing millions into development every year, a loyal global fanbase and some of the best racing in all of motorsport - two-wheeled or four - it's surely worthy of more than a one-man technical department and a rulebook that would make a club-level championship blush.