LENOVO DUCATI DESMOSEDICI

The bike-racing season is just about to get properly under way, so what better machine to have a look at than the one that won the top gong in 2022? Yep, this month, we’re having a gawp at the Ducati Desmosedici, which swept the board last year. Francesco ‘Pecco’ Bagnaia won the riders title on it – the first all-Italian top-flight win since Agostini on an MV Agusta 500 in 1972... a neat 50-year gap there. But Ducati also took the constructors title (it had no less than nine riders scooping up points on 2022 and 2021 Desmosedicis) and the Lenovo Factory team won the teams award. A triple whammy then for the Bolognan massive, so well done. But what about the hardware, which we’re looking at here? Of course, a MotoGP race bike spec sheet is the most hilariously understated document in the bike world. Where a company will generally give you chapter and verse on the spec of a hot-poop sportsbike, here you get approximate numbers and bland details. We know the Desmosedici makes more than 250bhp and weighs 157kg (this is precisely because it is the minimum weight in the MotoGP technical regs). It has Brembo carbon front brakes (with a steel rear disc), Marchesini forged magnesium wheels wearing the control Michelin slicks, Öhlins suspension (which is adjustable for preload AND damping!), carbonfibre fork outer tubes and an aluminium twin-spar frame. The engine is a liquidcooled 1000cc 90° V-four with dohc and desmodromic valve operation, and fourvalves per cylinder. Carburation is by dual circuit ride-by-wire fuel injection, and twin injectors per cylinder, and the exhaust is a super-trick titanium Akrapovic system. Final drive is by DID chain, and the transmission uses the now standard MotoGP seamless drive system, giving continuous drive during gearshifts. Engine management is by Marelli, with the DORNA-approved software integrated, and the dash is from obscure Italian firm COBO, which seems to specialise more in agricultural machinery than high-end motorcycles. The most exciting area of current MotoGP development is, of course, aerodynamics. With most things tieddown by tech regs, going cray-cray with the bodywork can give the extra few per cent here and there that gets your rider on the top step. Ducati has been a pioneer here, with aero wings, tail fins and underslung spoilers, as well as a ‘holeshot’ device to lower the bike on starting, which the firm developed into a variable ride height system to use while moving. The variable ride height systems have been partially banned for 2023, but expect the firm to keep pushing at the regs for that last bit of technical advantage…

MotoGP engineers like Gigi Dall’Igna don’t care how their bikes look – the stopwatch is the only judge. While the 2023 Desmosedici is an incredible piece of work, it won’t win any beauty contests. The area below the steering head, in particular, is a mess, with lots of disconnected lines and curious angles... the overall look is a bit ‘pre-crashed’.

Brembo’s finest: Nickel-plated GP4 calipers are shiny shiny, cooling fins are new tech, carbonio discs one of the last exclusive bastions of MotoGP racing – no one else is allowed them! There are 12 disc options with different diameters and masses, in standard and ventilated designs, and they go up to a massive 355mm (nearly 14 inches).

More fins than SeaWorld and a gorgeous Akra can – it can only be a MotoGP bike tail end! Flex Box is a shipping container company and Riello make computer power supplies.

Ducati has apparently snatched the Monster energy drink belly pan sponsorship that Suzuki used to have. There’s little sentimentality at this level…

Of course, as with every race bike since they moved to disc brakes, this most highly developed race bike depends on a €5 branded wrist sweatband to keep its brake and clutch master cylinder reservoirs neat and cosy…

Team sponsor Lenovo was a little-known Chinese PC maker until 2004, when it bought IBM’s PC-making business. It obviously supplies the team laptops and memory cards, but it also provides computing power for developing aerodynamic parts, and it is promising that AI will help design MotoGP bikes in future.