Photo: motogp.com
With Iannone putting Ducati on the front row for the race start at Jerez, both fans and other road racing enthusiasts have been waiting for a strong battle at the front of the pack. But the start of the race saw him drop a lot of positions to eleventh after a very disappointing launch.
Iannone has already gotten a taste of the podium this year, and Ducati's GP15 bike showed a huge potential, so the start at Jerez was definitely nothing like people expected things to roll. After the race, Ducati and Iannone revealed that the rider had accidentally selected the wet/rain mapping for the bike.
With the Rain mode engaged, the behavior of the bike changes radically, as the power and torque deployment maps are trimmed for the low-grip wet tarmac. That is, if there is such a tarmac...
Believe it or not, it looks like Andrea Iannone selected the Rain mode instead of the Launch Control function for the bike. Whereas the Launch Control would provide the utmost power deployment while still keeping the bike from wheeling excessively, the Rain mode would actually cut power and be much more sensitive in wheelspin and wheelie scenarios.
“We use them since the beginning of last year, because we think they are useful, and they have a lot of functions. So basically, in the middle, you have a yellow button, which is the mode, and then on top, you have a blue button, which is the launch control. So to change the map, the mechanic will push this yellow button for I think 5 seconds, in order to go into that menu, and then from there. If you press there, and you have a dry map, and you keep pressing it, it goes into wet automatically,” Ciabatti told motomatters.
“Then the launch control, you have to press it for 1 second before it’s engaged, and the dashboard will say “launch control” or it will say “wet”. For whatever reason, and I think he has already sufficiently apologized for his mistake, because mainly it’s spoiled the race, he was able to do a very good race, and considering he rode the race with a wet, or rain map, I think he did an exceptional race, for the whole race with a rain map,” the same source mentions.
Now, having a bike that works in a restricted mode and being able to reclaim the 6th position at the end of a race started in the 11th spot says a lot about Ducati and Iannone. Ducati could have had a much worse weekend, especially as Dovizioso was in trouble through the weekend and only managed to secure a ninth place at Jerez.
Most likely Ducati is working on ways to make accidentally selecting the Rain mode much harder for both bikes. It would have been interesting if Iannone could have ridden to the full extent of the bike's capabilities, but we still have many rounds this season...
With the Rain mode engaged, the behavior of the bike changes radically, as the power and torque deployment maps are trimmed for the low-grip wet tarmac. That is, if there is such a tarmac...
Believe it or not, it looks like Andrea Iannone selected the Rain mode instead of the Launch Control function for the bike. Whereas the Launch Control would provide the utmost power deployment while still keeping the bike from wheeling excessively, the Rain mode would actually cut power and be much more sensitive in wheelspin and wheelie scenarios.
Switching back to Dry mappings is very hard under racing conditions
After the declarations surfaced, many guys wondered why Iannone didn't revert to the Dry mapping. Paolo Ciabatti explained that the sequence for exiting the Rain mode was rather complex, exactly because using a Dry engine setting in wet conditions would be catastrophic. Moreover, with all the stress and deception of having lost the front row advantage, operating the bike's push-button menus was impossible.“We use them since the beginning of last year, because we think they are useful, and they have a lot of functions. So basically, in the middle, you have a yellow button, which is the mode, and then on top, you have a blue button, which is the launch control. So to change the map, the mechanic will push this yellow button for I think 5 seconds, in order to go into that menu, and then from there. If you press there, and you have a dry map, and you keep pressing it, it goes into wet automatically,” Ciabatti told motomatters.
“Then the launch control, you have to press it for 1 second before it’s engaged, and the dashboard will say “launch control” or it will say “wet”. For whatever reason, and I think he has already sufficiently apologized for his mistake, because mainly it’s spoiled the race, he was able to do a very good race, and considering he rode the race with a wet, or rain map, I think he did an exceptional race, for the whole race with a rain map,” the same source mentions.
Now, having a bike that works in a restricted mode and being able to reclaim the 6th position at the end of a race started in the 11th spot says a lot about Ducati and Iannone. Ducati could have had a much worse weekend, especially as Dovizioso was in trouble through the weekend and only managed to secure a ninth place at Jerez.
Most likely Ducati is working on ways to make accidentally selecting the Rain mode much harder for both bikes. It would have been interesting if Iannone could have ridden to the full extent of the bike's capabilities, but we still have many rounds this season...
Google News