→ motogp sideblog. trying to reconnect to motorcycle sports after not looking at them for years. i do not really have strong favourites, i just enjoy the sport casually and can get excited about anything. sete is serious to me though.
never got that deep into motogp and i am very interested in just about anything :) please feel free to recommend articles and races/send fun facts/infodrop on me.
125cc/250cc/moto3/moto2 are unfortunately still blind spots to me and eventually hopefully this can be fixed. i am watching WCR and WSBK on the side too.
in that sense: deliver your passionate novel about occurrences or people you love in my askbox!!! even if we are strangers!!! i love info!!!
→ currently watching season 2007
sources: ‘Il grande freddo’; ‘Sete y Rossi, una attraccion fatal’;‘A Decade in MotoGP’ documentary; ‘Rossi mantiene su actitud beligerante e ignora a Sete’; dueruote’s Jerez 2005 post race report; ‘Valentino todavía sigue pensando en Gibernau’; Valentino’s interview circa Donington’05; ‘Me da igual lo que Rossi diga de mí’; Ring of Fire’ by Rick Broadbent; Sachsenring 2005 Eurosport commentary; Mugello 2006 race commentary; ‘Gibernau dal college alla Ducati’; ‘Valentino Rossi: portrait of a speed god’; Valentino’s 2007 interview; ‘2004 MotoGP season review’ by Julian Ryder; ‘2005 Motorcycle Yearbook’; Valentino Rossi: All His Races’ by Mat Oxley; Motorcycle Racer may 2005 issue
[most quotes are autotranslated from spanish or italian]
Miki Arpa (Sete’s cousin) talking about him in 1999:
[from an article published in a 1999 issue of Solo Moto which I’ll post a bit later; autotranslated from spanish; as always thank you @melatifosa<33]
"Sete was the person with whom I secretly smoked my first cigarette with, the one with whom I first talked about girls... I mean, he has been much more than a cousin you go riding motorcycles with. I saw Sete as a bit of a rascal in the family. On one side was the little angel telling me to do one thing, and on the other was Sete telling me to do the exact opposite. This is part of life, of friendship. As a rider, what I learned from Sete above all was how to approach my professional career, focusing on goals and working at full blast for them. That is his greatest virtue: he is a tireless worker. He instilled in me a passion for physical training. He lives by and for his profession, dedicating himself to it body and soul without sparing any effort. Another thing I admire about him is how he knows how to concentrate and isolate himself from the outside world on race day. He is much better at that than I am.
If I had to find a flaw in him, I would tell you that sometimes he overthinks things too much if something doesn't work out the way he expected. When things he cannot control go wrong, he gets too overwhelmed. Still, Sete's best virtue is that he knows perfectly how to separate work from fun. He is an outgoing and friendly person who still keeps his feet on the ground. He and I are alike in many things, but we also differ in many others. I am more serious than him, as he is more extroverted. I am a believer but not practicing at all, and Sete is more prone to praying when things go bad. I am delighted with Vane, my partner for the last four years, and Sete—for the time being—doesn't even want to hear about serious girlfriends. For instance, you will rarely see me with a book in my hand. On the other hand, Gibernau loves to read."
Sete talking about the aftermath of Daijiro Kato’s fatal incident in 2021
The pre-season started amazingly with Daijiro, but everything was interrupted when the Suzuka incident happened. We did a great job and then everything stopped. My dream dissolved into nothing, because there was a stage where we thought we could not continue that year, understand? Because we did not know how to react.
To be honest, when I called Fausto, looking for answers, to ask what we were going to do and I'm just 'fuck I have no idea!' I don't have the strength & I need someone to tell me something or other. 'So he and Chekini (*Fabrizio) gave me the responsibility to say if we would go to South Africa. I remember that during this conversation I was at my house in Switzerland & I was alone, Esther was not with me, I was alone at home & I remember the conversation, because when I hung up, I looked around and thought 'Shit! I'm too alone in this whole thing, can anyone help me? I do not know what to do', I just cried & did not know how I can decide whether to travel to South Africa, I just do not know. I went to sleep & when I got up I called Fausto & told him 'Daijiro would like us to go, at least try' & there was a click, everyone straight away agreed & it seemed like everyone waited to just hear if we are traveling or not, that someone would make a decision.
That's when the friendship really began & went far beyond the boundaries of racing with the whole team. I remember all the stages, those moments where at first I did not know what to do, to the decision to go and the next thing is that we got to South Africa, to the Welkom track. Everyone was there and I went into the garage, which was very small, it was just me and no Daijiro, no 'Another motorcycle', there is no one and then it really was 'Shit .. he really is not here anymore'. It was the confirmation of something I already knew."
[source @ Tammy Gorali on twitter; thank you @melatifosa for send me this like ages ago]
funniest sweetest thing ystd was actually telling my friend "bez had a friendly interaction with ai, so now fujiran will make a mii of him" at 5:29PM. and then fujiran posted a screenshot of his new bez mii at 5:56PM
….The Australian Grand Prix is therefore the opportune moment to organize a first meeting between Burgess and Rossi. When he enters the Honda Repsol team garage, all the NSRs are covered except for Sete Gibernau's. Burgess is there, with Alex Briggs and Dickie, two of his loyal mechanics, were also Australian. Carlo Florenzano was there as Honda's press officer. As soon as he saw Gibernau's 500, Valentino asked to sit on it. "They wanted to entice me by letting me touch it," the Italian joked. "It only lasted a minute or two, but I was immediately captivated by that NSR." Also present, Bernard Ansiau hasn't forgotten the Italian's beaming expression. "He looked like a child on Christmas morning," the Belgian mechanic recalled. "He was especially fascinated by the Honda's finish."
[source - “rossi : la légende” by michel turco; autotranslated from french]
I have got my drivers license like 3 months ago, soo I am also new to the hole motorcycle thing so feel free to give me weird fun facts about my Simson or even about self-repair. Would be great :)
Okay so, I've been compiling some motogp tech info for the past year-ish (sourced from blogs on here, random blogs elsewhere, and a lot of mat oxley articles)
I figured I'd post it here in lieu of Le Mans, but if any of this stuff is incorrect please correct me! :D
Gears
-Gear shifter near left foot (^ it's the lever the hand is pressing on)
-Pull up to downshift (i.e. move down in gears like 5-4-3, also this needs to be down sequentially similar to manual cars)
-Press down to upshift (this is notably opposite to how street bikes because the extreme lean angles of motogp would make it hard to wedge your foot under the gear shifter)
-There are 6 gears, however unlike normal bikes where Neutral is between 1 and 2, in motogp bikes Neutral is actually below 1 (so you need to downshift into it) to avoid accidentally going into Neutral during races
-"Short-shifting" is upshifting during low RPM (rotations-per-minute, so basically during corners) to avoid sending too much torque through back tire and losing traction
-This site explains it all in a bit more detail, but still in simple language
Dash
^ This image is from 2018 Honda, the only team to use square-shaped buttons as seen in green, orange, and blue on the left (this is just a design preference thing)
-Clutch lever on left handle, only used for starting the bike (specifically race starts, not for turning on the bike)
-Throttle on the right (twist the handle itself)
-The more leaned down the bike is (i.e. during turns), the less throttle should be used
-Three mapping buttons to control torque, engine braking, and traction control (I believe it's the green, orange, and blue buttons on the left, but I have no idea how these specifically work tho)
-Kill engine switch on right (the square red button)
-Bike can turn off automatically after crashing (this is why you see riders sometimes slam their ass on the bike when they're trying to rejoin the race, they're trying to turn the bike back on)
-With that in mind, the bikes do not have an internal starter (it's too heavy) so they need to be externally started, the rear wheel-rollers used to be how it was done but I believe the handheld starter (where you stick it in a hole in the bike's side) is more common now
-Dash can display messages from race control, like ride through penalties or red flags
-Big circular bolts are the top of the forks (the rods that connect to the front tire, these are golden on the Ducatis) used to tighten or untighten suspension
Brakes
-Front brake lever on the right handle, with a long lever guard to protect from accidental presses by other bikes (^ as seen in the image above)
-Brake coming into corner, let off fully by apex (middle/peak of corner), then apply throttle
-Rear brake pedal near the right foot peg & thumb rear brake on the left handle for right corners
-It's important to be able to feel how much pressure is being applied to the rear brake pedal, Valentino used a rubber-band method to to make it stiffer so he could more accurately feel how much he was pressing on it
-Bigger brake discs can (can, not will) make braking easier, especially for bigger riders (this is one of Pecco's preferences, although it's only allowed at a specific few tracks)
-Brake adjustment screw changes the point at which the lever engages the brake pads to the disc, helps with tire heat (sourced from this reddit post, which explains it more)
-The "disc" btw is the silver metal brake discs on the front and rear tires, this lets you.... well, brake lol (this brembo article, motogp's brake providers, goes into a bit more detail about them)
-Front brake is used mostly, rear can be used for going into corners, this is also why you get the occurrence of "glowing brakes" where the front brakes get hot as shit and glow red (mostly seen in the Qatar gp)
-Talented riders use throttle and front brake simultaneously to "load the front more" and stop chatter (take this one with a grain of salt, I believe I learned it from a motoamerica rider's vlog and have no idea how common it is in motogp lol)
"Corner Speed" Turning
-One of two (2) ways to approach corners
-Rider applies the brakes during corner entry, continues to brake as they are increasing the lean angle, usually slowly releasing the brakes as the lean angle is increased
-Fully release the brakes before reaching the apex, are at "full lean" for a longer period around the apex
-Smooth curve, works best for long & fast corners as it keeps the momentum
-Preferred by bikes with inline engines (so like the 2024 Yamaha)
"Point-and-Shoot" Turning
-The other way to corner, apparently adapted from motocross!
-Requires the rider to come off the brakes while wide (away from apex) and traveling slower, and quickly turning in before accelerating out of that quick turn on the exit
-Produces a late apex if done early, produces an early apex if done late (visually opposites, I had diagrams for these but I somehow lost them!)
-Are at “full lean” for a shorter period of time, so the rider doesn't need to have that consistent grip at full lean for as long
-Loses the momentum from the corner, works best in small corners
-Preferred by V4 engines (so currently every bike on the grid right now, I believe, although cornering style can also be a rider preference thing)
Engine
-Four-stroke engine
-Torque is how hard/fast the engine spins, which goes to the wheels(? I think?)
-V4 means engine cylinders are arranged in a V-shape
-il4 (inline) means engine cylinders are arranged in a line
Too much "engine inertia"
-Inertia means the resistance of an engine's rotating and reciprocating parts (at least according to the google ;-;)
-The engine keeps pushing the bike forward even on a closed throttle, causing the rider to lose the front when attacking corners
-Imagine you’re braking into a corner with a stuck throttle, so the rear tyre is accelerating while the front tyre is decelerating
-Sorry I've explain this so poorly it's because I have no idea how engines work
Front Tire
-Three different kinds of slicks (aka dry condition tires): hard, medium, soft (hard has more durability but is slower, soft has less durability but goes faster)
-Three different kinds of wets (aka rain condition tires): extra soft, soft, and medium (I think this is because the colder temps don't wear out the tires as much so they don't need the durabilities of the hards...? also, they're treaded for extra grip, while slicks are baby smooth)
-Michelin actually provides 10 different kinds of front tires HOWEVER this is mostly only something to consider when looking at grid-wide performance as the kind of hard, soft, or medium tires provided each race will be the same for every rider (so, for ex: the kind of hard tire between Le Mans race v.s Indonesia is different)
-Thinner than the rear tire, need tire warmers before use (as does the rear)
-Tire warmers btw are used to keep the tires from getting too cold because when they get cold, they get stiff and unresponsive (which is dangerous)
-Extra grip (like on Michelin rear) with a stiff chassis can cause chatter, can be especially bad on harsh lean angles
-Tires can be mixed and matched, so you can have a hard front (lmao) and a medium rear
Rear Tire
-Similar info as to the front tire, although for rears Michelin has 20 different types of rear tires (again, only think about this when thinking of grid-wide performance as the hard tires provided in a single given race will the same grid-wide, but may be different compared to the hards of another race)
-Thicker, current Michelin rear tires have more grip on them than front (this has caused a few problems with certain teams not be able to adjust to it, such as Honda)
-Need tire warmers before use, just like front
-During corners, you can use the rear brake, throttle midway through, use extra spin on rear to propel out of corner (altho take this note with a huge grain of salt lmao)
-Cornering with a spinning rear causes oversteer and helps finish corner better (grain of salt, again)
-Sliding comes from an issue with braking on corners (too fast or slow? idk)
-Heat (which causes tire degradation) can come from riding too close behind another rider for too long, create some distance (or overtake) to cool down
-Swingarm connects the rear suspension to the rear wheel, distributes weight to the rear (this motogp facebook video goes into more detail about how it affects tire and grip)
-Shorter swingarm is better in the wet because it puts more weight on the rear (god know where I got this info from, so take it with another grain of salt lol)
Fairing
-The colorful shell of the bike covered in the sponsor names
-Ground effect aero (on the lowest part of the body) creates low pressure so the tires are sucked into the asphalt for more grip (this is similar to how if you open a window just a little, the air will come in with a much stronger force than opening it fully)
-Ground effect aero is used heavily in F1, and in motogp it's been noted by some riders (mostly Marc bcs he's old) to make it difficult to save a potential crash bcs of how much the aero pulls the bike so strongly into the ground
Aero
-Wings on front, body, and back
-Primarily to increase downforce (aka the air pushing the motorcycle down and into the ground, increasing traction/grip on the tires, it's similar function-wise to ground effect aero, it just pushes down instead of sucking to the ground)
-Can also be used to filter air through the bike to cool down tires or engine
-Also, these have been a subject of debate recently as the 2027 regulation changes will be REDUCING the max size of the aero (however the bikes will still have aero, just a bit smaller)
Forks
-Absorb suspension (or at least I'm pretty sure that's what they do)
-Attach main body of the bike to the wheels
-Adjustable height, for example Pecco likes to have them very low so he can feel more feedback from the front tire (Pecco is just very particular about his setup lol)
Height Devices
-Holeshot device specifically lowers bike at moment of acceleration during race starts
-Rider height device (separate, but related thing) lowers rear height during braking and raises it during acceleration, this is what caused Fabio to DNF at the Silverstone 2025 race because it got stuck and wouldn't lower (which happens unfortunately often)
-Both can cause a severe case of the wiggles
-In 2027, both the holeshot and rider height devices are being BANNED
Helmets
-Two-four clear tear offs, first one's tag is on the right (idk where the other tags are), these are used to quickly clear stuff from the visor like debris, rain, bugs, etc.
-Riders will also sometimes tear it off at the beginning of the race and yes, they do just toss it somewhere on the grid which can cause severe issues to riders behind them (or sometimes themselves!) as it can get stuck in the tires
-For the visors themselves, there are several types that range in how they deflect glare and shade the rider's vision (there's a great aprilia tiktok with Sava that goes over this is in more detail)
-It's generally self-explanatory bcs it's like how sunglasses work, but notably clear visors are used for cloudy/rain races
Leathers
-The airbag is inside the leathers and contains three sensors: main body, left, right (I believe in the arms...?)
-Green or purple light means 'armed and ready'
-I thiiiiink the color variation just depends on the manufacturer, as most Alpinestars leathers have a green light but Bez's dainese have purple?
-also, Marc was basically a guinea pig for the current airbag system because they used his constant crashes to help figure out how to get it to activate lol
Problems
-Basically this section just goes over Bad Stuff that can happen during races
-Losing front grip causes lowsides (lowside is when the bike just kinda slips out and slides away)
-Losing then regaining rear grip causes highsides (highside is when the bike bucks like a horse and launches them to the moon)
-Too much throttle used for lean angle and then trying to close (reduce) it causes highsides
-Chatter is when the bike basically jitters by losing then regaining grip rapidly, mainly occurs on corners when releasing the brake or applying torque to the rear wheel (Honda had this problem last year and fixed it by making their riders just ride a bit differently lol)
-Chatter can be caused by chassis stiffness, engine design, clutches, electronics, the asphalt itself, etc. (a lot of things, usually multiple things)
-Finish braking and open throttle too early on a corner, front wheel doesn't have enough pressure on it and can push out from under bike (causing a lowside)
-Too much pressure on the tires from heat causes the tires to wear down and lose grip (one of Pedro's main problems and why he loses so much pace in the latter half of races)
-Late braking leads to heavy wear on the tire, and while it can let you overtake other riders it can cause problems later in the race
Miscellaneous
-Riders have preferred seats, tank grips, and sometimes even handlebars (also I think front brake lever size?)
-Different riders use a different amount of fingers to press the front brake lever (Casey uses one, Marc uses one now although he's experimented with a variety, Vale uses three)
