MotoGP’s Technical Director has rejected KTM’s claim that Honda exceeded the official Moto3 rev limit during the 2015 season.
In an official statement issued today, Danny Aldridge said that he and his technical team had examined the official rev limiter used in Moto3 and verified that it was operating correctly, and that although there had been overshoots of the rev limit, these were very small and very brief.
Aldridge went on to confirm much of what we had found when we investigated the issue at the end of February. Speaking to Peter Bom, crew chief of 2015 Moto3 world champion on a Honda Danny Kent, Bom explained that the issue had been about the way in which Honda had optimized the point at which the rev limiter cut in, and this is what had caused the confusion.
The Honda approach was very different to that of KTM, meaning that riders who had switched from Honda to KTM in 2016 were reporting to KTM engineers that the Honda felt like it had been over-revving.
In the statement put out by Aldridge, the Technical Director explained that a high revving single cylinder 250cc four stroke engine was hard to stop in its tracks once it reached the rev limit.
The time it took between the moment the ECU identified that the rev limit had been breached and the point at which it started to cut the ignition was long enough for their to be a very brief overrun of the allowed rev limit. These were, however, only “modest and temporary”.
The issue is to be discussed further at Qatar, in the Moto3 Class Working Group, which includes representatives of all of the manufacturers racing in Moto3.
No doubt the finer details will be thrashed out there, when Honda and KTM will meet face to face to discuss their differences.
Photo: Honda
This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.
Comments