Most Popular Sports
All Sports
Show All

Crutchlow wants more 'creative' fairing designs

ByAutoSport

Published 10/08/2017 at 12:16 GMT

Cal Crutchlow wants more MotoGP manufacturers to come up with "creative" fairing designs in the wake of Ducati's radical new-look bodywork for the Czech Grand Prix.

Eurosport

Image credit: Eurosport

After aerodynamic winglet designs pioneered by Ducati were banned at the end of last year, teams have attempted to recover the lost downforce with a new generation of fairings.
Ducati's designs have been the most distinctive so far, with the Italian manufacturer testing a radical fairing in Qatar that was later ditched as it ended up costing the bike too much top speed.
It then produced a revised version that was first tested by Michele Pirro and Danilo Petrucci during the summer break at Misano, and was then used throughout the Brno weekend by factory rider Jorge Lorenzo.
"I think [Ducati] have always been the cleverest with this," said Crutchlow of the new fairing, a variant of which was also trialled by Pramac rider Petrucci at Brno.
"They are always the one to make the best scenario with regards to reading rules right and making good designs for things and you take your hat off to them.
"It would be good if some other manufacturers did similar things and tried some new, creative options."
Crutchlow turns down Honda fairing
Honda also brought a new fairing to Brno, which Crutchlow trialled alongside factory pair Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa.
But while Marquez and Pedrosa both raced the new bodywork - albeit each using slightly different versions - Crutchlow stuck to his standard fairing for the Czech race.
"I just have a different feeling with them, I don't feel the benefit of them in certain areas," said Crtuchlow.
"And then in other areas, I feel they upset the bike a lot.
"It's so strange because the plan is to try and do what they did last year [have the same effect as the winglets] but they feel completely different.
"Obviously everybody is trying to make what we had last year but they are completely different to me and to most others.
"If they did feel the same, they would be running them every race and they don't. Last year people were running wings every race."
Join 3M+ users on app
Stay up to date with the latest news, results and live sports
Download
Related Topics
Share this article
Advertisement
Advertisement