MotoGP: Marquez expecting Honda to copy Ducati spoiler

Marc Marquez has admitted that he expects his Honda team (and other manufacturers on the MotoGP grid) to try out their own version of Ducati’s new swing arm-mounted spoiler device sooner rather than later, after it was deemed legal this week by the FIM Court of Appeals. Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Argentine Grand Prix, the reigning world champion told MCN that it only makes sense to try it out.

“I don’t know the situation but I know Honda, and for sure they’re trying to analyse the situation to understand what the function is and where we can improve with it. I’m sure that all the manufacturers will try it, because once one does the rest always do. But I’m not sure that it’s giving a lot of tenths.”

Fellow Spaniard Alex Rins agreed with Marquez, admitting that while he doesn’t feel there’s much of an advantage to be gained, he’s sure that the teams will work to make sure there’s no benefit before dismissing it.

“When one bike has a different thing, the other manufacturers will always try and do the same. I finished fourth in Qatar and I spent the whole race with Dovi and the spoiler, and I didn’t feel a lot of difference, only in the straight and that might be because of other things.”

Rins’ prediction was all but confirmed to MCN yesterday too, with team boss Davide Brivio admitting that they’ll most likely roll out something, probably most likely at the Jerez test in May Joining his fellow team bosses in launching comprehensive studies into the nature of Ducati’s part (including computational fluid dynamics studies), he says that it won’t be long until the others follow suit.

“I think we’ll try something similar, because due to the hearing everyone was forced to make deep investigations, simulations, calculations into the part – and we all noticed that it could be a nice thing for us to have!”