• Welcome to PiBoSo Official Forum. Please login or sign up.
 
March 28, 2024, 07:48:26 PM

News:

World Racing Series beta14 available! :)


Interesting article on Kalex Moto2

Started by Stout Johnson, March 17, 2016, 09:58:40 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Stout Johnson

In a german magazine with much expertise, I found a nice article on the Moto2 chassis constructor Kalex. I figure others members here might also be interested to read it, so I send it through google translator and I found it to be quite understandable. So please excuse the not-perfect english, it was translated by a machine, not me ;)

What I found particularly interesting is, that the Suter chassis is regarded to be more the more hardcore all-racing-chassis. But obviously it needs to be perfectly adjusted to be fast. The Kalex seems to have more chassis flex and allows for a wider range of setup changes which ultimately makes it the perfect chassis over the course of a year with numerous different track layouts and conditions.

Well read yourself and enjoy... ;)
(source)

Moto2 constructor Kalex in Portrait

When the GP promoter Dorna in 2010 created the Moto2 as a new class, it came to the hungry young drivers to create a level playing field - with unit engines of Honda CBR 600, Unit Dunlop and electronics, fuel and even clutches of a piece. The only battleground for engineers still offered in the chassis. And so did before the premiere season eight manufacturers prepare to build the frame and swing for the average Grand Prix.

In this first year of the competition for the best chassis was extremely hard. Five different manufacturers were represented in the top ten: Moriwaki, Suter, Speed ​​Up, Motobi and FTR - but not a single Kalex. How times change but. For 2015, presented the Moto2 quasi Kalex Cup. The German chassis manufacturer dominated the series. Only one of the best 14 drivers drove using a different brand, and only one non-Kalex pilot could at least win one of the 18 races: Sam Lowes with his Speed ​​Up Moto2. 2016 he moved to on Kalex.


2010 brought Kalex not a single point

How could that happen? Is the Kalex package actually as dominant or are other forces at work? The Kalex history is impressive. Based in Bobingen near Augsburg construction company was born from the Holzer Group, which has been very successful in motor racing on the go. Employees Alex Baumgärtel and Klaus millet grain but were also motorcycle enthusiasts. 2008 built the two their first chassis for a motorcycle, which was powered by a twin-RSV Mille, and put it in the same year at PS TunerGP first time to a broad public. The second chassis was then equal for Moto2, the debut year 2010. Only the Sito Pons team dared then to go with a completely blank slate in the Grand Prix at the start.

In the year Kalex took a single point. But already in the following season, they won with Stefan Bradl the world title. This success changed everything. 2012 Kalex had 12 riders, the points collected, the year after 13, then 14 and last season 19 Two-thirds of the Moto2 field drove Kalex. Suter, however, winning the first Moto2 race in Qatar in 2010, went off in the opposite direction. 14 points drivers there were 2010 for the Swiss, in 2015 just yet. 2016 there will be no more, because Suter Moto2 battle now abandoned against Kalex. For other designers, the thing is similar. Fewer and fewer riders rise to Speed ​​Up, while the first world champion Moriwaki as well Motobi, FTR and Harris have long since dropped out already under the advance of Kalex. The Bobinger eventually won four of the last five Moto2 World Championship crowns.


In 2015 Moto2 champ Zarco moved to Kalex

Suter's faithful driver was the Swiss Tom Lüthi, who won four races for the brand from 2011 to 2014. Thereafter, however, he met a decision per Kalex. According to the motto: If you can not beat them, you have to join them. "I do not think you need a Kalex, in order to win. You can still win with a Suter or Speed ​​Up "said Lüthi, who on a 125cc World Champion was of 2005. "But in 2014 have I and my team decided to continue with the bike, which also drive the other. So you can exclude in your head and stay focused on your job a variable. "

The reigning Moto2 World Champion Johann Zarco walked a similar path as Lüthi. After two unsuccessful years he joined Suter 2015 Kalex and won eight races. "First, I wanted to sit on a winning bike and secondly, we have noticed that Dunlop harder compounds seized in the tires - the Kalex works with harder tires much better," said the Moto2 champ who wants to defend his title 2016th "The third reason is that the Kalex is the best bike, because you feel it on every track well. The bike just works over a wider range of adjustment. Even if it does not fit a hundred percent, you can therefore still be quick and do not fight so much with the grip. Your head is much freer. We believe that a more sensitive bike with the right setup works better, but you have the whole Championship think you need a bike that's always good. "


Kalex-frame is softer and more forgiving

That is the theory of recent years: A perfect set Suter is the fastest Moto2 bike at all, but the Kalex-frame is softer and more forgiving. Therefore, he also works with most driving styles, routings and grip conditions. Of course Kalex abandons any details, but probably has the frame a bit more flex. In addition, it is needless to say that any halfway intelligent driver will choose a motorcycle that is traveling with 90 percent efficiency on all routes as one that will only fit three or four slopes to 100 percent, and for only 80 on the other ,

"If you have the Suter found a perfect setup," explains Lüthi, "the bike is much more precise, more like a real GP bike. But just to find this setup is damn hard. The Kalex is not as precise and it moves more, but you can thus still be traveling very fast. "


Differences in Moto2 very marginal

Kalex cofounder Alex Baumgärtel is the triumph of his company almost embarrassing. "We are still like rookies in this business, because we started from scratch just six years ago," he admits surprised at the success. "In this class, it is so competitive that it is very difficult to explain why our chassis is the better. Most drivers say that our softer than the Suter, while others say the exact opposite of what we can hardly believe it. We have the Suter never tested for stiffness or geometry, because you just have to go your own way. "

"We were lucky with Stefan Bradl. That was our Turbo Drive ", so Baumgärtel. "Fortunately, we have found with him the right direction. Did you not have the right driver at the right time, you run smack. Especially in Moto2, where the differences are so small. This is like bobsledding; each has the same drive, so there is no difference in performance. So, as if you had no engine. The first three separate only hundredths. If the lining is flying freely, you bring perhaps a thousandth more on the line. "


Sam Lowes Even changes sides

But if the chassis are so similar, then where does the Kalex dominance? Maybe the bike works better on most routes, but there are even more aspects. Most motorcycle racer are not normal people. They possess a superhuman belief in himself. So if a competitor wins on another bike, they think immediately that they would win with this bike also. The fact that the other could be better, they do not think of. Would they that think they can stop the same.

As Kalex now began to win races, more drivers have always wanted the frame. And so Kalex won again more races. Although with time it ever more riders on Kalex won a race. "It's like the lemmings," Baumgärtel laughs about the phenomenon. Now Sam Lowes changes sides, although he feels remorse. "The drivers are to blame but that it has come," smiles the Austin GP winner, the on-Gresini Kalex drives, 2016 before he goes after a year with Aprilia in MotoGP. "If our setting was perfect, the Speed ​​Up was as good as the Kalex. But 99.9 percent of the season it was to sit no advantage on the bike, because our setup window was much narrower than that of Kalex. The is not necessarily better, but if you have to try not so much, which is much better for your confidence and you can work more freely to you. A weekend was my bike simply great and the next I had no chance at all. "


Engineers get a lot of feedback

So that was already often in racing. In the 1990s, each a Honda NSR 500 wanted to have Michelin tires - that was the winning combination. But if one was lucky enough to get something in the fingers, of course there was still no guarantee of success.

It is of course an advantage for a producer, when so many fast guys use your product, the engineers get a lot of feedback from all sorts of drivers with different driving techniques and styles. So that they can develop their bike more quickly and effectively. Suter had clearly come to the contrary, they had 2015 no pilot in the top 20. Where should therefore come the dedicated feedback?


Kalex chassis will cost 65,000 euros

"Speed ​​Up was struggling, because the only feedback came from me," says Lowe. "Many good drivers sitting on Kalex and thus have the best info. In addition Dunlop developed even in their direction, because there are most drivers. The Dunlop engineers always hear their comments. In addition, much will depend on the teams and how they work. 2014 was Mika Kallio on the Marc VDS Kalex so damn fast, and 2015 on the Italtrans Kalex-he has torn anything. "

A Kalex chassis will cost 65,000 euros. Since Baumgärtel must now roll quite the ruble? But the negative. "I have invested all my money in the Moto2 project. Really everything. But today I have less in the bank than in the time before I fell motorbike virus. In Autosport salaries correspond to an industry standard. Here payments are smaller. But that balances out when you feel passion for. When our dominance take shape, I was actually against it, because you need the motivation to fight with your competitors. We are not going to be easy rich. If that were the case, we would do other jobs. In addition, we do not know how long that lasts. One is fast in it, but also quickly out again. For this I need only look at the competitors to me. "

By Kalex chassis, the Dunlop control tire and the WP fork today include the wild rodeo deposits à la Marc Márquez in Moto2 to the past. Johann Zarcos precise driving style dominates.

Baumgärtel's right, and a good example of this is found in the chassis. Until dominated recently Öhlins this topic completely in Moto2, as in MotoGP. But in Moto2 there was in 2014 a veritable exodus of top riders for KTM subsidiary WP, which Zarco, Alex Rins and Tom Lüthi drive.

Amazingly, drove Zarco in 2015 as a new customer Kalex his world title on a chassis from 2014. What shows that Kalex works very well for some time. Indeed, there was in the first few years a lot of updates to the frame, but lately hardly any more. "Now we have fewer and fewer," confirmed Baumgärtel. "Last season we had to kick off two wings. However, since all wanted to create the right feeling in the preseason, hardly anyone tested it until Takaaki Nakagami thus third in Misano was. Its soft rear tire was the target still in very good condition. And they all said suddenly, okay, maybe we should try the rocker yet. "Lemmings!


Tyres are everything

Paradoxically care unit tire that is primarily about the tires in the race. Not like before, when the teams were free to choose which tire works for them. When there was an open competition between tire manufacturers that Pellen were designed so that they fit to the individual bikes. Today, the bikes have to be developed for the control tire, so for Dunlop in Moto2 and Moto3, 2015 for Bridgestone in MotoGP, from now on there for Michelin. This may be simply or difficult, depending on the bike, the driver and the engineers. But the tires are not constant because they change from year to year and often from race to race.

Dunlop's Moto2 tires made in 2015 a change in the balance of the motorcycle, the driving style and the setup needed. "2015 was the rear tire apparently more grip while forward less grip there was," says Kalex Boss Alex Baumgärtel. "The grip balance wandered significantly extended, but the riders pushed by even more about the font."

Many drivers had then felt that the WP fork worked better with the 2015er-front tire, and have all wanted to have this fork. This package demanded by the drivers but that they are much more precise turned into the curves.

And this in turn explains why the Moto2 style today is much smoother than to Marc Márquez 'times. The Zarco style is evidence. Instead of the wild, lurching Rodeo by Márquez in 2012 it is now a centimeter Smoothness.


Suter quits for 2016

2015 was the final point for Suter. The brand, the 2012 with Márquez won the title, brought in last season only 20 constructors' points (Kalex: 445). There were big plans to fight back in 2016 - with a completely new bike with deflection (a kind of upside-down CBR 600 system) and a larger adjustment to the chassis. So that the bike should be better able to be tuned to the Dunlop in all situations.

Nevertheless Suter has his Moto2 commitment now canceled in 2016 because it failed to excite one of the top drivers of the motorcycle. The problem was simple: No driver wanted to switch from Kalex to Suter before the bike can prove that it is better. But if Suter gets no top drivers, nothing will it also be. Lemmings!


Too many pilots lost to Kalex

Suter engineer Dominique Langouet is appalled by the company decision easy to make the bike in the corner. "70 percent of the bike is completely new," he says. "In our 2015er motorcycle we were 15 millimeters vary the wheelbase. In the new Suter is 30 millimeters. We tested the bike with Dominique Aegerter, and the results were very good. The rear traction has improved tremendously. With the longer wheelbase variables we should also hinbekommen the weight distribution for each type of driver, every track and the tires perfectly. "

Langouet are also to that Suter has lost many pilots at Kalex, because they have made too much politics in the drivers by only a select few teams get good parts, others for not. "Maybe we were not fair enough," said Langouet. But it is also true Baumgärtel lemming theory: "In the Moto3 it's the same. Only Honda was to no good level and everybody wanted a KTM. Now Honda is full there and everyone suddenly wants to have one - though you can win with two models "Good for Kalex, bad for Suter -. Currently at least
    -----------   WarStout Kawasaki Team   -----------

Meyer#12

Very interesting article!

Seems to be pointing out a lot of the stuff many people have been thinking and wondering about.

I think the Suter seems to be pretty fast bikes and was one of the best with a good team and the right rider.

I miss seeing more manufactures in the Moto2 field, but at the same time, this make it more up to the ride, when everybody is on "the same" bikes. i know there is the suspension and there is also quite a bit difference between the Kalex frames for the different teams. This year there is everything from 2014 to the new 2016 Kalex frame in use and probably little different 2016 depending on team, money and who Kalex believe in.

But it will be fun to see what happens this season with pretty much all riders on the Kalex frames.
Meyer#12

doubledragoncc

WTF.........................

You mean I have to actually read something!!!!

No pics......No video

Jeez wots the world coming to man.

;D

Thanks bro interesting shit even though I didnt read it lol

DD
GPBOC Live Streams: https://www.youtube.com/c/IASystemsComputerControls; i7 12700K 5.1GHz Z690 ASUS Strix Z690-A Mobo 32GB 3600MHz DDR4 RAM ASUS Strix RTX3080 OC 10GB DDR6X ASUS Ryujin 360 AOI Cooler ROG Thor 1200w PSU in ROG Helios Tower Case.