Hi guys and welcome to the second video about my 2019 racing season. Today
We are at Autodromo Murano Italy for the second race of the season and guess what? it rains
again, and after the first race in Franciacorta
I realized that I am so happy about the rain because I realized I love it
I realized that I'm fast in wet conditions. By the way, I've never told you how this championship works
So considering that I started riding at 26 in 2017, and this is just my second year of racing
I don't have enough experience to compete with the pros
So I started from the bottom and now I'm racing in an amateur championship called moto estate
We race in small tracks not like I will do in 2020 with the same tires for everyone which is the dunlop D
212 GP racer which are derived from the road so less performance, but long lasting just to give you an idea after
a Hundred laps you can do almost the same lap time. the rain tires, However are free of regulations
So you can use any brand you want so it is an amateur championship
But the top riders are quite fast because if we use the same tires
We are like two seconds lower than the pros. So the level is
quite high for an amateur championship
The championship is made out of five racing weekend made of two sprint races each
So a total amount of ten races, we do everything on Sunday: two qualifying and two races
So it's quite demanding physically and that's why the races are just eight laps long
Which becomes seven in wet conditions. so today as I said: it rains
But in qualifying did not, the track dried so we had to ride in the track half wet half dry
Which is very tricky
So we went with the rain tire in the front and the dry tire in the rear and I couldn't find the feeling. D'Ambrosio
instead found a great feeling and made the pole position. Palladino is second and I will start third but now luckily it's raining and
Considering the yesterday in the three practices, I was the fastest overall under the rain I'm confident that I can win this race
Great I had a good start. now, I am behind D'Ambrosio and I will have to pass him as soon as I can
Okay, I'll try a crazy thing: I will try in the outside in curve three
Okay, that was too much I was a little too out of line
But if it worked, I think that D'Ambrosio probably would have killed me. Anyway, how fast is Michael's bike on the straights?
I mean I cross the exit and I should have exited faster, but I lost him. I don't understand
Anyway the feeling with the bike is excellent
I'm really at ease. I feel very well and I'm waiting for the right moment to dive in and fly away
It's not Mike's that it's faster it's mine that's stuck
I had the electronics cutting too much and I can't go in the straight. I think the traction control is too high
I I will try to lower it by one point
What's going on? look at that, I probably lost one second on the straight it's like racing with a 600 against the 1000
I am full throttle as you can see from the graphics and the bike won't go
I have the electronics cutting everything and this is a big problem if it's standing like that for whole race
I can't compete if I lose one second per straight
it's strange ...yesterday it was working like charme and now it doesn't
I Will lower the traction control by one other point. Let's see if it works
Oh shit
Well, yeah
It happened. Unfortunately in the fall, I broke the peg and the gears level and the shifter and I broke the handlebar. So I
Can't restart. so what seemed the riding error It actually was not
100% that riding error, but it's something more complex
I had an electronic problem which now I will show you
so how the electronics work on the r1? the racing electronics has many parameters that you can set but the 4 most important ones are
Power traction SCS and anti-wheeling and I'll explain them to you
The anti-wheeling is nothing else the the anti wheeling control
so when you accelerate as soon as the bike starts to wheelie the electronics cut the power to let the front go down and
Over time I started to hate it because in the first races
we kept it too high and the bike was too nervous when it was wheeling because it used to cut too hard and that
Wheeling and cutting wheeling and cutting made the bike too nervous and led me to some very dangerous
loss of control in the front so
After that, we decided to put it at this minimum value, which is one. The SCS is the slide control
It means that when you accelerate and exit the corner and the bike starts to drift a little bit it controls the drifting
We don't really like it in racing. So we switch it off. The traction control is the control that controls
the traction of the rear tire
So when you accelerate too hard and the rear tires start to spin
More than the front tire it cuts the power in order not to lose the rear and to do a high side
And finally, we have the power which is the control that manages the delivery
So it managed how much power the bike gives you in function of how much you accelerate
so for example
Maybe you ask hundred percent
The bike gives you 90 percent because in that condition with that lean with those rpms the map inside the power
Thinks that the 90 percent is the best result
So if you look at the dashboard on the r1, you see that on the bottom left you can find three parameters
PWR is the power TCS is The traction SCS is the-- slide control
You don't see the anti wheeling because we adjust it from the menu when the bike is switched off
So it's not something that you change during the race. Now
The buttons on the Left handlebars are used to change these values during the race
So what does each number close to each value indicate? each number
Corresponds to a map and a map is just a setting okay?
For the traction the higher the value the more invasive the traction control is. traction at 9
It means heavy rain traction at 1 it means heavy drifting and dry
About the power you can put any map you want in any number you want
So it doesn't mean that 4 is the most powerful and one is the less powerful
You can even change the order you can mix them. It doesn't matter
You always need ask the telemetrist, which map is loaded inside each power value. For us
Conventionally with the power 4 you have less power with power 1 you have more power
but again
It's just a convention that we established and just to show you some examples in the Dry test in Verano
We had power 2 which means good power and a good thrust, traction control on two so low control and a bike
Capable of drifting a little bit and SCS at one
So yeah
I was still using SCS at one but in in the next races I will switch it off. On Saturday
Morning on the very wet track conditions, We had power at 4
so a
Motorcycle that cuts a lot in order to avoid to make a high side and the traction control at 9. On the other hand
when entered the qualifying
Which was half wet half dry I had power at 3
So I good thrust but not too much and SCS a 2 and regarding the traction, they gave me these indications
They told me "you have a dry tire on the rear". So if you touch the water
you risk a high side, so go in with the traction at 8 and see how the bike is. If you see it's cutting too much
Lower it during the qualifying session".
And as I was riding I felt that it was carrying too much weight
When I wanted to accelerate out of the corner wouldn't accelerate so I lowered it until five
So let's get to the race. In the race, I had the same settings as the Saturday and I found my bike
Not pushing on the straight. It was cutting everywhere
And the question is how is it possible that on Saturday
I didn't notice that while now it's cutting, if the settings are the same? and that's the point.
So Let's look at the telemetry. For simplicity, I got rid of all the other data like suspensions
Braking and etc
And what I left is just the green chart which indicates how much I am
Accelerating, the red chart which indicates how much power the bike is
Actually delivering and you can see that I accelerate hundred percent
But I don't get a hundred percent power and below you have the speed of the wheels in violet
You have the rear wheel and in pink you have the front wheel now
It's good to see the corner where D'Ambrosio was going much faster than me on the straight. Look at here
I am leaning and I am asking the
50% of throttle considering that it's wet and the bike is leaning, The bike is actually delivering the
28% so it's cutting then I put the bike straight
I ask hundred percent and look at that: on wet in second gear
The power delivered is not the maximum
So it cuts to 60% and the more speed I get
The more power is delivered and I get to the end where I ask
93% and I get 87% and if we look at the wheel speed chart you can understand that I am wheeling
Why? because if you look at the rear tire
The speed is rising because I am accelerating
But if you look at the front tire at some point the speed
starts to decrease
This means that the bike is wheeling because what happens when you wheelie? when you wheelie, the front lifts
so the front tire stops touching the ground
and starts to decrease its speed
So that's how you understand that the bike is wheeling
And if you see in the rest of the lap the bike pushes every time I accelerate some good power is delivered. Now
Let's look at what happened in the race
We take the same corner, which is the one where D'Ambrosio was too fast on the straight and look at that
I ask a hundred percent and the power delivered is 33 percent
And then for the whole straight
I keep asking a hundred percent and the bike keeps delivering 48 percent 45 50 55
Percent. in the end of the straight, where before I was getting
90% now I'm getting 60% It's not pushing and the bike is not even wheeling as you can see and that
Happens in every other corner. I ask a lot and I get no power
I ask a lot and I get no power apart from some random parts of the track where I ask
100% and I get a good power but totally random and you know what's really bad? the speed
171 in the end of the straights in race a hundred and eighty-nine in free practice
20 kilometers per hour. It's like 600 versus 1000 and you may say okay
It was cutting more because in the race it was more wet. No in the race
It was drier than the free practices
so in this situation
I looked for a solution because you see losing 20 km/h on the straight
It means losing 2 seconds per lap just because the electronics cut which means throwing the race away
I am here to win not just to stand and watch and I have to find a solution to win
So since in the morning they told me "go in with the maximum traction
And then if you see the bike is not pushing lower the traction" in the race
I said the bike is not coming out of the corners
That's that's what I thought. So, let's lower the traction
So I lowered it from 9 to 7 but 7 is the setting for dry
So after just two corners, high side
So so what could have I done? I don't know because it's not normal that the bike cuts so much on the straights
Especially if it's the same bike that on Saturday did not cut
however
it would have been better to change the power instead of the traction and here's why: to make it very simple
Because it's much more complex than that
The traction control tends to cut when you're leaning while the power instead tends to work when the bike is straight
It's not really like that. But to make it simple, we may say it's kind of like that
So it would have been better to change the power instead of the traction
Because if you look at the onboard video when I was from mid corner to exit corner, I was good
I had the same speed as D'ambrosio. But as soon as I put the bike straight that's where the electronics started to cut
Unfortunately, I didn't know the difference between
Traction and power, I had to learn so many things this year that I didn't learn that yet
moreover you also saw the un-experienced in me because when I reduce the traction I
should have thought about
Hey, you cannot accelerate that much in corners with less traction control because you will lose the rear. This is experience
So today race one ends here. I have earned zero points, but I have earned a lot of experience
The real problem
However, is that I fear that it's not a power problem, but I feel there is some other problem in here
We haven't discovered yet because how is it possible that on Saturday with power 4 the bike doesn't cut
while on Sunday with power 4 the bike cuts?
So maybe it's not just the power. By the way, we will find out in race 2
We'll put the power 3 and we'll see what it happens. Will the power 3 fix the problems or not?
We will see in race 2