MotoGP has become as boring as snot. An even worse insult: it’s become as boring as Formula 1.

The recent Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi — a hard-braking track normally noted for exciting passing — was a follow-the-leader snoozefest. Sufficiently so that, for the first time since I’ve subscribed to Dorna, I fast-forwarded through parts of the race. 

What made this ennui even more tragic — as in, we should have seen it coming — is that it’s for the very same reasons that car racing has become so processional: technology and tires.

The first is easily understood. The winglets that look like Tyrannosaurus Rex appendages on the modern MotoGP fairing have dramatically increased aerodynamic downforce. They are largely responsible for the incredible drop in lap times lo these last 12 months. A ’24 MotoGP machine is so much faster than its immediate predecessors that lap records of the past have become meaningless. Where once perhaps a few tracks’ best times might be beaten each year — and by a few hundredths of a second — in 2024 almost all tracks on the calendar have seen new records and each seems to be broken by an astronomical amount. The modern MotoGP racer is amazingly fast.

Until it’s behind another bike. Then those aerodynamic advantages disappear. Not only does the bike ahead block the air that might feed those wings their downforce, but the air that comes off its tail is so turbulent that there’s little for those winglets to work with. In other words, given equal bikes — and even for Ducatis behind lesser Aprilias and KTMs — the rider behind is at a distinct disadvantage.

How many times have we now seen obviously faster riders held up behind slowpokes? The sight of a rider, plainly faster than his compatriot ahead, being held up for four or five laps is now commonplace. Even more noticeable is that, once past the bottleneck, the faster rider quickly pulls out a significant lead. 

As if that’s not enough, these aerodynamic aids are doubly damaging to close racing because they also have a deleterious effect on the tires. 

The following cannot be overstated: Michelin’s recent reign as the sole tire supplier for MotoGP has been wonderful for performance but a disaster for the spectacle. The current problem seems to be that the front tire appears ill-matched for the grippy rear. Rear Michelins, regardless of compound, seem to over-power the front causing the increased spate of front-end washouts on the initial exit of corners (just as riders tip back into the throttle). 

The solution the riders and their crew chiefs have chosen to combat this imbalance is to reduce the front tire pressure, resulting in, one presumes, a larger contact patch to help rectify that traction imbalance with the rear. The conundrum is that, while Michelin says that such low pressures are a safety concern, riders, looking for every millisecond of performance, continue to flirt with the lowest front tire pressure they can get away with. The result has been some pretty draconian rules, namely that bikes must keep a minimal 26 psi in the front tire for 60 per cent of the race or face penalties. 

It’s all become a big enough deal that front tire pressure is now a significant — if not the most significant — part of a team’s race strategy. Riders must now figure out how low they can inflate the tire for maximum speed and still hit the minimum inflation regs for the whole race. 

It is not a simple calculation because, you guessed it, aerodynamics also plays a role in this whole debacle. Not only is riding behind another rider reducing downforce, but it reduces the cooling air reaching the front tire. Follow another rider too closely — as in, get ready to pass him — and your front tire pressure will spike, reducing traction and increasing the chances that you’ll wash out the front end as you try to pass. Half of Matt Birt’s comments on MotoGP.com’s live feed these days seem to deal with the perils for a faster rider following a slower one for too long, lest he cook his front tire. On the other hand, if a rider starts with a low pressure in anticipation of following others and finds himself in the lead, he might end up on the wrong side of the Michelin rules. 

The result is that, more than a few times already this season, riders have deliberately stayed behind a slower bike because without the extra heat, they might have fallen below Michelin’s threshold tire pressure. I want to make no bones about how egregious a contravention of the spirit of racing I think this is: Deliberately following a slower rider only so you can maintain the minimum requirements of a tire pressure regulation is the most vile aberration of racing ethos ever. For shame Dorna! For shame Michelin!

Michelin had promised a new front tire for 2025 that would at least try to alleviate this issue. Unfortunately, recent news from the French tire manufacturer is that the replacement rubber will be delayed until at least 2026. Not enough testing and data are cited as the reasons.

That’s inexcusable. Either more testing should be authorized or Dorna should start looking for another tire supplier. The problem has already tarnished MotoGP’s reputation as the greatest spectacle on wheels, sufficiently so that Crash.net recently asked “Is ‘boring’ Japanese Grand Prix the norm for MotoGP now?” 

The only good news in this story is that, in 2027, aerodynamic aids will be severely curtailed, and all ride-height devices banned. Hopefully, Michelin’s 2026 introduction of that new tire will include something about those stupid tire pressure rules.