{"id":568384,"date":"2026-03-27T19:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T19:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/568384\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T19:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T19:08:10","slug":"behind-the-scenes-in-a-unique-part-of-ducatis-motogp-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/568384\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the scenes in a unique part of Ducati’s MotoGP success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presented by Lenovo<\/a><\/p>\n

Since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ducati Lenovo Team has been doing something a little differently back at headquarters in Bologna during MotoGP race weekends: running a replica of the team\u2019s garage remotely from Italy to bring additional engineers and data analysis resources into the mix.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a resounding success, as well, coinciding as it has with a rise in Ducati\u2019s fortunes that has seen the Desmosedici GP bikes dominate the championship in recent years – taking the likes of Pecco Bagnaia, Marc Marquez, and satellite racer Jorge Martin to titles.<\/p>\n

To allow a better understanding of how Ducati has managed to translate that additional resource into on-track success, Ducati Corse and Lenovo invited The Race behind the scenes at the Borgo Panigale HQ following the opening round of the 2026 season in Thailand to better see how that process works.<\/p>\n

INSIDE THE DUCATI LENOVO REMOTE GARAGE<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ducati Lenovo Remote Garage started in 2020 during the COVID pandemic,\u201d Vehicle Development Manager Nicol\u00f2 Mancinelli explained to The Race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time we realised we were ready to use our simulation and analysis tools during race weekends, particularly for tyre analysis, so we began with a pilot project in 2020 and worked with our partner Lenovo to develop it further.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the following years we built the infrastructure that allows engineers here in Bologna to assist the trackside team during race weekends.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Formula 1\u00ae teams might have been using a similar set-up for years, MotoGP budget and logistics considerations means that Ducati Corse has had to go about making it work in a different way – something that the partnership with Lenovo has aided by allowing Ducati to do the heavy lifting of data processing trackside rather than transmitting the tens of gigabytes of data back to Italy first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn MotoGP we don\u2019t have the same dedicated satellite connections used in F1,\u201d he added, \u201cso we had to find a different solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTogether with Lenovo we decided to move most of the computational work to high performance computers at the track. This means we can use a lower bandwidth connection while still allowing engineers here in Bologna to access the data remotely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long journey, but it has completely changed the way trackside engineers work together with those back at the factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what exactly does a race weekend inside the remote garage (situated just across the corridor from team boss Gigi Dall\u2019Igna\u2019s office) look like?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Normally filled by a team of three people, each has a specific role and looks after a different part of the process to allow that the trackside team more available time and a narrower focus on their primary duties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first [person] is a software engineer who ensures that all the data processing systems running at the track operate correctly,\u201d Mancinelli said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey monitor the workflow and make sure all the tools and updates are deployed properly. We currently have six Ducati bikes on track, so there is a huge amount of data generated every session. This engineer ensures that everything is processed correctly and on time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second engineer is a data analyst. Their job is to extract information from the data \u2014 both for reliability and performance. They process the data, extract key performance indicators, and generate reports that are shared with the engineers at the circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese reports allow the trackside team to quickly understand the most important information from a huge amount of data. Typically, they\u2019re available just minutes after a session ends. In some cases we also run real-time KPIs as the data arrives, which means the analyst can immediately warn the team if there are reliability concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe third engineer is a vehicle dynamics specialist, mainly focused on tyre analysis. They process performance data related to tyre behaviour and generate reports to help the trackside engineers decide how to manage the tyres and which tyre specifications to choose for the race weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, with extra resources in terms of personnel combined with the added computing power afforded by the team\u2019s relationship with Lenovo, it means that Mancinelli sees a very real impact on the team\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cRace weekends are extremely time-critical and we have a massive amount of data to process,\u201d he said. \u201cMotoGP does not allow live telemetry during sessions, so we download the bike data after each run.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce that happens, we run many algorithms to analyse the data. Some of these are virtual sensing algorithms, which estimate physical quantities that cannot be directly measured. Others extract performance metrics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these algorithms must run as quickly as possible so that the trackside engineers can make decisions quickly. Another advantage is that we can run simulations overnight. Sometimes we need to make decisions between Friday and Saturday sessions, and these simulations are very helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

As 2025 examples, Mancinelli cited MotoGP\u2019s first visit to Hungarian Grand Prix venue Balaton Park – a \u201ccompletely new circuit for us\u201d for which no previous MotoGP weekend data existed and thus swift number-crunching was paramount – and the return to Czech Grand Prix venue Brno, which had been resurfaced so was in effect almost an entirely new track in some ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Friday we ran practice sessions, but the number of laps was limited [due to rain],\u201d Mancinelli recalled of Brno. \u201cBy Saturday we had to decide which tyres to use for the sprint race and predict how tyre temperatures and degradation would behave.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing our high-performance computing systems, we were able to run large numbers of simulations overnight using Friday\u2019s data. This allowed us to predict race scenarios and determine the correct aero configuration for cooling brakes and tyres, as well as choosing the right tyre compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to Lenovo and Ducati Corse for the behind the scenes access at Ducati headquarters – find out more about Lenovo here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Presented by Lenovo Since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ducati Lenovo Team has been doing something a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-568384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}