The Ducati-Lenovo partnership has entered its seventh MotoGP season in 2025, however in contrast to many non-motorcycling or non-automotive sponsorships the Lenovo sticker on the manufacturing facility Ducati Desmosedicis are about far more fairing house and money.
A part of Ducati’s rise to the summit of MotoGP has been its capability to make use of know-how akin to machine studying to extend the effectivity of its growth and its setup work on the monitor.
Lenovo, being a computing firm, has been capable of help on this, partly because of a motorised scanner that, for the reason that second half of the 2024 season, Ducati has used to scan the tracks that characteristic on the MotoGP calendar.
The scans create a 200GB digital recreation of a circuit with particulars included akin to camber angles in corners.
This enables for improved accuracy of Ducati’s simulation fashions, which assist to foretell the outcomes of various modifications in setup primarily based on monitor circumstances, or how variations in ambient circumstances may have an effect on monitor grip and subsequently bike efficiency.
Based on Lenovo, supplying the simulation fashions with extra correct information can result in enhancements in race instances of between 2.5 and three seconds.
For reference, the primary non-Ducati at this 12 months’s Thai Grand Prix was Trackhouse Aprilia’s Ai Ogura, who was 7.450 seconds behind Ducati Lenovo Crew’s Marc Marquez on the chequered flag.
So, it’s exhausting to say, primarily based on Lenovo’s numbers, that the mix of the scans and the simulation fashions are making all of the distinction for Ducati, particularly when there have been additionally three different Ducatis between Marquez and Ogura in Thailand, however it’s nonetheless a big a part of a considerable margin that Ducati seems to have – or at the least that which it exhibited in Thailand.
