When Franco Morbidelli and his teammate, Mika Kallio, crashed at Mugello, Kallio retired but Morbidelli got his bike going and tried to rejoin. As he got on the gas, pieces of gravel shot out of the pipe.

Perhaps when Ducati earns the same 5-engine restriction as Yamaha and Honda, these grilles will return to Ducati pipes.

The lower pipe, noticeably shorter than that used on the GP14, also lacks the grille on the end. Similar to the Yamaha pipe end, the GP15’s has a non-round shape for the piece surrounding the actual pipe, perhaps to allow it to fit against the side of the bike better than a round pipe end would.

At Mugello, Dovizioso’s GP15 wore quite a bit of insulation on the various pipe sections. But this appears to be done on an as needed basis, because Michele Pirro’s GP15 had less.

Portions of Pirro’s bike had insulation, but there was definitely less on his bikes than there was on Dovi’s. Notice also that Pirro’s bike sports an updated carbon fiber pipe cover that encloses the pipes until just before the 2 into 1 joint – another example of how MotoGP bikes are constantly being refined.

Up next, Suzuki goes Short.

Photographs: ©2014-15 by Scott Jones / PHOTO.GP – All Rights Reserved

[mgallery keyword=”Pit Lane”]