MegaRide, an academic spin-off of UniNa honoured by Shark Bites at the National Innovation Prize with the title of innovative start-up of the year, has announced an exclusive partnership with the Ducati Team that will run until the end of the 2018 MotoGP season. The agreement will see MegaRide supply the team with its software, which predicts and simulates tyre behaviour, useful in evaluating grip and wear and allowing the team to define set-ups and race strategies in preparation for MotoGP rounds.

A partnership born thanks to technical/scientific collaborations that aim to achieve optimum performance through real-time simulation, the main field of application of MegaRide products. In Ducati it finds a partner that perfectly embodies the technological excellence and dynamism that have led the start-up to establish itself in international motorsport in such a short period of time.

"Understanding, simulating and monitoring the behaviour of the bike in real-time is key in order to gain a competitive advantage linked to maximising grip on different surfaces and in different race conditions”, stated Flavio Farroni, CEO of MegaRide who, along with colleagues Aleksandr Sakhnevych and Francesco Timpone, founded the academic spin-off just over a year ago, developing technologies for the motorsport and sport mobility sectors.

“Tyre management strategies are a key factor when it comes to achieving results in MotoGP racing, particularly in the last two years of continuous technological tyre evolution. The collaboration with MegaRide serves to strengthen the development of these strategies”, added Nicolò Mancinelli, Vehicle Dynamics Engineer at Ducati Corse.

This season is proving successful, with Andrea Dovizioso fighting for the title, having won races in Italy and Spain and having finished in the top five in 6 of the 9 races so far. This success has often come down to effective tyre management strategies, which look to minimise wear and fully exploit grip. MegaRide, also to thanks for the results achieved this year, has provided the Ducati Team will tools that help to analyze vehicle dynamics in an innovative way, optimising performance.