Bradley Smith expects Ducati to enjoy a slight initial advantage with MotoGP's new 2016 control ECU system, since it is based on some of their own software. Ducati is understood to have handed its private factory software over to Dorna's Magneti-Marelli ECU development team when they attempted a switch to the Open class at the start of 2014. Using the less-sophisticated standard ECU is a prerequisite for competing in the Open class, which will disappear next season. Ducati sought to limit the ECU disadvantage by sharing its software secrets, thus helping to raise the level of the system, although the sophistication proved too much for many Open teams. Ultimately Ducati didn't use the Open...
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