Ducati MotoGP boss Gigi Dall'Igna has admitted the controversial swingarm device used by his works riders in Qatar was inspired by a similar system employed by Yamaha last season.

The Iwata factory ran a spoiler to deflect rainwater away from the rear tyre of the M1 in a bid to do something about their woeful grip.

Dall'Igna paid careful attention to it and used the idea to force air over the rear tyres of his Desmosedicis in order to cool them down. Rival factories protested, saying it was backdoor downforce addition but the MotoGP court of appeal threw out their case.

"Ducati had this idea copying Yamaha. Because Yamaha used a system like this in Valencia and maybe also before in some practices, but for sure during the Valencia race," Dall'Igna said at the track.

"So Ducati had this idea to watch what another of our competitors are doing. So I think that the others will copy us."

Honda have already put a similar winglet idea in front of series technical boss Danny Aldridge but he has, apparently, said it isn't allowed - but on what grounds remains unclear.

Dall'Igna has said his device cools the rear tyre by around seven degrees and offers only 300 grams of added downforce. An F1 rear wing can generate as much as eight pounds for every pound of drag.

"It works to put some air on the rear tyre and the results of our tests, at the Qatar test before the race, is that we can reduce the temperature of the tyre by about seven degrees on average.

Honestly speaking, we didn't do any wind tunnel testing with the system, because our target was not the force of the device. It was only the thermal effect on the rear tyre.

"So we produced our results in terms of tests, during the Qatar tests, with the proper test on the race bike, and our simulations in terms of coefficient of heat exchange with the rear tyre."

"This is, in Ducati's opinion. for sure an important result in terms of the performance of the bike.

"Ducati Corse spends only one per cent of our budget for the aerodynamics. So if we cut something there it is ridiculous in comparison to the other costs of MotoGP.

We spent, for the lawyer and everything at the Court of Appeal, something equivalent to five days in the wind tunnel. In 2018 we developed our fairing, our MotoGP bike with ten days in the wind tunnel.

"So 50 per cent of the aerodynamic wind tunnel budget is gone only for the Court of Appeal.

"I think that the cost of the Appeal is too cheap. €1300 for the appeal, and €600 for the protest. So I think it's nothing if you compare it to the total cost of the Court of Appeal."