Valencia Tests, dreams and predictions

[RedJet]

Good interview with Spies taken after the race but before the test at Valencia - review of '10, new team, improvements, factory ride, what he expects...etc.

http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1011_ben_spies_interview_on_his_first_season_in_motogp/index.html

Considers himself a bit of a dark-horse next year.

So improvements in every area, I think we can be a lot closer to the front. Definitely it’s not like we’re saying the title, we’re going for the title, but I think we can ride up front more often than this year and a little bit of a dark horse for next year.

I like the sound of this...

What can you see the riders ahead of you doing that you need to learn?

Just confidence in the bike. I would say that, for sure. Casey (Stoner) sometimes you see him do some things that are incredible, mind-blowing, pretty much. But then with Jorge (Lorenzo) and Valentino (Rossi), they’ve obviously been faster than me 90% of the season, but when I watch them and they come by, I don’t say ‘I can’t do that.’ I’m just like, ‘They’re doing really well, better than I’m doing it, but I don’t think it’s unattainable.’ It’s just, it looks to me like they just have more confidence in the bike.

[demonv4]

a Pig in a Frock.

Thanks Marvoging! . I have to just throw this out there. This is by far the most enjoyable site i have found in the ideals and understanding of motorcycle roadracing and i absolutely appreciate the level of knowledge all of you spew out. I thought reading Alan Cathcart was informative! I cant for a minute dive into the engineering side of the back and forths but it has made me much the wiser fan. Nuff a that..
Next year. As many of you (self included) have pointed out .. due to the Rossi lack of times yes it has caused alot of us to sit n scratch our heads in bewilderment but with good reason. Because none of us expected it. Especially taking into acct that Rossi rode Stoners machine and obviously could not come to terms. And i am also another who has praised the Aussie and will continue to. And to me... Rossi's inability to come to terms w his old machine solidified to me the ability of Stoner. We all know Rossi as the individual who could get on a machine and figure out its issues, of course w Burgess at his side. With so minimal testing it will be extremely interesting to watch what will occur and unlike i believe w any other rider in the GP paddock, if Rossi says change it.. it changes. To me that is the biggest difference. As I believe it was Rats pointed out.. will he simply try to make a Yamacati?
Next.. Lorenzo.. to me he has become like "The Terminator". He simply goes out in qualifying .. and waits.. pulls the trigger.. damage done. His only flaw i saw was in 09, it seemed Rossi could push him to falter( as he has done so many before)... but .. something changed. 2010.. Cold calculated and lethal. And he just did NOT CRACK. But.... his new teammate.. and i say that quite loosely. Therein lies to me his biggest challenge. Spies is cut from that same cloth. He doesnt crack. Ask Mladin.. Ask Haga..
Ive said earlier.. I think Pedroza is hurt much worse than any of us know. I dont like that honestly but imo this is his last Hurrah. I just dont see HRC coddling him anymore without a championship. They have done everything possible to allow him that opportunity. And.. we saw glimpses on the tail end of the year of Simoncelli "getting it". Think team Repsol will be shakin up tremendously. Also feel good about Nicky. I think he has really shown his mettle this year. I just hope he gets the breaks he just has not gotten since his magical year and i feel strongly that w Rossi onboard it will be an invaluable help to him as well. The Duc to really watch i think will be DePuniet. He has been consistently fast all season and that test in Valencia. He just seemed able to decypher the Duc.
So... how many more days fellas..??!?! Im already havin withdrawals n im jabbering about team Repsol for 2012!! Back to desk racing. Now i gotta go look up what a Pig in a Frock is and its coorelation to chassis geometry and frame construction! I do love the knowledge fellas! Keep it coming!

[Squidpuppet]

How come everyone says (including me) - Stoner will be very fast and up there if he can keep it up right!

With Rossis test and Nicky's isn't it known that the ducati front end plain blows, so if that is the case then my guess is, that was one of the reasons why Stoner bin it, so will it be safe to say the Honda doesn't have the front end issue meaning Stoner will not be binning it that often? Or is stoner binning it because of inmaturity/desperation(sp)? Or Pedro and Dovi never pushed the front as much?

If my memory is correct, he didn't bin it in 2007 with the non-CF frame

Add to the mystery. RdP says the Ducs front end gives him confidence and the power delivery is smooth. Must be true (for him) as he adapted to the Duc in just 2 days and went faster than he did on the Honda on race day and QP. Much to do with riding styles I suspect.

[RedJet]

a Pig in a Frock.

Now i gotta go look up what a Pig in a Frock is and its correlation to chassis geometry and frame construction! I do love the knowledge fellas! Keep it coming!

This may help, sans frock however.

[Tonyzed]

Also feel good about Nicky. I think he has really shown his mettle this year. I just hope he gets the breaks he just has not gotten since his magical year....

And there is another odd comment.

As much as I like Nicky, and he is easy to like, and also not wanting to be too provocative, his "magical year" was more of a miracle year. He didn't have "winning ways", at least not in the way of Rossi, Stoner, Lorenzo or even Pedrosa. He won one race in 2005 and two in 2006, hardly winning ways. Melandri won three, Capirossi won three and Rossi won five whilst Pedrosa won two. He won because he was consistent, not through either "winning ways" or a "magical" performance.

He and Honda deserved their championship in 2006 because they did better than Rossi and Yamaha did throughout the year, but it wasn't a magical performance by any means, although he sure got a load of (lucky) breaks.

Now Lorenzo had winning ways this year, and it could be called magical, if Rossi is "The Doctor" should we call Lorenzo "The Magician"!

TonyZ

[Oscar]

OK, let's take a deep breath here and keep on track with the ethos of intelligent debate, please - the web has exploded with passionate and far too frequently scurrilous comments and abuse between posters as a result of these tests. Mtm is generally noted for the quality of its commentary - we have an opportunity, all of us, to enhance that reputation at a time of super-keen interest in the turning of events, please don't let that slip away.

Drawing considered opinions from the results (?) of the test is the sort of thing that makes mtm threads truly enjoyable. Descending into the 'you said this about rider 'X' - you bastard..' type of slanging match is a waste of electrons and of our time.

End of sermon.

Now, my personal 10C worth.

As far as Stoner goes, I think there is a general lack of surprise that he was so quickly fast on the Honda. That lack of surprise is, I suspect, not only from amongst the motoGp fan community but also fairly general amongst the riders themselves - we here all, I think, are aware of Spies's comments recently. The query (and sometimes I get the feeling that the word may be 'hope', amongst those who hold a dislike of him) that he might/will perpetuate his reputation as a 'crasher' will only be answered in time, though in both cases it may be instructive to look at his '07 season.

Obviously, it is Rossi's results that are the cynosure of every eye. The conclusions expressed so far just about cover the spectrum from red to violet and in all probability there is a grain of truth in every one, but the muffin is made up from the right mixture of the right ingredients and I seriously doubt that anyone (obviously, I include myself here) has the actual recipe. However, we here can surely winnow down the unlikelies from the likelies.

Let's look firstly at Rossi's physical situation. He is carrying, in the shoulder, an injury which seriously affects the ability of a rider to extract the best from a bike. It is an injury which will require a fairly well known period of recuperation following the operation he is about to have. Nobody but a complete mug would risk exacerbating such an injury for the sake of a few moments of glory (in the overall scheme of things) at a test. Rossi is not a mug. We know that riding the Duc to truly competitive times is a high-risk enterprise.

Next, I'd like to reprise Preziosi's comment about: '"The objective is clearly to allow Valentino to ride like Valentino!" I think that has been taken as somewhat of a throw-away line from a commentary by Preziosi amongst a somewhat waffling interview, but I suspect that is in fact far more the crux of the matter. Let me tease out this thread a bit.

Ducati, with the commencement of the 800s, took a design path that may be basically summarised as: 'the fastest bike will win'. All competition machines are compromises in some direction; Ducati guessed - correctly at that moment in bike development time - what to exaggerate and what to diminish in terms of that set of compromises.

However, it is also true that the less compromised a bike is, the less able it is to handle all possible situations. For want of a better analogy, you could choose one of two types of weapon to bring to a fight - a knife or a gun. That is not the lay-down mezzaire it might seem, if the gun is a one-shot weapon - and as has been proven, that is very much what the Duc was and is. As it happened, Stoner arrived at Ducati and became instantly an expert gunfighter. Remember that the 'lead' rider at Ducati then was Capirex, who had been a very real possibility as WC in the previous season until his accident and the extent of the happy conjunction of Stoner's strongest attributes as a rider and the Ducs' strengths is apparent.

Rossi is not a gunfighter - he is a knife fighter. He likes up close and personal and furthermore he likes to see his opponents bleed to death from many slashes rather than one quick stab to the heart. Biaggi, for instance, remains to this day a mass of scar tissue.

As far as I can see, the Rossi test of the Duc simply proved to him that what he must have suspected about the bike was completely true - it is simply not a knife-fighting weapon. Personally I have little doubt that he could have ridden the thing considerably faster at Valencia than he did - but realistically, what would have been the point? As far as I can see, the only likely result of that would have been to take a very considerable risk of injury to prove that perhaps he could go nearly as fast as someone he knows is damn fast and who has four years of honing his knowledge of how to extract the last ounce from the package.

Rossi is not stupid, he knows Stoner is, as near as it gets, to the master of the Duc in its current incarnation and he also knows that the Duc can be beaten by both Yamaha and Honda. Even assuming that Rossi believed he could be faster than Stoner on the same Duc - and perhaps he could, I am not dismissing that possibility - it still does not mean that he would then automatically win every race, or even enough races to win another WC. What return is there to simply prove to oneself that one could be competitive on a bike that is not guaranteed to be always competitive? Rossi and JB do not operate in a vacuum, they cannot have harboured any belief that with Rossi aboard the Duc would change its spots - and for all the throw-away lines, they would not be dismissing Stoner as simply another also-ran rider who sometimes gets lucky.

I think that Rossi's results are a quite planned strategy to jerk Ducati's chain very damn hard that things need to change dramatically if their bike is to become a weapon Rossi can use 'to ride like Rossi' - and it's worked. There's only one small downside to that - it has perhaps caused a blip in the trace of the 'Who is best' pissing competition, while the upsides are many: Rossi has gotten a message across to Ducati most emphatically, he leaves the test in the best situation to get repaired in time for a good season and he has set the stage to augment his legend as the 'miracle' man. To me, that is a case of getting the best odds.

[RatsMC]

I'm going to go back to RdP for just a minute.

Not only was he faster on the Pramac than on the Honda, he was faster around Valencia than a satellite Ducati has even been.

[Cam D]

coyote,,, friend,,, there is no "bashing" here,, just legit questioning, some not so legit criticism, and debate about everything. This "caption" thread is pure fun and harmless playfulness . ,, It's OK to question, doubt, and discuss the GOATs future,,, many things are likely but nothing is automatic.

"accept nothing and question everything" keeps the wheels turning, especially during the down time.

I wasn't talking about the captions or discussing Rossi's future but the posting history of a certain poster which seems to revolve around the negative output towards a certain rider more than anything.

Wow so much emotion! You say you enjoy reading my posts but oviously you don't as they disagree with your version of the world.

Just for the record I'm not anti Rossi, I think I've made it pretty clear that I'm anti the Dorna system. A system that allows one rider to dominate through advanages. It has clearly been shown that once Rossi had to work under the same conditions as everyone else he made the same errors and, for me, the sport has become much more interesting. Just to make a point, there are a couple of guys on here that consistently bag Lorenzo in their posts.... I look forward to you singling them out as well or maybe as it isn't Rossi it doesn't matter.

Shame that I will feel I have to censor my thoughts if I post on this site in the future. I recently left the MCNews site because certain members would attack anyone that didn't agree with them and it became quite tedious. Crashnet is full of that type of behaviour. I realise motor racing is followed by passionate people and passion is fantastic, when kept in harness. I was hoping that I found a place where people could air their views and discuss things at a certian level without the need to censor their thoughts to suit others.

[Richo]

Wow, I go to bed at night and in the morning there are another 30 posts in this thread. This is probably the most prolific thread this year. I guess that says something, and that is like me everyone loves it when the competition gets a bit uncertain. This is obviously caused by riders changing seats and seeing if said riders can still be just as competitive on a different machine. In other words we want to see who is the best rider, not who has the best bike. This is what I love.

Like many have said we cant read too much into some riders performances at the test. It is the end of the season after all and with many suffering from injuries, performances (or motivation) may not be at their best. I still believe that next year the main protagonists will be heading the field (and yes that includes Rossi). The only guy I can see joining them is Spies which most would probably agree to. I also think after the break, we will see a new Rossi and his times will improve considerably.

[RatsMC]

Please get back to debating the points instead of commenting on other members. This is exactly what makes things go sour.

[coyote]

Wow so much emotion! You say you enjoy reading my posts but oviously you don't as they disagree with your version of the world.

Just for the record I'm not anti Rossi, I think I've made it pretty clear that I'm anti the Dorna system. A system that allows one rider to dominate through advanages. It has clearly been shown that once Rossi had to work under the same conditions as everyone else he made the same errors and, for me, the sport has become much more interesting. Just to make a point, there are a couple of guys on here that consistently bag Lorenzo in their posts.... I look forward to you singling them out as well or maybe as it isn't Rossi it doesn't matter.

Shame that I will feel I have to censor my thoughts if I post on this site in the future. I recently left the MCNews site because certain members would attack anyone that didn't agree with them and it became quite tedious. Crashnet is full of that type of behaviour. I realise motor racing is followed by passionate people and passion is fantastic, when kept in harness. I was hoping that I found a place where people could air their views and discuss things at a certian level without the need to censor their thoughts to suit others.

Where did you get that? I actually like to your posts, makes for and entertaining read most of the time.

[Oscar]

Hello, hello - if my untrustworthy eyes don't deceive me, there is a considerably relieved (in the mechanical sense of stress) upper headstock fitting than previously on Rossi's Ducati, plus a very much changed upper triple clamp. Unfortunately the site image frame size here cuts out the very things I am talking about, but it can be seen at:

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/image/2010/motogp/valencia/test/3/6.jpg

IIRC, on the GP10 that fitting was solid (i.e. no grooves, cut-outs or similar, just a solid disc of alloy / titanium) and the subject of some debate considering that both the Yamaha and Honda equivalents were relieved to give some flexibility. I seem to recall a comment from Preziosi - or perhaps just attributed to Preziosi - that the Duc did not need flexibility in the headstock. I am sure that the GP10 triple clamp was one solid beam, not the almost delicate-looking affair on Rossi's bike. If what I think I see is correct, then Ducati had accepted the problems were real and had at least made some attempt to change the situation.

Now - and this is NOT an invitation to a flame war re comparative abilities - if Ducati have attempted to add some compliance to the front end feel and it is still basically not exactly confidence-inspiring, then just how difficult has it been for all the Duc riders this year to extract performance?

Oh, and that image also shows a loverly view of the Acme Bloody Great C/F Box Girder Co. swing-arm

[RatsMC]

That swingarm just makes me stop and stare every time I see it. It isn't so much that it is pretty as it is just massive. It looks significantly larger than the CF swingarm we saw at Mugello.

I am not sure if I am remembering this all correctly but my thoughts on flexibility in the triples seemed to align with what I thought Preziosi was saying about it: there are better places to build in flexibility. It would seem to my untrained thinking that the closer you can get that flexibility to the front wheel the better. This is also the reason the Motoczysz went with a more oval shaped fork slider. So, total conjecture here, is the change to a more flexible top triple an admission that they don't understand the forces a rider needs to feel well enough to design them into CF?

[ducati1098s]

OK, let's take a deep breath here and keep on track with the ethos of intelligent debate, please - the web has exploded with passionate and far too frequently scurrilous comments and abuse between posters as a result of these tests. Mtm is generally noted for the quality of its commentary - we have an opportunity, all of us, to enhance that reputation at a time of super-keen interest in the turning of events, please don't let that slip away.

Drawing considered opinions from the results (?) of the test is the sort of thing that makes mtm threads truly enjoyable. Descending into the 'you said this about rider 'X' - you bastard..' type of slanging match is a waste of electrons and of our time.

End of sermon.

Now, my personal 10C worth.

As far as Stoner goes, I think there is a general lack of surprise that he was so quickly fast on the Honda. That lack of surprise is, I suspect, not only from amongst the motoGp fan community but also fairly general amongst the riders themselves - we here all, I think, are aware of Spies's comments recently. The query (and sometimes I get the feeling that the word may be 'hope', amongst those who hold a dislike of him) that he might/will perpetuate his reputation as a 'crasher' will only be answered in time, though in both cases it may be instructive to look at his '07 season.

Obviously, it is Rossi's results that are the cynosure of every eye. The conclusions expressed so far just about cover the spectrum from red to violet and in all probability there is a grain of truth in every one, but the muffin is made up from the right mixture of the right ingredients and I seriously doubt that anyone (obviously, I include myself here) has the actual recipe. However, we here can surely winnow down the unlikelies from the likelies.

Let's look firstly at Rossi's physical situation. He is carrying, in the shoulder, an injury which seriously affects the ability of a rider to extract the best from a bike. It is an injury which will require a fairly well known period of recuperation following the operation he is about to have. Nobody but a complete mug would risk exacerbating such an injury for the sake of a few moments of glory (in the overall scheme of things) at a test. Rossi is not a mug. We know that riding the Duc to truly competitive times is a high-risk enterprise.

Next, I'd like to reprise Preziosi's comment about: '"The objective is clearly to allow Valentino to ride like Valentino!" I think that has been taken as somewhat of a throw-away line from a commentary by Preziosi amongst a somewhat waffling interview, but I suspect that is in fact far more the crux of the matter. Let me tease out this thread a bit.

Ducati, with the commencement of the 800s, took a design path that may be basically summarised as: 'the fastest bike will win'. All competition machines are compromises in some direction; Ducati guessed - correctly at that moment in bike development time - what to exaggerate and what to diminish in terms of that set of compromises.

However, it is also true that the less compromised a bike is, the less able it is to handle all possible situations. For want of a better analogy, you could choose one of two types of weapon to bring to a fight - a knife or a gun. That is not the lay-down mezzaire it might seem, if the gun is a one-shot weapon - and as has been proven, that is very much what the Duc was and is. As it happened, Stoner arrived at Ducati and became instantly an expert gunfighter. Remember that the 'lead' rider at Ducati then was Capirex, who had been a very real possibility as WC in the previous season until his accident and the extent of the happy conjunction of Stoner's strongest attributes as a rider and the Ducs' strengths is apparent.

Rossi is not a gunfighter - he is a knife fighter. He likes up close and personal and furthermore he likes to see his opponents bleed to death from many slashes rather than one quick stab to the heart. Biaggi, for instance, remains to this day a mass of scar tissue.

As far as I can see, the Rossi test of the Duc simply proved to him that what he must have suspected about the bike was completely true - it is simply not a knife-fighting weapon. Personally I have little doubt that he could have ridden the thing considerably faster at Valencia than he did - but realistically, what would have been the point? As far as I can see, the only likely result of that would have been to take a very considerable risk of injury to prove that perhaps he could go nearly as fast as someone he knows is damn fast and who has four years of honing his knowledge of how to extract the last ounce from the package.

Rossi is not stupid, he knows Stoner is, as near as it gets, to the master of the Duc in its current incarnation and he also knows that the Duc can be beaten by both Yamaha and Honda. Even assuming that Rossi believed he could be faster than Stoner on the same Duc - and perhaps he could, I am not dismissing that possibility - it still does not mean that he would then automatically win every race, or even enough races to win another WC. What return is there to simply prove to oneself that one could be competitive on a bike that is not guaranteed to be always competitive? Rossi and JB do not operate in a vacuum, they cannot have harboured any belief that with Rossi aboard the Duc would change its spots - and for all the throw-away lines, they would not be dismissing Stoner as simply another also-ran rider who sometimes gets lucky.

I think that Rossi's results are a quite planned strategy to jerk Ducati's chain very damn hard that things need to change dramatically if their bike is to become a weapon Rossi can use 'to ride like Rossi' - and it's worked. There's only one small downside to that - it has perhaps caused a blip in the trace of the 'Who is best' pissing competition, while the upsides are many: Rossi has gotten a message across to Ducati most emphatically, he leaves the test in the best situation to get repaired in time for a good season and he has set the stage to augment his legend as the 'miracle' man. To me, that is a case of getting the best odds.

Brilliant post Oscar- Totally agree, very insightful

[Tormo4ever]

Rossi sustained his shoulder injury in the week after Qatar. He won that race. Im not saying that he wouldn't have lost a race uninjured (think JL would have beaten him as many times as VR would have beaten JL) but you are wrong to say he was beaten before getting injured. No biggie though

i stand corrected then ... i really thought the shoulder pain was sustained at the cold tyre Mugello highside too ...

[Oscar]

Caption Competition:

Rossi: "So, what's Plan B?"

JB: "More petrol and a box of matches"

[sir_nj]

Hello, hello - if my untrustworthy eyes don't deceive me, there is a considerably relieved (in the mechanical sense of stress) upper headstock fitting than previously on Rossi's Ducati, plus a very much changed upper triple clamp. Unfortunately the site image frame size here cuts out the very things I am talking about, but it can be seen at:

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/image/2010/motogp/valencia/test/3/6.jpg

IIRC, on the GP10 that fitting was solid (i.e. no grooves, cut-outs or similar, just a solid disc of alloy / titanium) and the subject of some debate considering that both the Yamaha and Honda equivalents were relieved to give some flexibility. I seem to recall a comment from Preziosi - or perhaps just attributed to Preziosi - that the Duc did not need flexibility in the headstock. I am sure that the GP10 triple clamp was one solid beam, not the almost delicate-looking affair on Rossi's bike. If what I think I see is correct, then Ducati had accepted the problems were real and had at least made some attempt to change the situation.

Now - and this is NOT an invitation to a flame war re comparative abilities - if Ducati have attempted to add some compliance to the front end feel and it is still basically not exactly confidence-inspiring, then just how difficult has it been for all the Duc riders this year to extract performance?

Oh, and that image also shows a loverly view of the Acme Bloody Great C/F Box Girder Co. swing-arm

Oscar, are you smoking crack? How do you see that sort of detail? Amazing! Very interesting thoughts though regarding potential remedies or not for the Duc. TBH, bloody stupid coment from Preziosi (amongst others) that they don't need flexibility, however, once again that could be taken out of context since he could have then qualified this with a whole raft of reasons that explained what their alternative was.

I have little doubt that Rossi/Burgess can make the bike a knife fighter (as you put it). To me the question is can they do it before the beginning of the season? Interestingly, any major chassis changes will elevate Casey's riding skills to being even more rarified.

[motomania]

One thing that many seem to believe or at least, seem to be caught up with, is that Rossi's biggest responsibility with Ducati is to make the GP10 a title winner. While that my be a goal, I think the '12 & beyond bike is probably more what they'll really be concentrating on. There's no reason to redesign a new bike for one year. Do the best you can with the retiring bike and concentrate on the future. Just my 2¢

[RatsMC]

One thing that many seem to believe or at least, seem to be caught up with, is that Rossi's biggest responsibility with Ducati is to make the GP10 a title winner. While that my be a goal, I think the '12 & beyond bike is probably more what they'll really be concentrating on. There's no reason to redesign a new bike for one year. Do the best you can with the retiring bike and concentrate on the future. Just my 2¢

Whew. Looking at things with a sense of perspective is exhausting. Its a lot easier to get worked up into a lather about a couple of seconds.

[Oscar]

OK, I had it at least partly incorrect - the headstock upper bearing cage appears to be the same/ very similar, but the upper triple clamp is radically different and obviously softer. I couldn't find an actual GP10 shot of the bearing cage and triple, but this is one of the GP9 and I think the GP10 was as close to identical as doesn't matter:



The headstock bearing cage has some possibility of sideways compliance being greater than fore-and-aft, from the rib spacing. However I'd think that any difference a revised bearing retainer would make would be totally swamped by the effect of the upper triple clamp changes.

[frankrizzo]

I couldn't find a similar Yamaha pic but does it look like Rossi is sitting in the Duke rather than on it?? (say a hyabusa compared to a gixer thou..)
His wrist to elbow to ass seems too parallel to me???

Agreed. The whole tail section looks too low and flat. He looks more forward as well.

....in that pic, the bike is leaning away from the camera making the tail look low ... even so the outline of the lower fairing and the high screen do give that impression but without knowing the angles it's impossible to accurately compare geometry with the yamaha and it's exhaustless tail/pointy nose.

I feel all these ideas about how Rossi is having all sorts of hidden agendas, sandbagging times to make history, moving to Duacti to steal Lorenzos glory etc is getting way to creative.
The test is what it is - he is knackered and a bit hampered by injury and the Ducatis is not a bike up to his preferences, which automatically doesn´t mean it is unrideable or makes Stoner a semi-god.

so right, too many people reading into this far too much. the guy has just had a chance to get a few laps on the bike and gather some data, to find a starting point. same for the whole team. from what i can gather this test was all about making a decision on power delivery not lap times.

[ducati1098s]

I have a question I d love for some views on please guys- will the Duc remain a chassi-less bike under VR/JB?

At the moment my understanding is that the Duc has a carbon headstock which forms an intergral element of the airbox. This is bolted to the front of the engine. The swing arm bolts to the back of the engine. Correct?

My understanding re the otehrs is: the hondas, yams etc all have a aluminium beam frame which incorporates the headstock, then has the engine "hanging" on/in it and ends at the rear of the bike, bolting into the swing arm pivot at the back of the engine. This then allows the whole of the bike under the rider to flex/twist and act as the third suspension component (tyres and suspension being first two). Correct?

What struck me recently was reading more about the moto2 class and how alot of teams had their own chassis built by different comapnies (eg Harris). This has given us the opportunity to hear about comparisons made by riders swapping at the end of the year and apparently the difference between a sweet and ill-handling recalcitrant bike has been repeatedly placed at the door of the chassis. There are so many other equals in this class (engine, ecu) that makes those comments especially interesting IMHO.

Anyway I suspect that Duc may build 2/3 different types of bike for VR to test in Sepang: carbon and trellis framed. Of course they could always ask VR if they could borrow his 2004 championship winning bike and take a few measurements!! Now that was a sweet handling bike according to VR, just lacking engine power. Apparently its just stuck in his bedroom at his mums and being used to throw his socks on at the end of a day (presumably once he finishes his new house he will have a better place for it)

[Gustav O]

I have little doubt that Rossi/Burgess can make the bike a knife fighter (as you put it). To me the question is can they do it before the beginning of the season? Interestingly, any major chassis changes will elevate Casey's riding skills to being even more rarified.

Not necessarily. Just because the bike seemingly doesn´t fit one guy it might fit another one just fine. I am not trying to take anything away from Stoner, just giving another pov maybe.

[Squidpuppet]

One thing that many seem to believe or at least, seem to be caught up with, is that Rossi's biggest responsibility with Ducati is to make the GP10 a title winner. While that my be a goal, I think the '12 & beyond bike is probably more what they'll really be concentrating on. There's no reason to redesign a new bike for one year. Do the best you can with the retiring bike and concentrate on the future. Just my 2¢

IF, and I emphasize IF, Rossi feels that the bike is unrideable (at competative speeds with his style) in current form, do you think he'd be OK with contesting a whole season just "doing the best he can"? My gut says no way.

Thats not meant to discount the importance of the 2012 development in any way. I just cant see Rossi being OK with anything less than a 100% effort for every season.

Just my couple of pennies.

[Oscar]

I have little doubt that Rossi/Burgess can make the bike a knife fighter (as you put it). To me the question is can they do it before the beginning of the season? Interestingly, any major chassis changes will elevate Casey's riding skills to being even more rarified.

Not necessarily. Just because the bike seemingly doesn´t fit one guy it might fit another one just fine. I am not trying to take anything away from Stoner, just giving another pov maybe.

Of course, rarified does not always equate to better - just less common. I certainly wasn't trying to suggest in that post that Rossi had, in any way, simply said 'holy crap, this thing can't be ridden fast' - simply that, as Gustav has said, he found it very much contrary to what he wants and knows he can be successful on.

The conclusion I drew was intended to be more on the lines of, having established that the basic character of the bike was certainly not 'a bike that Rossi can ride like Rossi', he didn't panic nor waste time trying to see just what it could do, because the situation that presented itself to him (and I stress, to him, since I think we all feel that Ducati has effectively promised to do 'whatever it takes' to give him a bike on which he can win a championship) was not a dead end.

In that respect, had Rossi gotten the thing up towards the respectable end of the timesheet - as, by comparison, de Puniet has done in the same situation - there is a fair likelihood that Ducati would have held out that tweaks were all that is necessary. Rossi and JB are not insulated from the news, and we all heard/saw Stoner's comments that Ducati works on a 'run what they brung' to the first tests of the new season modus operandi, also the 'just dig a bit deeper, Casey' comments from Ducati. I feel sure that had the thing been from Rossi's perspective at least in the ballpark, he'd have pushed much harder.

I also don't believe that Rossi and JB came to the tests with the scenario that played out firmly established as the way they were going to play the thing so as to reprise 2004. However, I strongly suspect that they both had it in the back of their minds that this was an option - and why wouldn't they? The Rossi + JB move to Yamaha in '04 is THE legendary story of gp racing in the first decade of the new millenium. As JB said, in effect: 'you don't hire someone for $15m and then not give him the bike to do the job'.

As far as what played out enhancing Stoner's reputation as a rider, I suggest that it probably does - but I doubt that Rossi had any real 'illusions' in that regard, the odd little nose-tweaking comment notwithstanding. Rossi knows that, short of a comprehensive dismantling of Stoner's achievments on the Ducati by blowing his best time out of the water, there's nowt he can do about that. While race wins are an important measure of capability to the cognoscenti of gp racing, WC's are what the general public remember and revere - and rightly so. 'Would have - could have' arguments are fun for a small proportion of race fans, but the name on the year's results is etched in silver.