Ducati goings on. Part 2.

[TwoStroke Institute]

I don't think the Ducati got 'uncompetitive'.............well up until 2010 anyway. What changed was the arrival of Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa coming to grips with MotoGP. Competition was stiffer.

[tom]

Well for whatever the reason their results dropped off year by year since 2007, be it the bike, stronger competition, tyres etc etc... The point still stands. I was surprised looking at the stats, Rossi did infact do a lot better than i expected. I certainly didn't expect to see him sitting in second position.

I don't mean it as an anti or pro Rossi statement. It just struck me that Rossi's 2011 season was not as bad as I thought.

[TwoStroke Institute]

Rossi is a far better and smarter rider than most of the riders on that list, he should be higher on aggregate. The expectation was that Rossi would perform to his normal standard when he didn't then was defined as a fail. He just rode around and finished races last year(rather than crashing) which accumulated points.

[Oscar]

When you look at the stats., three questions occur to me:

1): if Rossi had looked at the Ducati results at the time of his decision to go there dispassionately and objectively, would he have even considered going there?

2): without Stoner's results, how successful would Ducati have been in obtaining sponsorship sufficient to allow them to keep a decent racing programme alive?

Hell, without Stoner's results, would even Marlboro have continued to put their money there? When Marlboro demanded that Stoner apologise to the team for his absence in '09, the simple fact was that Stoner had been carrying Ducati rather than the other way around, putting the sponsor's names on the podium and into the TV coverage way above its real weight. If it had been struggling for development funding with Stoner's successes, where would it have been without them?

3): if Rossi had not gone to Ducati because he would have had a very much different evaluation of their potential if not for Stoner's results - where would they be NOW?

[Cam D]

I wonder if Valentino even considered Suzuki when thinking about changing from Yamaha?

[Oscar]

In the context of how much Stoner's results had meant to Ducati, that Noyes article mentions the following:

At post season tests in Valencia at the end of the 2007 season, Ducati technical director Filippo Preziosi told journalists, “I am now going to tell you all about our success with the 800, but if it had not been for Casey Stoner I would be standing here talking about the reasons of our failure.”

Yet Ducati burned Capirossi, and next year burned Melandri, and in '09 effectively burned Stoner. They rather make HRC look warm and cuddly by comparison.

[Zaphod]

It's rather....well, tiresome, to have to put some disclaimer about not being a Rossi fan etc everytime people want to mention his name.

I dissagree with the post stating that Ducati went bad in 2010, as I'm sure Stoner would (and has definately aluded to, in a politicaly correct manner in some Magazine articles) venture the opinion that it was not much chop well before 2010.

As far as Rossi goes, I have stated before, in an effort to be objective in regards to his approach to riding the waddling duc, I see it as being smart. He had the busted leg ,as in, Owwww, this stuff can actually hurt when you get it wrong ! I make that point because, as his record shows, he'd never missed a race in , what was it, 14 years through injury ? That's a sudden wake up call right there.......

As of Jerez and taking Stoner out, he seemed (quite rightly) to tone down how hard he was/is willing to push the bucket of &%#$......caught out big time there !.....and a little embarrased, to say the least !

His shoulder.

Tie into all that the fact he's getting on in age, and that the competition from Lorenzo and Stoner is the stiffest he's ever been up against (and he knows it !), and I think it's pretty easy to put yourself in his shoes, or at least objectively close enough to smell them, and realise that it's been a tough old gig.

He's shown more humility than he ever has had to, ie using Haydens settings, and alot of backbone to suck it up, put up with Ducati politics and still manage to have them undertake some wholesale changes to try and make a motorcycle out of, for all intents and purposes, what is effectively a conglomeration of assorted components that just refuse to see eye to eye.

I've thought from the day he went there, that he would be having a shit time of it, and unlike Yamaha, he would be somewhere mid-pack and sorting out the bike before he would be able to start pushing. The wet at Le Mans was a good effort, in levelling conditions, to show he hasn't lost his riding talent. The dry results, to me, just indicate a smart approach to bike development.

He has the ability to give good feedback and possible direction to his team and engineers.Going out and being stupid trying to get results on a bike that is clearly not up to the task, hurting yourself and missing races is not going to the team, or Ducati, any favours.

That is where I find the fan-boi retorts so exasperatingly innane.

If he falls off trying, he's stupid, and not as good as Stoner.

If he does what he's doing now, he's lost it/never had it/not as good as Stoner.

I'm glad he's there......it's there best shot at getting the thing moving forward. Not saying Haydens input is invalid, though in the same breath, I bet he's glad Rossi is there for the simple fact that at least his prescence is getting Ducati to listen to the riders, and try new things. Something that has never happened before.

For once, his media pulling power etc has been used for the better, like his blow up on Italian TV.......If Ducati can use their pull to sling mud, well.....he has at least equal (if not more ) media pull to sling it right back at them.That's something, at least, that no other Ducati employee has had the power or opportunity to do in the past, leaving them frustrated, lorded over and having to ride around problems in an effort to not have the red devil shoot down their career.

Good luck to them in getting this junk turned around.

As for Ducati/Marlboro.........Stoner should appologise !! hahahaha


As an aside, I see Marco gave BMW, a bike with it's own problems, their first win. Ducati were right to be rid of him...........man obviously has no idea how to ride a motorcycle !

He should appologise as well.

[Hanuman]

I'm glad he's there......it's there best shot at getting the thing moving forward. Not saying Haydens input is invalid, though in the same breath, I bet he's glad Rossi is there for the simple fact that at least his prescence is getting Ducati to listen to the riders, and try new things. Something that has never happened before.

Here's a question for all on the boards:
(As has been discussed many times concerning the development of Ducati's GP effort)When we say Ducati doesn't listen to riders, where do the cloth ears reside?

At team level (I doubt this)?, at Engineering level (Prezioni?)? at bean counter level ("Yes, we know you want to change 'x', but before we give you any cash, please explain Casey's last win....)? at Marlboro level? at board level?

[Zaphod]

I'd say, at a guess, Starts at Engineering level, and stops somewhere around, or before bean-counters.

It's not a cheap shot, people are people, and have ego's and pride. Look at how long it took for Rossi to try Haydens settings.

He'd tried everything else, Nicky seemed to get a bit more out of the thing, so.....swallow some pride and give it a go, even if you think it won't work.

I see the same, but I could be well wrong !, with their engineering dept. They were proud of, and hung their hat on not just the CF frame, but many other design parameters.

*For some people to come in and tell you it's all wrong, that you need to scrap it (for the short term at least) and move in the opposite direction (the same way everybody else is going) would not be an easy thing to front up to *. It's a bit of a slap in the face, and hence why I saw last year the way I did. JB, Rossi and the team had to try every possible set up adjustment and tweak with the existing stuff to prove, in a nice way, that "Look fella's, we've tried it all, and the thing just doesn't work at the moment. For the sake of being competitive, I suggest we try something similar to everybody else."



* If you need proof of this, take note of your disposition next time you are driving, trying to find a place, and your wife asks "Why don't you just ask someone for directions ?!"

[dave_m]

Going out and being stupid trying to get results on a bike that is clearly not up to the task, hurting yourself and missing races is not going to the team, or Ducati, any favours.

I used to admire John Hopkins for doing exactly that, but the sheer number of injuries and surgeries he's had over the past several season have convinced me it's not something that can be done consistently if the rider wants to stay healthy. Hopefully Rossi's feedback won't be wasted and the Ducati riders can regularly start challenging for podiums this season, as even that would be a huge step from where they've been.

[Zaphod]

And before Hopper, there was Schwantz. I guess that was the sad part.....Schwantz shoulda told Hopper it's not a good way to work. Then again, look at the attacks on the current abilities of a nine time WC by playing it smart.

That's where what I said about Stoner and Rossi is still right in my eyes.

Stoner had to ride the duc that way.......there were plenty of talented riders who's careers went west because of that bike. Lucky for Duc the bloke had the ability to win on the thing.

Lucky for him he had the talent to pull it off without hurting himself.

Rossi would be crucified either way he went about it, so better to be smart and get them to fix the bloody thing.

[JanBros]

quote Noyes :

He is a mere 26 years old and, other than some problems with arm pump, is unhindered by any lingering injuries

I thinck he is forgetting Casey's back. It is unclear if or what there is wrong with it, but I remember several times Casey had problem's with it.

[Oscar]

Rossi would be crucified either way he went about it, so better to be smart and get them to fix the bloody thing.

I don't have an issue with that approach at all, but neither Rossi nor Ducati left themselves any room initially for the possibility that the bike was even anything like the handful Rossi found it to be. Hubris on both sides and a totally embarrassing retraction from the 'from here, onwards to victory' rhetoric handed out by all concerned. Did Ducati really, really believe that their bike was going to march onwards from its end-of-'10 successes seamlessly?

I really hope that one day, someone from Ducati will recount honestly just what was going through their minds when they finished the first Valencia test. Even if they took the not unreasonable position that the major problem was Rossi's shoulder vs. a somewhat hard-mouthed bike, the sight of Stoner strolling down to the Honda garage, swinging a leg over Pedrosa's bike and proceeding to blitz the field should have been a hell of a cautionary tale. I guess Ducati had managed to ignore all the OTHER cautionary tales, but hey, when Elvis has left the building the band alone ain't the same.

[Grahluk]

Anyone care to discuss how Ducati's present development method differs from last year? It struck me that news from this latest test said they were going to test & confirm the same things at other tracks over the next couple rounds before implementing them. Last year wasn't it more of throwing each new hypothesis at the wall & crossing fingers that something stuck? I know it's not that simplistic & we really have no insight to their methodology or internal debates but I have noticed a different approach lately from them.

[Zaphod]

well, I saw last year (as I've said before) as the new crew trying anything Ducati and it engineers wished, in an effort to prove that the whole bike was wrong, and that Duc needed to change a whole raft of things.

From the Ducati side, I saw last year as an attempt to prove that there must be a relatively quick, easy, stop gap solution to the problem (problems) that would enable them to get competitive again with their beloved CF framed wonder bike.That's what having Stoner had led them to belive IMO. Not having a go at Stoner at all, more trying to highlight that an imagined situation might go along the lines of......

Stoner. "the things no good, can't get the front to grip/rear to hook up, we need to do something like this or this"


Ducati. "OK, for you now, we have a different coloured top triple clamp, which also has a .0002 degree change in fork angle."


Stoner. ...thinks.... "F#$%ING hell, .....up to me again is it !?"


Goes out and wins or places. Which then, to my mind, leaves Stoner getting more and more frustrated (as well as physically worn out), and Ducati thinking they are indeed brilliant, and they can now go back to celebrating and revelling in their own (imagined) glory.


Turns out that having Melandri, Capirex, Gibernau, Hayden and Rossi telling you that the bike is shit, is exactly the same as Stoner saying, "I won on it, but it's a pile of shit that needs work to be a good bike."

Ducati appear to have selective hearing, it seems they heard Stoner say "I won on it ,but it's mumble,muffle, something Australian a good bike"


"See Luigi !.....I told you all those other riders were wrong, this-a-one knows how good we are !"





Along comes the end of 2010, start of 2011, no Stoner....oh crap !......Ah, but it can only be a matter of moving some small things around, and we will win with Rossi.


mid to late 2011......no dice, and hard reality begins to set in. Time to change the program, step into a linear development path and commit to a long haul of trying to get things right.



They have woken up to the fact that there is no quick, easy fix.


I would imagine JB and Rossi knew that long ago, and that their frustration and dispondency comes from having to deal with people who still thought the short option existed.

[Gustav O]

At an airport again Zaphod?

[Zaphod]

Nah, at home...early am.

Basically, I see that Ducati thought there wouldn't be much in it, so tried a few ideas that they may have already had kicking around, and that from day one of throwing a leg over it, JB and Rossi knew in no uncertain terms that this was going to be a big job.

Be nice, don't tell them their stuff stinks straight up, work with them and try what they think the answer is (even if you know it's never going to work) and stay positive.

Then, when you've proved your case, they'll have no option but to try other things.

A bit like Rossi trying everything he knew for bike set up, then trying Haydens set up because his own wasn't working.

I think by the end of season, if things keep progressing at the rate they are, the bike should be a lot more competitive.

At least in the long run, it should end up being a bike all can use, like the Yamaha and Honda.







Turns out the non-conspiricy people were right. Hayden is not Rossi's test rider.



Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden turned 76 and 81 laps, respectively, trying different configurations of the engine, electronics and chassis, among which was a new aluminum swingarm.

The next test for the two Ducati Team riders is scheduled for 4 June in Barcelona, the Monday after the next Grand Prix, with another test set for 6 June at Aragon in order to make up the day lost to bad weather in Portugal.

"I’d say it was a very useful test because we were able to gather interesting information on the different areas of the bike for which we had planned a robust test program," Filippo Preziosi said. "We worked on different configurations of the electronics, engine and chassis, including an aluminum swingarm. Now we want to go to other tracks, which is exactly what we’ll do in Barcelona and Aragon, to test the validity of the solutions we’ve found, in order to understand if we’ve effectively taken a small step in the right direction."

[ducati1098s]

Totally agree- how do you tell a co that have invested millions in a particular development path that its all been a waste and get them to swallow their professional pride and back up. Much easier to just keep forging on. On top of that Ducati have never had the budget of Honda or Yamaha and therefore they just could not afford to do what the likes of Yamaha did in late 2003- "here you go Vale-which of these 4 engines do you prefer?"

Over the last 18 months Ducati have made some significant changes to the bike and I suspect now that CS has announced his retirement are worried that VR will lose patience with the pace of development and the lack of certainty that a race winning bike is just around the corner and be very tempted to sign with Honda/Yamaha. IMHO timing will be everything now as whoever offers Rossi a good package on a factory bike next year is not going to wait much beyond mid season and by then will Ducati have managed to introduce a reconfigured, narrow angle engined (forward weigh biased), bike with a precise and friendly power delivery? Its a shame Rossi is not 25-26 because with time Im sure that he and Ducati will/could have got there just as Schumacher did with Ferrrari. However Rossi is now in the twilight of his career and so will not be prepared to contemplate a potentially third and penultimate barren year of his career.

Suzuki's new 2014 prototype Motogp bike clearly shows that they firmly believe that if designing a new bike,the Yamaha IL4 model with max forward weight bias and added compactness is the way forward. If thats true it makes Ducatis incredibly space hungry L four look like a complete dinosaur

[TwoStroke Institute]

Anyone care to discuss how Ducati's present development method differs from last year? It struck me that news from this latest test said they were going to test & confirm the same things at other tracks over the next couple rounds before implementing them. Last year wasn't it more of throwing each new hypothesis at the wall & crossing fingers that something stuck? I know it's not that simplistic & we really have no insight to their methodology or internal debates but I have noticed a different approach lately from them.

remember private testing ban was lifted for some strange reason this year.

[yzr750]

Anyone care to discuss how Ducati's present development method differs from last year? It struck me that news from this latest test said they were going to test & confirm the same things at other tracks over the next couple rounds before implementing them. Last year wasn't it more of throwing each new hypothesis at the wall & crossing fingers that something stuck? I know it's not that simplistic & we really have no insight to their methodology or internal debates but I have noticed a different approach lately from them.

remember private testing ban was lifted for some strange reason this year.

Quite surprising that considering how much they are trying to reduce costs

[dave_m]

Anyone care to discuss how Ducati's present development method differs from last year? It struck me that news from this latest test said they were going to test & confirm the same things at other tracks over the next couple rounds before implementing them. Last year wasn't it more of throwing each new hypothesis at the wall & crossing fingers that something stuck? I know it's not that simplistic & we really have no insight to their methodology or internal debates but I have noticed a different approach lately from them.

remember private testing ban was lifted for some strange reason this year.

Quite surprising that considering how much they are trying to reduce costs

They didn't change the number of tires allocated for testing, so the factories aren't necessarily doing more testing. Of all the cost-cutting ideas they've had, reducing the private testing time for factory riders has seemed to be one of their worst. If a factory [Ducati] was behind and needed to make changes, under the old system they ended splitting the testing between the test riders at test tracks and the factory riders during the actual races. Looking at the Ducati tests so far this year, they haven't drastically increased the amount of testing they are doing, but the changes have allowed them to try and keep making progress when outside events are not cooperating. Nicky Hayden was injured during the offseason, so Ducati was able to schedule an extra day of testing early in the season for him (although it was rained out). They were also able to re-schedule their planned test after Estoril was rained out, so the weather didn't have to delay the upgrades they had planned. It just seems to me the tire and engine limits will be able to prevent excessive testing, and the limits for the factory riders only served to keep teams that fell behind from catching up.

[Squidpuppet]

It just seems to me the tire and engine limits will be able to prevent excessive testing, and the limits for the factory riders only served to keep teams that fell behind from catching up.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I dont think there are any engine limits for testing.

[dave_m]

It just seems to me the tire and engine limits will be able to prevent excessive testing, and the limits for the factory riders only served to keep teams that fell behind from catching up.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I dont think there are any engine limits for testing.

I meant the 6 engine limit for the entire year ends up limiting how much testing they'll need to do, as they are only going to have 1 or 2 engine updates during the year at most. Trying to do any more than that won't be realistic, unless they are willing to start from pit lane.

[Gar]

With the level of electronics now there is plenty to test, even engine-wise, aside from mechanical engine updates.

[Hanuman]

Totally agree- how do you tell a co that have invested millions in a particular development path that its all been a waste and get them to swallow their professional pride and back up. Much easier to just keep forging on. On top of that Ducati have never had the budget of Honda or Yamaha and therefore they just could not afford to do what the likes of Yamaha did in late 2003- "here you go Vale-which of these 4 engines do you prefer?"

Over the last 18 months Ducati have made some significant changes to the bike ...
<snip>

Is it institutional pride?

A hypothesis:
Could it be they not know how to do what's required of a 2012 MotoGP bike? That is, they're not recalcitrant, they're just not up to the challenge. (This is not intended to bag Ducati's engineering team, they're the ones putting the hours in and their pride on the line)

Ducati Corse have limited engineering experience. I don't mean that they lack experienced and knowledegable personnel, but that their engineering scope has been rather narrow. How many new engines has Ducati designed in the last 30 years? umm, even the 851 had a 600 Pantah clutch in it. How many frames? Can you name their last race bike that didn't have a swingarm through the back of the cases?
Of course you can buy in experience, but that doesn't get you any institutional knowledge.

Of course, budget and size of your race department might also have something to do with it....