To answer the question about the HRC engine - it doesn't count in their engine allocations for racing.

Rossi said that he wanted to stay with 1sec of Stoner, and he has (just!) at 1.077s behind. They are obviously heading in the right direction, but still a lot of work to do as yet.

But WOW! What a job Dovi has done - sticking the Tech3 Yamaha in front of the two factory boys! Great to see Crutchlow right up there as well and obviously Barbera too.

I'm disappointed by the CRTs, but to be honest I didn't expect anything else :(

VR said he wanted to stay within a second of Stoner by the end of the first test (when he was 1.5 off); I don't think they'll be content being a second off after the second test, and behind all the satellite bikes - including their own! Being a second behind the Hondas at the start of the year means finishing half a minute behind them in races.

I really therefore struggle to see how in any measurable sense they are heading in the right direction. But I can't say too often, I envy your optimism and I hope you're right!

You have to remember that they've just built a brand new bike. That means no data, no comparisons, no history ... no idea!

That they're even close to the front runners is a miracle, let alone a second down on the sorted Honda.

The other optimistic point is that reports are saying that the bike is responding to changes in the way they are expecting it to - which was not the case with the previous carbon-frame bikes. This means that once Rossi has decided how he wants it to ride, they will have a good idea of what they need to do to it because they know how to get there ... the bit that was missing last time!

It might not be sorted by the first race, it may take half the season, but I'm sure that the team is in a much better place than they were this time last season.

Well, you're optimistic, but I'm not, and more importantly, he's not!:

http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/177...ve_test.h tml

"unfortunately our position is a lot worse ... everything we tried here - especially to fix our biggest problems - didn't work ... now we also have the Monster Yamahas and satellite Hondas in front of us. We are very worried for this reason especially ... I'm too slow on corner entry and I cannot keep the right corner speed. I also have some movement in acceleration ... 0.6sec in the pace is quite a lot ... [Rossi explained that his biggest difficulty is understeer, which forces him to use the brakes too much, sapping his corner speed] ... unfortunately we don't fix nothing ... Unfortunately with this bike I'm not able to go faster and faster, like the guys on the other bikes, and we have to understand why."

Gulp.

Ouch! Let's see how they get on in Valencia ... that could be the real tell...

(Jerez no?)

You know what I meant ;)

Again Ducati really are playing catch up, Although the switch to a Alloy frame may not seem a radical step to many as it is common place on most makes of bikes these days, But to Ducati it is a new avenue they are having to explore.
They have probably been trying fixes that worked with a steel trellis frame or what VR and GB have found worked on the IL4 Yamaha or the V5 Honda but the new V4 1000 Ducati is a bit different. Most of the other race teams are just applying what they already know from racing very similar setups for the last several years. It took Honda all of the 800 Era to turn there alloy framed V4 into a championship winner, so I doubt they have done much different with the new bike and its bigger motor.

Somoene will no doubt prove me wrong, but as far as I can see, Ducati are back in their regular position, when you remove the Stoner factor - with the exception of 2006 when Loris did well on the 990, the Desmosedici has never been a consitently front-running bike. And to be fair - plenty of 2006/2007 was down to a non-level playing field when Ducati took the bold step of going to Bridgestone - I seem to recall in 2006 Loris was either unstoppable (Brno) or nowhere (Estoril). Ducati had acknowledged that they wouldn't beat the Japanese on the same tyres so were happy to go down a different route, knowing in some places they would be more competitive, and in some places, less competitive.
Now they are all on the same tyres and there is no Stoner...