Ducati Sporting Club UK > Sport > Race > MotoGP - Sepang2 Test 1 Times

[antonye]

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

[Cobbett]

Originally Posted by antonye

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

(Jerez no?)

[antonye]

Originally Posted by Cobbett

(Jerez no?)

You know what I meant

[skidlids]

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.

[MJS]

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...

[Cobbett]

Originally Posted by MJS

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...

I totally agree with that. Stoner's talent masked the historic ordinariness of the factory bike. Alas I think Rossi has only now realised this; he clearly thought the base package was less of a mess than it's proved.

[antonye]

So are we now saying that Rossi isn't as good as we all thought he was?