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Posted by Mark N on July 12, 2008, 2:04 pm
Cooler, cloudy day today after early morning rain, which seems to have
had some impact on things. But Stoner still on pole:
1. Casey STONER (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:21.067
2. Dani PEDROSA (Honda), Michelin, 1:21.420
3. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha), Michelin, 1:21.519
4. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda), Michelin, 1:21.656
5. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha), Michelin, 1:21.795
6. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda), Michelin, 1:21.821
7. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha), Bridgestone, 1:21.845
8. Nicky HAYDEN (Honda), Michelin, 1:21.876
9. Shinya NAKANO (Honda), Bridgestone, 1:21.920
10. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda), Bridgestone, 1:21.977
11. James TOSELAND (Yamaha), Michelin, 1:22.126
12. Toni ELIAS (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:22.256
13. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki), Bridgestone, 1:22.542
14. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki), Bridgestone, 1:22.601
15. Sylvain GUINTOLI (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:22.938
16. Marco MELANDRI (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:23.131
17. Anthony WEST (Kawasaki), Bridgestone, 1:23.158
Notable here is the tire distribution - Stoner on Bridgestones by some
margin followed by six Michelin guys, then Rossi on 'stones and Hayden
on Michelins, with the last one on the French tires being Toseland in
11th, followed by six Bridestones. Last year's race was a Michelin
affair, although one that was said to be impacted by Bridgestone
allocation choices. That makes Stoner's dominance even more amazing.
But what about race tires today? 2007 winner Pedrosa topped Stoner in
the morning, but that was a one-lap wonder (although his 8th lap on the
tires). In the Q Stoner almost broke into the 21s on race ties, doing a
22.06 and a 22.08, while Pedrosa's best was a 22.25, and in general
Stoner was mid-low 22s while Pedrosa was mid-high 22s. In the morning
Dani's 22.34 was his only 22, while Stoner's session included
significantly fewer laps, but did four 22s. Edwards' morning was a
waste, 15th-quick, and in the afternoon it appears he went to the Qs
early, then back to a race tire, doing a 22.83 and a 22.71, and then
back to Qs.
The second row is led by Dovizioso, who was doing fairly steady high
22s, five with a best of 22.76. Lorenzo was mid-23s, did a series of
one-off laps including some Qs, then finished with back-to-back 22.04
and 22.28 times - a Q or race tire? He was 14th in the morning, so no
speed there. De Puniet perhaps qualified higher than he can race, but he
did a run in the Q that got down to a 22.42 on the 8th lap, the last
four laps all 22s.
Rossi on the third row, although he did very steady mid-22s on race
tires, a total of 11 laps between 22.2 and 22.7. Hayden got down to a
couple high 22s on his first run, none in his shorter 2nd run, and then
on to the Qs. He was 3rd-quick in the morning, another high 22. Nakano
had a quicker race tire lap, a 22.56, but did only 3 in the session. De
Angelis rounds out the top ten and is probably the last podium hopeful,
having been 2nd-fastest in the Friday sessions and the only guy other
than Stoner did a 21, although that might well have been a Q. But he did
get down to a 22.13 on a race tire in the Q session.
Friday PM was the fastest session, and the guys who improved on their
fastest times in the Saturday PM session were Pedrosa (by 0.7),
Dovizioso, de Puniet (by 0.7), Rossi (by 0.5), Hayden, Nakano, maybe de
Angelis. Can't tell if those guys made major moves on setup or if they
just faired better in the cooler conditions. And weather is the big
question for tomorrow.
But a dry race looks like Stoner again and Pedrosa and Rossi filling out
the box, Dani maybe having the edge based on starting position. Looks
like Hayden's run of four straight podiums in Germany will end, unless
he finds something overnight or in the warmup and one of these three has
a problem. I don't hold out a lot of hope for the second row, but would
guess Dovi will be right in there with Colin and Nicky in the fight for
4th, and de Angelis should be there if he doesn't screw up again.
Lorenzo also seems to pull it out of the hat on race day, so really a
tough call. Rain would be a crapshoot, but the best guess has to be
Stoner again.
Then off to Laguna, which was dominated by Bridgestone last year. If
that holds, could we possibly be looking at a Stoner-Rossi-Spies podium?
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Posted by Champ on July 12, 2008, 2:24 pm
On Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:04:19 -0700, Mark N
>Cooler, cloudy day today after early morning rain, which seems to have
>had some impact on things. But Stoner still on pole:
>
>1. Casey STONER (Ducati), Bridgestone, 1:21.067
>2. Dani PEDROSA (Honda), Michelin, 1:21.420
>3. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha), Michelin, 1:21.519
>4. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda), Michelin, 1:21.656
>5. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha), Michelin, 1:21.795
>6. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda), Michelin, 1:21.821
>7. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha), Bridgestone, 1:21.845
>Rossi on the third row, although he did very steady mid-22s on race
>tires, a total of 11 laps between 22.2 and 22.7.
Rossi had his last run on Q tyres balked by other riders; he was a
tenth up at split 2 (on Stoner's previous slower time), so should have
probably been ok for a place on the first two rows. And, after that,
Edwards and De Puniet went faster in dying second runs to bump him
down to the 3rd row.
I've little doubt that Stoner will ride away tomorrow, but now more
than ever Rossi needs a good start to make a race of it with Pedrosa.
--
Champ
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Posted by Champ on July 12, 2008, 3:24 pm
>Rossi had his last run on Q tyres balked by other riders; he was a
>tenth up at split 2 (on Stoner's previous slower time),
I take it back - I just watched it again, and no one else affected
Vale - he made a mistake (just a little wiggle, really) and lost 0.4
on the last sector.
--
Champ
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Posted by pablo on July 13, 2008, 5:15 am
just watching yet another 125cc highly entertaining race, darn i will
miss them, euromidgets and all. and as i am watching it, good heavens,
is Bradley Smith going to finally mature and keep both tires down?
please please, the guy has immense talent and i am convinced he has
just had truly awful luck...
as to the MotoGP bikes, supposedly Pedrosa has looked very good in the
warmup. a characteristic thing about Pedrosa is that no one seems to
be able to get too excited about it, him least of all.
looking forward to the races, live via motogp.com...
...p
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Posted by Mark N on July 13, 2008, 2:45 pm
Mark N wrote:
> But a dry race looks like Stoner again and Pedrosa and Rossi filling out
> the box, Dani maybe having the edge based on starting position. Looks
> like Hayden's run of four straight podiums in Germany will end, unless
> he finds something overnight or in the warmup and one of these three has
> a problem. I don't hold out a lot of hope for the second row, but would
> guess Dovi will be right in there with Colin and Nicky in the fight for
> 4th, and de Angelis should be there if he doesn't screw up again.
> Lorenzo also seems to pull it out of the hat on race day, so really a
> tough call. Rain would be a crapshoot, but the best guess has to be
> Stoner again.
1. Casey STONER (Ducati), Bridgestone, 30 laps, 47:30.057
2. Valentino ROSSI (Yamaha), Bridgestone, -3.708 seconds
3. Chris VERMEULEN (Suzuki), Bridgestone, -14.002
4. Alex DE ANGELIS (Honda), Bridgestone, -14.124
5. Andrea DOVIZIOSO (Honda), Michelin, -42.022
6. Sylvain GUINTOLI (Ducati), Bridgestone, -46.648
7. Loris CAPIROSSI (Suzuki), Bridgestone, -64.483
8. Randy DE PUNIET (Honda), Michelin, -64.588
9. Shinya NAKANO (Honda), Bridgestone, -76.773
10. Anthony WEST (Kawasaki), Bridgestone, -89.275, crash
11. James TOSELAND (Yamaha), Michelin, -1 lap
12. Toni ELIAS (Ducati), Bridgestone, -1 lap
13. Nicky HAYDEN (Honda), Michelin, -2 laps, pitted
14. Colin EDWARDS (Yamaha), Michelin, -10 laps, DNF, crash
15. Marco MELANDRI (Ducati), Bridgestone, -21 laps, DNF, crash
16. Dani PEDROSA (Honda), Michelin, -25 laps, DNF, crash
17. Jorge LORENZO (Yamaha), Michelin, -28 laps, DNF, crash
And Stoner it was, after a massive mistake by Pedrosa, crashing out
under braking while running away with a 7-second lead after 5 laps.
Total disaster for Repsol Honda after posting the two fastest times in
the wet warmup, with Hayden having some sort of tire selection problem
mixed with more electronics issues with the new motor, and was seconds
off anyone else's pace until he pulled in to change the rear tire on the
8th lap.
Stoner took over after Dani's crash and never looked back. Dani had set
race fast lap on each of his five laps before the crash, and that was
bested 3 times over the next 6 laps but never by Casey. The he got the
first of 7 red helmets on lap 11, the last coming on lap 23 (Vermeulen
and Rossi each got their 2nd ones during this run as well). It almost
eemed like Casey could pull one out whenever he needed to - by the time
Rossi had worked through to 2nd, on lap 9, Stoner had built up a
3.2-second lead, and that never got lower than the 2.5 seconds it was on
the next lap before Casey responded.
Otherwise, Vermeulen did his usual excellent job in the rain, taking his
6th career MotoGP podium, with 5 of those being on wet tracks -
consistently the best rain rider in the series. Today in the best
sustained fight in the race he had to hold off de Angelis, who even with
his excellent 4th must have wished it had been dry, such is his form on
this circuit (the announcers said he'd been on pole here the last six
years in 125 and 250). Dovizioso was a steady 5th and the only Michelin
in the top seven.
Edwards crashed out of 5th on lap 21, that position pretty much in the
bag. Lorenzo crashed out on lap 3, apparently as anemic a rain rider as
Pedrosa was (is?) coming into the class, just no feel for it. Melandri
had worked up to 7th on lap 9 and had set a race fast lap before
crashing. Westy crashed on lap 8 after working up to 7th, remounted in
13th and gained back a few spots. Toseland surprisingly never factored
at all.
Anyway, for a rain race it was really quite boring. The surprising
Pedrosa runaway ended quickly, and perhaps fittingly in retrospect.
After Stoner reacted to the closing Rossi it seemed Vale's only hope was
a similar mistake by Casey, but that never seemed very likely. The three
guys who were fastest in the dry and are usually the fastest ended up
fastest in the wet as well, even without any real practice in those
conditions (at this track, anyway).
> Then off to Laguna, which was dominated by Bridgestone last year. If
> that holds, could we possibly be looking at a Stoner-Rossi-Spies podium?
Even in the rain the German race brings the discussion back to things
like electronic rider aids and tires, things we'd hoped had been largely
left behind before Stoner's post-Barcelona run. In the last three rounds
Casey has won all three, set race fast lap in all three, led six of six
Friday practices, didn't lead any of the weather-effected Saturday
morning practices but was on pole all three times, and has led 81 of 86
laps. Given how Laguna went last year, one wonders if the others should
just mail it in and start their summer vacations this week. And this all
started with revisions to the electronic settings at the Catalunya test,
not the usual geometry or suspension setup discovery, or new hard parts
off the truck from the factory.
That Stoner is the only one who can make this bike work the way it can
hardly leads one inevitably to the conclusion that he's simply the
superior rider. Although one can only imagine what people would be
saying about the bike had Gresini not decided to exercise his option on
Melandri at the end of '06 and Marco and Capiroissi had been the riders
the last season and a half. Or what they might be saying had Hayden
signed on the dotted line at Philip Island in '06? But would anyone
guess that Stoner would be as dominant were he in Hayden's or Lorenzo's
seats today? Probably better than what they're doing, but dominating? I
doubt it.
Brings it back to the notion of the right rider on the right bike and
the right tires at the right time. Which really isn't an electronics
issue as much as it's been a MotoGP issue back to the beginning,
although it's just more pronounced and obvious today, I think.
As for Laguna, the only reasonable expectation is Stoner dominance. Last
year he led every session and won by 10 seconds, with Bridgestone
sweeping the podium (Vermeulen's only dry one, and Melandri's last one).
If the tire equation holds, Rossi should finish 2nd on the track where
he finally gave up on Michelin a year ago. Pedrosa may be hurt after his
crash today (and what about the lack of runoff at that air fence-lined
Sachsenring?), Lorenzo, Dovizioso and de Angelis have never seen the
place, Hopkins is out, so maybe the best bet for the podium is the one
we saw today, Laguna being easily Vermeulen's best track in the dry. And
a Bridgestone race bodes well for Spies and Hacking, not so much for
Hayden, who will also have to keep his fingers crossed on the
programmers' work in that black box.
A podium for Spies is not out of the question on a track where he's won
the last three times out in SB, a top five almost reasonable, and a top
ten an absolute expectation. On the other hand, he's missed the two
tests there this year, so will be under heavy fire by Mladin in the AMA
race. Not to put any pressure on him...
At least for a change it won't rain next weekend, the long-term forecast
being typical for July - early morning coastal fog then sunny, highs in
the upper 60s...
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