> - The Yamaha remains the best bike.
Rossi remains the best Yamaha rider.
> - Honda still has problems, viewed from both the factory and the
>satellite perspectives.
Honda riders still have problems. The Bot creeps up on a good time. The
others are confused.
> - Stoner's bike remains far ahead of the other Ducati riders' machines.
Stoner remains far ahead of the other Ducati riders.
> - No question among the rookies, even with a bad case of jet lag and
>being the only guy having to learn the track, Spies led the way.
Again, Spies impresses with the methodical way he approaches it. No huge
high sides, just continuous steady progress.
> Closest was Espargaro,
He's going to surprise this year with the way he can get the Ducati
solidly into the mid field. (love that faint praise!)
>Simo in particular is being embarrassed by comparison to Spies, since
>he's supposed to be the big MotoGP prospect who will blossom on a bike
>more fitting his size; one wonders if he's actually at more of a
>disadvantage on the electronically-controlled DaniBike (still haven't
>seen a picture of him dwarfing that thing).
Simo
http://www.crash.net/motogp/picturearchive/0/9/motogp/0/photos.html
http://www.crash.net/motogp/picturearchive/0/120/motogp/0/photos.html
http://www.crash.net/motogp/picturearchive/0/125/motogp/0/photos.html
Pedrobot
http://www.crash.net/motogp/picturearchive/0/16/motogp/0/photos.html
http://www.crash.net/motogp/picturearchive/0/44/motogp/0/photos.html
http://www.crash.net/motogp/picturearchive/0/74/motogp/0/photos.html
>Anyway, the overall impression is stagnation,
- 4 riders making a proper race of it at the front. 2 Texans and
occasionally others 10 secs back. That's not so bad.
>On top of that, Matters also reports the factories are lobbying for the
>goddamned 800s to stay through 2012 - fuuuuck...
That's going to be interesting. Why don't they go all the way...
- 800 free prototypes
- 1000cc restricted bore, valve springs only (no pneumatic, no desmo)
- 1200cc twins with a weight advantage
Then in a couple of years they can phase out the 800s and further
tighten the 1000-1200 rules. Perhaps they could introduce a complicated
rolling handicap system for the 1200-2s. And a 3 part final qualifying
session. And a bizarre points system like AMA and BSB.
Oh. Wait.
--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
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Rinse, Lather, Repeat
Julian Bond wrote:
> Mark N
>> - The Yamaha remains the best bike.
> Rossi remains the best Yamaha rider.
>
>> - Honda still has problems, viewed from both the factory and the
>> satellite perspectives.
> Honda riders still have problems. The Bot creeps up on a good time. The
> others are confused.
That's a LOT of confusion. Of course this is the factory that invented
and perfected the ex-250 midget JIS takeover of GP (versions one and
two), so in some sense it's fitting that in the end they're brought down
by their riders...
>> - Stoner's bike remains far ahead of the other Ducati riders' machines.
> Stoner remains far ahead of the other Ducati riders.
One of the possibilities overall here, which is what I was suggesting at
the end of my post, is that the nature of the machines and electronics
that control them (and the deep politics of GP, of course) has gotten to
a point where they can be and are shaped around a very particular rider.
So Ducati has been and remains essentially Stoner-only, the Honda 800
remains the DaniBike it started out being, and maybe now Yamaha has
tweaked its machine Rossi's way, having decided what their play will be
in the already-underway 2011 silly season, and so Lorenzo finds a gap
there that didn't quite exist last year, when Yamaha might have been a
bit more concerned about getting him signed for 2010, or just didn't
think he quite had it in him anyway. Ignore the man behind the curtain
with the laptop...
>> - No question among the rookies, even with a bad case of jet lag and
>> being the only guy having to learn the track, Spies led the way.
> Again, Spies impresses with the methodical way he approaches it. No huge
> high sides, just continuous steady progress.
Yep, nothing new, and at this point nothing surprising.
>> Closest was Espargaro,
> He's going to surprise this year with the way he can get the Ducati
> solidly into the mid field. (love that faint praise!)
I'll believe it when I see it. And midpack for a undistinguished MotoGP
rookie on a satellite Ducati isn't exactly faint praise, if one defines
midpack as ass-end of the top ten...
>> Anyway, the overall impression is stagnation,
> - 4 riders making a proper race of it at the front. 2 Texans and
> occasionally others 10 secs back. That's not so bad.
Given the times posted and the length of a Sepang race at 21 laps, Rossi
beats Stoner by 8 seconds, Pedrosa is 4th and nearly 20 seconds back,
and Spies 7th and 28 seconds back. That looks like the now-typical 800
procession to me. At this same test last year the total separation in
the field was 2.9 seconds and this year that's 2.35, but last year
Toseland and Canepa were outlyers, the rest were within 2.45. Last year
Takahashi was 14th and 2.43 off Stoner's fast time, this year Aoyama,
who I think is better, is 14th and 2.27 off Rossi's best. De Puniet was
2.38 back in '09, and now he's 2.12; Hayden was 1.45, now 1.57; Kallio
was 1.34, now 2.06; Capirossi 0.22 then, 1.18 now. Again, I just don't
see the change, the improvement, the tightening of the field.
>> On top of that, Matters also reports the factories are lobbying for
>> the goddamned 800s to stay through 2012 - fuuuuck...
>
> That's going to be interesting. Why don't they go all the way...
> - 800 free prototypes
> - 1000cc restricted bore, valve springs only (no pneumatic, no desmo)
> - 1200cc twins with a weight advantage
> Then in a couple of years they can phase out the 800s and further
> tighten the 1000-1200 rules. Perhaps they could introduce a complicated
> rolling handicap system for the 1200-2s. And a 3 part final qualifying
> session. And a bizarre points system like AMA and BSB.
>
> Oh. Wait.
Yeah, MotoGP doesn't have to make the same mistakes as WSB, they are
creative enough that they can make their own. The reality of this
proposition is that it won't work, the only way the factories blend
machines on the grid is if they know that the ones their factory teams
are running with their multi-million euro riders with equally large egos
and who drive the money machine that is MotoGP have to do all the
winning. So either they run 800s again, which is the big money-saver,
and no 1000s show except maybe some independent team building their own
from a steetbike motor, or they run 1000s that are faster (like the 990s
in 2002) and the rest are even more hopeless than they are today. And so
the spec of the 1000s to be used in the future is decided by what that
one-season desire is, to either be sufficiently slower or sufficiently
faster than the 800s, and to also play nice with them on the track (you
can't have the 800s qualifying faster only to be chronically passed on
the straights and slowed in the corners).
More likely this is evidence of a catch-22 - switching costs too much,
but staying makes the racing boring and hurts GP as a promotional tool,
which in turn reduces the justification/budget for it, which in turn
keeps the 800s out there longer. Which gives the Flamminis another
golden opportunity, which they will blow again by insisting that Ducati
wins most of the time. In other words, sort of like the final years of
500 before the first switch to 1000s - history repeats itself, but with
just enough new twist and refinement to keep us mildly interested...
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