No comments on Sepang sessions...? - Page 4

 


Err, why? Rossi 1s faster than Edwards at Sepang doesn't seem surprising
in the slightest. Why should Stoner being 1s faster than Hayden be
surprising?


Or that Stoner genuinely is 1s faster than anyone else on a Ducati. At
Sepang.

--
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
Personal WebLog:    http://www.voidstar.com/      skype:julian.bond?chat
                               Stay Awake

 

Julian Bond wrote:

My experience watching racing over the decades (gasp!) has been that at
the sharp end of the stick a rider's abilities adding even a half second
is a very big difference, those kinds of margins seem inevitably to come
from the bike, tires or setup choices. Hayden has been a very
competitive rider in the past, he spent several years when he mostly ran
with a half-second per lap if not much less of race winners, he was a
world champion and on a bike his factory said they didn't think could
win it, and I see no good reason to believe Stoner is all-time
brilliant, the new GOAT. I can't imagine that Stoner would be beating
Hayden by a second or more per lap if they were both on Yamahas, for
instance, which appear to be the most egalitarian of the machines. And
Edwards WAS within a half-second of Rossi on day one, even being on a
satellite bike, and Spies, in only his second time on the GP bike,
jet-lagged, learning the track, and at least claiming not to be going
for the fastest-possible lap, was within a Hayden-Stoner-like 1.35
second margin of easily-fastest Rossi; at the next test no one will be
surprised if he cuts that to under a second if not well under.

Of course my guess would be your position is probably based on your
never-bending "Hayden is basically shit, just like Roberts, Hopkins, et
al" view, more than Stoner's absolute brilliance...


And when isn't he? How often has someone been within a half-second per
lap of him anywhere? I do think Ducati has genuinely been making some
effort to get all their guys faster, but at this test it showed really
no material tangible progress, at least compared to a year ago.

 

On Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:14:52 -0800, Mark N


There's a third possibility, which seems to be the obvious one with
the 800cc Ducati.  It's that there's something particular, even
peculiar, about that bike, such that Stoner is the only guy who can
get some speed out of it.  

It's not that Stoner's bike is better, it's not that Stoner is better,
it's that the combination of Stoner and the bike is better.
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

 


Especially at Sepang with a > 120 secs lap time.

--
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
Personal WebLog:    http://www.voidstar.com/      skype:julian.bond?chat
                            Preserve Nature

 

Julian Bond wrote:

Exactly right. Take Rossi and Spies for instance. Rossi was in rare form
at Sepang, faster than the 2nd-fastest guy by 0.4, 0.5 second both days.
It's along lap there, so one assumes the pure talent difference between
Rossi (the GOAT, after all) and anyone else on the same bike should be
over a second, maybe as much as a second and a third. So he's 1.35
second up on Spies after two days. Perfect.

Except Spies is new to the track, so he's having to learn what is a
long, tough track for someone to acclimate themselves to, and he only
has the two days. And he's still trying to figure out the bike, in only
his second run at it, and also with very little MotoGP experience prior
to this. He himself says he's still riding it like a superbike, and you
noted he was being methodical in his approach, taking his time, not
pushing too hard too soon. And his crew chief Houseworth is new to the
machine as well, and new to MotoGP bikes in general, even greener than
Spies. And going up against the much-lauded genius Burgess, who has been
tweaking MotoGP bikes since day one. And it's a satellite team, running
a satellite Yamaha, which one assumes is at maximum the same machine as
Rossi rode, and quite possibly less. Except that Rossi has been
developing the bike for his use for three years now (longer, actually,
when you consider its 990 roots), and Spies has had no input at all into
the bike.

Huh. Maybe 1.35 seconds isn't enough, maybe Rossi should be 2, 2.5
seconds up on Spies. Oh, well, there's always Edwards. Who is also on
the satellite team. And in the end he was 1.0 second down on Rossi.
After a slow second day, when he was one of only three guys not to
improve his time on the 2nd day, and on day one he was only 0.5 behind
Rossi, who is in turn at least 0.5 up on everyone. Double huh.

Maybe instead I should go back and find out how many races there were
last year where Rossi beat his teammate, who we have been led to believe
got basically the same stuff as Rossi (since we know Edwards didn't on
the factory team), by a second a lap or had a fastest lap a second or
more faster than Lorenzo's...

[checks the numbers]

Hmm, there isn't single instance of either happening, in fact the only
time either came remotely close was in the opener at Losail, another
long track, where Rossi's fast lap was 0.84 second quicker than
Lorenzo's and he beat Jorge by 16.7 seconds over 22 laps (but lost the
race to Stoner anyway). Well, shit, there must be another way to
preserve this theory and the Rossi superiority, just have to think some
more...

I know! Rossi is always sandbagging, that's all it is! He could beat
these guys by that sort of margin, it's just that it's no fun to do that...