Re: That tyre rule again (Spoiler)

 On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:56:47 -0700, Mark N


Nope.  It showed that a wet / drying race is *always* going to put the
cat amongst the pigeons regardless of the rules.
--
gomez
Honda TransAlp,KTM 640LC Enduro (For Sale)
(not is not to reply)
"The best tool for the job is the hammer thats nearest to hand"

 
Indeed. It also surprised at least two teams (Yamaha and Repsol Honda)
who didn't have any tyres that were suitable for the conditions. Because
they were forced to make limited choices on Thursday night about what
the weather might or might not do on Sunday afternoon.

--
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 On Sep 24, 5:32 am, gomez wrote:

To some extent, but hardly entirely. In the old days, the race would
have gone off as wet, and riders would have to make some call on the
right tire, maybe a hard rain, maybe an intermediate or cut slick. But
if a cut slick, at least it would be of a rather soft compound,
appropriate for conditions. And they'd know that would be the choice
for the entire race, unless they came in for a costly change of tire.
There would be some guys shooting long odds because they can afford
the risk.

Now they all start on rains, but at some point have to make the call
on the fly about coming in for a bike change, and that was to either a
fairly hard slick or cut slick, given the Thursday choice and hot
weather predicted. The Bridgestones seemed to work better once off
rains, probably another indication of their wider range of
application. So we saw Rossi really struggling, Hayden making little
progress dispite his early switch, Edwards also way down field, all
'Stones on the box, Dunlop higher than they've been for years, West
charging back to 7th after a ride-through, 1st Michelin in 9th. And we
saw pretty much everyone doing a rather dangerous run through the pits
to change bikes, then tip-toing out on cold, mostly inappropriate
tires.

I think the rules have made all this more dangerous and more
unpredictable than it used to be. And the three guys on the podium
going in had only three podiums this year between them, no wins, and
were 8th, 11th and 13th in points. Has something like that ever
happened before?

 dropped the following oil-slick:

Different decision at a different time but it is always a tricky call
with large margin of error.  The effect is the same though in that you
end up with an unusal finish order albeit a different unusual finish
order.
--
gomez
Honda TransAlp,KTM 640LC Enduro (For Sale)
(not is not to reply)
"The best tool for the job is the hammer thats nearest to hand"

 
In the few races we've had where they've swapped bikes, it feels like
there's a failure of management and comms between team and rider. The
teams should have been watching the very first people to pit to see what
they're split times were like. So it should have been obvious that
coming in early was a winning strategy well before the front runners
came in. So why didn't they put out pit boards telling them to come in?

Or. Did Yamaha, Repsol and Ducati (for Stoner) know that the dry tyres
they had available wouldn't have worked anyway? So opted to keep them
out for as long as possible on the deteriorating wets.

It does seem though that it's a rider decision when to come in with
little input from the team.

--
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
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