MotoGP 2012

[DidJit]

KS34's take on Qatar's racing.

[Cleve]

KS34's take on Qatar's racing.

Good read - cheers.

[Crasherfromwayback]

KS34's take on Qatar's racing.

I recall saying last year that I though the horrific accident with Simo may well effect Rossi more than most think. Got poo poo'ed for it too.

[Robert Taylor]

I recall saying last year that I though the horrific accident with Simo may well effect Rossi more than most think. Got poo poo'ed for it too.

Do you recall me telling you that Jorge would win the first round? ( There is a God )

[Crasherfromwayback]

Do you recall me telling you that Jorge would win the first round? ( There is a God )

No. Bet you he won't win the championship though! Barring injury, Stoner will still beat him to it. If Spies carries on like he is...he'll be looking for a job next year too.

Rachel's shocks are on their way to you.

[steveyb]

What has been bugging me, other than Taylors gloating, and Crashers teenage Stoner crush, is this:
Back in, when was it? 2005? When Capirex and Gibernau and Bayliss rode the Ducati Desmoseidici GP5 990 it seemed, on the face of it, to be an excellent race bike. It seemed that, prior to the Barcelona accident, Capirex was on track to walk away with the championship in the first year of the Desmoseidici GP5.
Now, perhaps that was because the Honda and the Yamaha, certainly the Yamaha, were not actually very good and the Ducati was just a little bit better. It certainly had more power and straight line speed.
Since then the Honda and Yamaha have developed forward significantly while the Ducati has developed sideways.
It has bugged me that Ducati seem to have a good design base in the Desmoseidici GP5 but are not exploiting it.
Am I being a little naive to suggest that the current riders would perform better than they are currently if they simply rolled out the GP5's and tarted them up a bit (i.e. new electronics, suspensions etc)?
I wonder................

[Mental Trousers]

The problem is that Ducati is an Italian company and is full of Italians. They all know better than everyone else and don't listen.

Nicky Hayden got a decent result on the weekend but he's still saying there's front end problems, ie they haven't fixed it. The only thing they haven't totally redesigned is the engine. It's been the one constant the entire time, right from when Stoner got on the Carbon Monocoque through to now - a 90 degree L engine. That entire time there has been front end problems.

There's a very good reason that conventional bike designs have been pushing the engine and rider forward. Any pit lane mechanic will tell you it's best if the engine's weight is as far forward as you can get it.

[Robert Taylor]

The problem is that Ducati is an Italian company and is full of Italians. They all know better than everyone else and don't listen.

Nicky Hayden got a decent result on the weekend but he's still saying there's front end problems, ie they haven't fixed it. The only thing they haven't totally redesigned is the engine. It's been the one constant the entire time, right from when Stoner got on the Carbon Monocoque through to now - a 90 degree L engine. That entire time there has been front end problems.

There's a very good reason that conventional bike designs have been pushing the engine and rider forward. Any pit lane mechanic will tell you it's best if the engine's weight is as far forward as you can get it.

If you look at a map of Italy its shaped like a boot. Why you may wonder?

Because there is no way you'd get that amount of shit in a shoe....

[slowpoke]

And if not the Moto 2 crowd...the big boys next year certainly will.

Absolutely! The list of 125 and 250 champs who've gone on to do absolutely nothing is longer than those who've done otherwise. It only gets tougher to ptrogress from where he is.

I think seeing Rossi 'retire' to WSB would be sad.

I recall saying last year that I though the horrific accident with Simo may well effect Rossi more than most think. Got poo poo'ed for it too.

True again. I think the fun has well and truly gone out of it for Rossi and all of a sudden it's a fukn hard grind. Nothing tales away from what he's done in therpast but it's going to be interesting looking back over this, and what happens next, in years to come.

If I was Mr Yamaha I'd still take Rossi in a flash over Spies, so there could be a twist in the tale yet. Spies is good but he's never gonna be a world champion.

What has been bugging me, other than Taylors gloating, and Crashers teenage Stoner crush, is this:
Back in, when was it? 2005? When Capirex and Gibernau and Bayliss rode the Ducati Desmoseidici GP5 990 it seemed, on the face of it, to be an excellent race bike. It seemed that, prior to the Barcelona accident, Capirex was on track to walk away with the championship in the first year of the Desmoseidici GP5.
Now, perhaps that was because the Honda and the Yamaha, certainly the Yamaha, were not actually very good and the Ducati was just a little bit better. It certainly had more power and straight line speed.
Since then the Honda and Yamaha have developed forward significantly while the Ducati has developed sideways.
It has bugged me that Ducati seem to have a good design base in the Desmoseidici GP5 but are not exploiting it.
Am I being a little naive to suggest that the current riders would perform better than they are currently if they simply rolled out the GP5's and tarted them up a bit (i.e. new electronics, suspensions etc)?
I wonder................

Yep, thought the same thing mate. In years gone by several racers have made a decent fist of the earlier Duc's (as opposed to the later bikes), and Capirossi was leading that title chase until the bingle with Gibernau. But how have lap times progressed since then? What were the 2005 bikes doing vs the 2012 bikes? We won't know until they reach the same tracks but even then we'll be asking ourselves how much is due to the bastard electronics.

Like you I can't help wondering if a return to the future wouldn't be a step forward? Be great to hear about Rossi and Hayden rolling out a 2005 bike for a comparison, and given how things are going I'd put money on it having already happened. And they can bash out trellis frames in a fraction of the time it takes to turn around a billet ally spar unit. Does it really matter that they lose 5hp through the airbox restrictions of a trellis frame?

[DidJit]

Some insights into Valentino's thoughts on the Ducati, and the struggle both bike and rider currently face.

[Cleve]

and here Mat Oxley on Stoner, chatter and arm pump http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/ra...p-and-chatter/

[Crasherfromwayback]

What has been bugging me, other than Taylors gloating, and Crashers teenage Stoner crush, .

Hey...at least they guy I have a crush on is of age!!!

[Mental Trousers]

hmmmm .

[steveyb]

Wunderbar!

[Robert Taylor]

Wunderbar!

''All political careers end in failure'' ( Helen Clark )

''A single death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths are a statistic'' Josef Stalin ( Uncle Joe )