2010 MotoGP Preview

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2010 MotoGP Preview

Post by mlittle » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:11 am

(Part 1.............)
Countdown to Qatar, Part 1

Speed's Dennis Noyes has an excellent article(linked above) concerning the start of the 2010 MotoGP World Championship...........(quoting the article)


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Can FIAT Yamaha's Valentino Rossi hold off Ducati's Casey Stoner for series honors or will the Doctor win another MotoGP crown?

~~~~There are no points or trophies to be had in preseason testing and, unlike prior years, the world financial crisis has taken away the traditional Spring Shoot-Out with its BMW automobile as the prize for the fastest man on two wheels. But whenever the best riders in the world share a track there is ultimately a winner and a pecking order. Anyone who says these tests and these times don't matter doesn’t know motorcycle racers.

After three two-day sessions for the 17 permanent MotoGP riders there was one winner and one very pesky runner-up. Italy’s Valentino Rossi was fastest in five of the six sessions on his FIAT Yamaha M1, but was just edged in the final session at Losail in Qatar by Australian Casey Stoner, who left his best lap until late and took not only honors for the best time on Day 2 but also the best overall time for the two-day (actually two-night) session under the lights.

Stoner’s best time of 1´55.353 with the Ducati Desmosedici was not quite as quick as his fastest lap last year of 1’55.286, set en route to the win of the 2009 opener, nor as fast as Jorge Lorenzo’s absolute Losail lap record of 1´53.927 (on Michelin tires) set back in 2008 when he took his Yamaha to second back of Stoner in the young Spaniard’s MotoGP debut.

Based on each rider’s overall placing at the end of each of the six days of official testing, Rossi and Stoner are exactly where they were expected to be by most observers and fans, and Lorenzo’s slump to fourth can be explained by a training crash on a motocross bike that resulted in a broken thumb and caused him to miss the second Sepang outings.

But the results by the factory Honda riders have been disappointing, and Honda’s leader, Dani Pedrosa, has had a disappointing preseason as reflected in his average placing -- only good enough to put him ninth.

The following shows the riders relative placing at each of the three two-day tests. Rossi and Stoner stand clear of the rest with Andrea Dovizioso, Jorge Lorenzo (on the basis of only four days of testing), and Colin Edwards taking the next three places.

American Ben Spies, sixth overall in average placing, tied with veteran Loris Capirossi on the factory Suzuki, was only 12th on the first day of the first Sepang tests, and dropped to tenth on Day 2 of the Qatar tests, but was fifth three times and third once at the other tests -- results probably more in line with the rookie Texan’s true potential.

So what can we conclude from six days of closely observed tests? We have the luxury now to speculate before the points start being taken. This is what it looks like to me less than three weeks from the start of the 2010 season -- which will be the 26th season I have covered. Back in 1974 I remember we were speculating on whether the two strokes (Agostini and Lansivuori on the Yamahas and Sheene and Findlay on the Suzukis) would finally beat the red MVs of Read and Bonera. (They didn't, but in '75 they did.)

So, here we go again.

Rider-Sepang 1/Sepang 2/ Qatar / (Total Placings) / Average Placing
1- Valentino Rossi /1,1/ 1,1/ 1,2/ (7) 1.17
2- Casey Stoner /2,2/2,2/2,1/ (11) 1.83
3- Andrea Dovizioso /6,6/3,7/6,3/ (31) 5.17
4- Jorge Lorenzo /5,3/X,X,/7,6/ (21) 5.25*
5- Colin Edwards /3,7/6,4/4,8/ (32) 5.33
6- Ben Spies /12,5/5,5/3,10/ (40) 6.67
6- Loris Capirossi /4,10/4,6/11,5/ (40) 6.67
8- Nicky Hayden /7,8/11,3/8,4/ (41) 6.83
9- Dani Pedrosa /8,4/7,8/10,13/ (50) 8.33
10- R. De Puniet /13,13/15,11/5,7/ (64) 10.67
11-Mika Kallio /9,17/8,14/9,9/ (66) 11.0
12. M. Melandri /X,11/10,12/12,14/ (59) 11.8*
13. A. Espargaró /11,9/13,16/16,11/ (76) 12.67
14. H. Barberá /10,12/14,13/13,15/ (77) 12.83
15. A. Bautista /14,16/9,10/17,12/ [78] 13.0
15-H. Aoyama /X,17/14,12/14,16/ (86) 14.33
17-M. Simoncelli /X,15/X,17/15,X/ (47) 15.67*

* The riders indicated with asterisks did not take part in all six pre-season sessions. Lorenzo missed the second two-day test in Sepang because of an injury to his right thumb in a training crash on a motocross bike. Melandri sat out the opening session on a drying track at the first Sepang tests, and Simoncelli also sat out the day of Sepang and missed the second day of Sepang 2 and the Qatar tests due to a crash on Day 1.

(.........continued in next post)
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Post by mlittle » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:16 am

(continued from first post.............)
-----Conclusions: Rossi At His Best

Valentino Rossi is riding better today than at any time in his career. There were days last year was Jorge Lorenzo was faster, but the Italian was the better racer boasting superior racecraft. When Rossi first came to the 500 class he said, in one of those rare moments of complete disclosure, “I can think and I can ride the 500 very fast, but I cannot yet do these things at the same time.”

Now he can. Last year Rossi won the races he needed to win in order to keep his young teammate Lorenzo at bay in spite of two potentially costly un-forced errors (Donington Park and Indianapolis) that showed the effects of growing pressure coming from his teammate. But as he has done in each of his seven championship seasons in the premier class, the Italian clinched the title before the final race.

The low point of the season for Rossi was his crash at Indy while leading the race and with Lorenzo nipping at his heels. In the previous race Lorenzo had crashed out of a close battle with Rossi at Brno in the Czech Republic and Rossi was furious with himself for making a similar error and letting Lorenzo back into the title chase, allowing the Spaniard, who had trailed by 50 points going into Indy -- equivalent to two race wins -- to pull back to within 25.

Rossi had to win the next race at Misano, his home track and close to his home. His win over Lorenzo there turned the tide back in his favor and then he seemed to change his approach, 'cruising' to a fourth, a second, a third (clinching in Malaysia) and a final second in Valencia. Then, immediately after the final GP he was third on each of the first two days of the post-season tests and went home early, leaving Stoner to set the quickest lap on the tests on the final day.

But, after the long offseason, with testing now severely restricted in order to cut costs, Rossi cleared up any doubts about his readiness for the new season.

The results in these six days of preseason testing are typical of Rossi. Fastest in every session but the last one. There is a very confident attitude on Rossi’s side of the wall that separates the FIAT Yamaha garage. Not a complacent attitude, something that would be impossible to sustain with Jeremy Burgess as crew chief, but with Lorenzo and his crew, led by Ramón Forcada, no longer able to access Rossi´s data (more on that later), the feeling is that Lorenzo, who starts the season recovering from a thumb injury, may struggle.

Rossi has only lost two titles since 2001. In 2006 he failed to take advantage of the Honda train wreck at Estoril, Portugal, when then rookie Dani Pedrosa torpedoed his teammate Nicky Hayden at the first hairpin, Rossi lost five points that day when he was beaten by .002 by Toni Elias. Then he threw it all away by crashing at the final race at Valencia and thereby saving Honda from enormous embarrassment as Hayden won the title -- Honda’s last to date.

Then in 2007 Rossi, in spite of some very desperate riding on a down-on-speed Yamaha, was beaten by the strong Ducati-Stoner-Bridgestone combination. He even lost the runner-up place in the championship to Pedrosa due to a crash in qualifying that left him with a broken hand. He did start in Sunday but was unable to ride anywhere near his best and retired, the team said, with an engine problem.

That means that in ten years in the primer class Rossi has finished second twice -- in his rookie year to Kenny Roberts Junior, in 2006 to Nicky Hayden, and third once, in 2007, behind Stoner and Pedrosa. He has won the other seven years and has a won 77 of his 167 starts in the premier class, a towering winning percentage of 46%.

He says he intends to race for three more years. And he would like to retire champion, something that no one has done in the primer class of Grand Prix racing since John Surtees left MV to go to Formula 1 at the end of the 1960 season.

(Although in World Superbike, Troy Bayliss left on top, carrying the #1 plate at the end of 2008.)
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Post by mlittle » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:21 am

Part 2...............
Countdown to Qatar, Part 2)


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3-time AMA American Superbike and 2009 World Superbike champion Ben Spies begins 2010 with the privateer Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad. Impressive in pre-season testing, can the Texan do just as well once the season begins.......

~~~Casey Of Arabia

It was no upset that Casey Stoner bested Valentino Rossi by 0.049 seconds after two days at a track that the young Australian loves, where he has won for the last three seasons and where he took pole and led early before fading to fifth in his MotoGP debut in 2006.

What impressed me most about Stoner’s ride in Qatar in 2006 was not so much that he was on the pole nor that he battled Rossi for the lead early on. The impressive thing was the attitude. After that race, Valentino was somewhat dismissive of Stoner’s time at the front, saying that, like most 250 riders, Stoner was fast until his tires went off. Stoner took offence saying that he had no trouble handling a sliding Honda on worn tires, but that he was weak that day because he was suffering from the flu -- a lot of chutzpah from a MotoGP rookie!

Stoner’s recent Qatar time on March 19 was especially good because he set it in the final session when temperatures were coolest in the desert night. It was enough to spoil Rossi’s bid for a clean sweep of the preseason and a reminder that Stoner was the fastest man over the last three races of last year after taking a three-race R&R break back home in Oz while he dealt with the mysterious and debilitating illness that struck first at Round 4 at the Circuit of Catalunya and dogged him through the next four races, eventually causing him to pull out and miss the GPs of the Czech Republic, Indianapolis, and Misano.

Stoner has been a fragile rider over much of his career, often ill as a young 125 and 250 rider, but if his problems last year were really only a case of lactose intolerance or something similar, and if this is all behind him now, the combination of a healthy Stoner and the revised firing order of the “big bang” Desmosedici could mean big trouble for Rossi but also big excitement for the series.

Lonesome Lorenzo

If ever there was a teammate who had reason to feel shunned by the guy on the other side of the garage, it is Jorge Lorenzo. Back in 2007 when Jorge’s former manager, Dani Amatriain, was negotiating with Yamaha race boss, Lin Jarvis, over the conditions of the Spaniard’s deal, Valentino was adamant that Colin Edwards would continue as his teammate and that Lorenzo, if he came to Yamaha at all, would have to enter via the Tech3 team.

I remember Edwards telling me that -- telling me that he had been told that “by Rossi and Yamaha,” but, apparently, not by Jarvis.

When it became clear that Lorenzo was coming into the factory team, up went the wall separating the Yamaha garage. Then the issue became who was copying whose settings. Although it seemed logical that Lorenzo would use Rossi’s base settings, there were, according to Jorge's side of the garage, occasions when it was Rossi and Burgess who were copying Jorge and Forcada.

As part of his renewal with Yamaha for a single season, Lorenzo is now doing his own development work. However, since Lorenzo is now doing his own parallel development and bringing his own special parts for the M1, Rossi’s data will no longer be available to Lorenzo and Lorenzo's no longer available to Rossi.

Obviously the Japanese engineers will have both streams of data available and it is hard -- almost impossible -- to imagine that a breakthrough by one rider would be withheld from the other, at least for long. With Rossi still perceived in Yamaha to be the “number one” Lorenzo wonders if the wall between the two garages is actually, as far as data is concerned, a one-way mirror with Rossi on the best side.

(...........continued in next post)
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Post by mlittle » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:22 am

(.......from previous post)


~~~Lorenzo has finished third and second in his first two years and says that his goal this year is to improve on his finish again. His injury while training on a motocross bike (on asphalt riding a “Supermotard” Yamaha) was a set back that caused him to miss the second set of Sepang tests, but he was close to the front on the lists again in Qatar and has always shown amazing ability to return from injury.

Rossi has identified Stoner as his chief rival, but Rossi is 32 and Lorenzo is 23. When Rossi was 23 he had won a single 500cc title to go along with his 125 and 250 titles, and he had won only 13 races in the primer class -- he still had six more titles and 64 more MotoGP wins in front of him to, and that only brings us up to the present.

That does not mean that Lorenzo, at 23, will approximate Rossi’s totals over the next decade, but if Rossi stumbles and Lorenzo is outstanding over the first part of the season, Yamaha will have to make a decision. If Rossi is again dominant and Spies shows signs of being the future, Yamaha will not bid aggressively to keep all three and Lorenzo will leave.

Preseason testing shows that Rossi and Stoner are on the boil, but, in spite of injury, Lorenzo was close and left the tests satisfied that he would be completely recovered by the beginning of practice on April 9 in Losail.

Spies "Managing Expectations" Just Like Last Year

It was not a surprise either that American Ben Spies, reigning World Superbike Champion and MotoGP rookie with the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 satellite team, was fourth overall at Qatar, just a hair over six tenths of a second back from Stoner and fifth overall in the second test at Sepang, seven tenths back of Rossi.

Although Ben is working hard to “manage expectations” just as he did last year when he won the World Superbike Championship for Yamaha in his debut season, most observers fully expect the Texan to run near the front. His long-time teammate and bitter rival in AMA Superbike, Mat Mladin, now retired, predicted that Ben would win the SBK title last year and believes he will win races this year.

Last year Spies, in spite of never having raced or practiced at most of the World Superbike tracks and never having spent a season racing outside the United States, adapted to everything -- tracks, Italian team, life style, Pirelli tires, Superpole and two races per day -- to deliver a crushing blow to an over-confident Ducati Xerox team that lacked discipline (surely Michel Fabrizio should have understood or been told that only his teammate Noriyuki Haga had a realistic shot at the title over the final races).

To expect anything similar from Spies this year would be a mistake, however, because, barring a major double meltdown by both FIAT Yamaha stars, Rossi and Lorenzo, there is no way that Yamaha will provide identical support (and electronics) to the “satellite” Monster Yamaha Tech3 team -- not when FIAT is writing the big checks.

However, if Spies performs as he has been performing in preseason -- top five on a regular basis -- he will be in line to step into the factory team replacing either Rossi or Lorenzo, because one of these two will most certainly have a contract signed with another factory before the show gets to Indy in late August.

Remember, Spies is NOT on a factory team and no satellite rider has won a Grand Prix during the first three years of the MotoGP 800s. In the days of the big 990s Alex Barros, Sete Gibernau, Max Biaggi, Makoto Tamada, and Marco Melandri were able to win races against the factory riders. The last satellite rider to win a MotoGP race was Spain’s Toni Elias on a Gresini Honda at Estoril, Portugal in 2006, the penultimate race of the 990cc era, just one race before those big bikes were regrettably retired.
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Post by Julian Mayo » Fri Mar 26, 2010 6:32 am

The bad news for Stoner's rivals is that his health problems were caused by overtraining. A healthier,properly fit, more relaxed Stoner taking to the track this season. is going to have them worried. :lol:
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Post by mlittle » Fri Mar 26, 2010 3:34 pm

Countdown to Qatar, Part III
----Part 3 of Dennis Noyes' preview of the 2010 MotoGP campaign


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Will the Kentucky Kid regain his 06' championship form or will he continue riding second to Dani Pedrosa?

~~~Pedrosa, Healthy But Off The Pace

The biggest surprise in the preseason tests was the poor performance by Honda’s lead rider, Spaniard Dani Pedrosa. For the first time since 2007 the Repsol Honda rider survived the preseason without injury. Pedrosa supporters, a legion in Spain, attributed his poor starts the last two years to a lack of preseason testing and, therefore, a lack of input into the development and direction of the Honda RC212V 800cc.

The most significant change in the Honda camp has been the switch from Showa to Öhlins suspension, but Dani’s Italian teammate, Andrea Dovizioso, third in the Qatar tests and third overall on combined testing results, has found the change to his liking. Öhlins is considered the state-of-the-art provider of motorcycle Grand Prix racing components, but Pedrosa believes the lack of confidence that he feels in the front is coming from rear suspension problems and was handicapped by the limited testing time available. “We are not where we want to be and the final night of testing was over before we could carry out all the changes we intended to try. Now we are going to have to continue where we left off in the opening practice session at the Grand Prix.”

With only two free sessions before the qualifying session, Pedrosa’s team will have, at most, two and a half hours to work before they have to decide on a package and get out there to try and qualify for good grid position, but counting out Pedrosa has usually proven to be a mistake.

He often emerges as a much faster rider on Sunday even if practice has gone badly, and when he is quick in practice he usually backs that up with strong rides. But for Honda’s lead rider to have accumulated only eight wins, exactly two a year, over his four years in the Repsol Honda team, is just not good enough. Of previous Honda “number 1” riders from Freddie Spencer through Mick Doohan, no Honda leader has won so few races over his first four years. Spencer took the title in his second year on the factory team. Gardner, promoted to the full factory team in 1986, won the title in 1987. Doohan was headed for the title in his third year, dominant at mid-season, but a terrible crash at Assen let Wayne Rainey through to the crown. A convalescent Doohan struggled in his fourth year, then won, in his fifth year, the first of his five consecutive titles.

Pedrosa’s place in the factory team clearly depends on a convincing 2010 season --and that means either winning the title or battling all year for it, and certainly winning more than two of 18 races.

Dani Pedrosa ended the 2009 season with a win at Valencia in front of the already-crowned MotoGP Champion (for the seventh time), Valentino Rossi and after the decidedly mercurial 2007 World Champion, Casey Stoner, had looped his Ducati Desmosedici on the warm-up lap, leaving the pole vacant at the start.

For Pedrosa it was a positive finish to a frustrating year, one that began with Dani still struggling to regain fitness after a post-season crash that caused him to miss almost the entire preseason of testing.

Pedrosa has been with Honda his entire GP career, winning one 125 world title and two 250 titles, but the combination has not brought the success that both the rider and the factory expected in the premier class, and both will be looking for other options if 2010 does not produce more wins, and, at the very least, a strong run at the title. Although most journalists feel that Pedrosa had underperformed, there are those (some of them MotoGP crew chiefs) who believe Honda has fallen behind.

After Hayden’s title, Honda’s 11th in a 13-year period that began in 1994, Honda has not yet won a title with their RC212V 800. For Honda to lose used to be an upset. This year a Honda title would constitute a major upset.

~~~Hayden Looking Stronger

Former World Champion Nicky Hayden had a rough time of it last year, struggling early in the year to get anywhere near the pace in his first year on the difficult (unless you are Stoner) Ducati, but a third place at Indianapolis sparked steady improvement over the final third of the season.

His situation is precarious. Ducati were offering big money to Jorge Lorenzo while Stoner was back home in Oz during his three-race recovery and that clearly meant there would have been no place for the Kentuckian in 2010. And even after Lorenzo turned Ducati down, then team director Livio Suppo (now at Honda and, perhaps, entrusted to bring Stoner to Honda in 2011) made a similar offer to Hayden’s former teammate, Dani Pedrosa. When Pedrosa opted to sign on for one more year with Honda, Hayden, Ducati’s third option, got another year on the Ducati.

Hayden, like most if not all MotoGP regulars, is hoping that 1000cc bikes will replace the finicky and tech-heavy (electronics) 800cc's a year early in 2011, but the job at hand is to do enough to either stay with Ducati or find another MotoGP ride at the end of the year, otherwise World Superbike beckons. Hayden’s management, International Racers, was deep in discussions with SBK teams last year while offers of his Ducati ride (since Stoner had another year to run on his contract) were going out to Lorenzo and Pedrosa.

It would be cruel luck if Hayden were not around the MotoGP scene when 1000cc bikes replace the 800s because the former dirt tracker is much more suited, by his aggressive nature and rear-wheel-steering style, to riding the bigger, more powerful bikes that can be over-ridden.

[..........continued in next post]
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Post by mlittle » Fri Mar 26, 2010 3:37 pm

[........from previous post]


~~~Edwards, Ready For Another Go-Round

Two-time World Superbike Champion Colin Edwards has done everything Yamaha has asked him to do since he joined the satellite Tefefónica Yamaha factory team in 2004. Fifth in 2004, fifth in 2005, then as Rossi’s teammate in Yamaha, seventh in 2006, taking ninth and seventh in 2007 and 2008, and accepting a demotion to the Tech3 team in 2008, he was back up to fifth again last year (thanks to a Spies taking points from Alex de Ángelis in the final race at Valencia).

The only thing Colin hasn’t managed is to win a GP. He also hasn’t forgotten that Honda skipped over him for Nicky Hayden in 2003 when he felt he deserved a factory ride after winning that second World Superbike championship but was forced to settle for a dreadful Aprilia ride on the Cosworth-powered Cube that not only tried to throw him (and his teammate Noriyuki Haga) off on the exit of every corner, it also burst into flames down the straight at Sachsenring and caused Colin to have to eject without a chute at high speed. Then came the frustrating 2004 season as number 2 behind Sete Gibernau on the Gresini Telefónica Movistar Honda team -- a year that sometimes saw him testing tires and then being denied a chance to race the tires he had used in practice, and which were used in the race by factory Honda riders and by teammate Gibernau, who was the third factory Honda rider.

With Spies as his teammate, Edwards will need to dig deep to distinguish himself, but he has been a loyal Yamaha soldier, valuable tester and is one of the smoothest riders in the big class. His relationship with James Toseland went south when the Brit, also a two-times World Superbike Champion, managed to steal Edward’s crewchief, but Spies has his own crewchief, American Tom Houseworth, and the two Texans seem compatible. Edwards will know that part of his job is to help Spies become Yamaha’s new star -- but if he sees a chance, to grab that elusive win.

~~~250 Riders To The Rear

With the 250 class now replaced by Moto2, this year’s rookie graduates of the now defunct quarter liter category have struggled, taking, perhaps predictably, the final four places in cumulative testing results, all lining up behind Aleix Espargaró (Pramac Ducati), not technically a rookie but with limited MotoGP experience. (Top rookie so far has been Spies, the reigning SBK Champ and the only current MotoGP rookie coming from a four-stroke background).

Following Espargaró were last year’s top 250 riders, although not in their 250 order. Hector Barberá (second in 250) was 14th on the Yellow Pages Aspar Ducati, followed by Álvaro Bautista (fourth in 250) on the factory Rizla Suzuki with 250 and World Champion Hiroshi Aoyma on the new Interwetten Honda team, 15th and 16th respectively, in overall preseason placings.

Bringing up the rear and victim of huge bell-ringing crashes at both Sepang and Qatar, was the man with the big hair, 2008 250 World Champion Marco Simoncelli who was third last year in his unsuccessful title defense.

~~~Bidding For 2011 Contracts Has Already Begun

The first five or six races of 2010 will determine the bidding in an incredible free agency battle that is already brewing. Rossi, Stoner, Lorenzo and Pedrosa are all ending their contracts this year.

Rossi has made it clear that he wants Lorenzo out of Yamaha, but if Lorenzo, in spite of his preseason injury, can outrun Rossi over the first third of the season, Yamaha may be tempted to renew the Spaniard (if they can afford both Rossi and Lorenzo… and Spies). If that happens Rossi, in spite of all that he has said about wanting to end his career at Yamaha, will certainly have generous offers from Ducati and Honda --yes Honda.

Stoner will also be much sought-after. Livio Suppo, whose relationship with the Australian is said to be good (in spite of rumors to the contrary in the Italian press last year) may be asked by Honda to bring Stoner over. But what if Pedrosa, in spite of his preseason, suddenly finds the form that made Honda, and especially former HRC boss, Suguru Kanazawa, bet the farm on him?

There will be rumors that Rossi is going to F1, that he is going to Ducati, and even to Honda, before the second race in Japan is run. But it is not correct to refer to all this as “silly season” talk, because this is for real and there is nothing silly about it. Yamaha lost 1.4 billion dollars last year but how would shedding a mere twenty million in costs, and the world’s most charismatic motorcycle racer in the process, help their situation?

Ducati’s sponsor, Philip Morris, the last of the big tobacco big-spenders, has deep pockets and, unless Stoner blows his rivals away in 2010 like he did in 2007, they will write a very big check to scratch their itch for winning and either replace Stoner (if he does go to Honda) or add a second competitive rider if Hayden fails to win races in 2010.

Rossi doesn’t like the idea of being subject to Philip Morris’ notorious discipline, but he might be tempted if the money is right and he has any reason (Lorenzo) to be unhappy at Yamaha. And finally, Honda, the company that, although they deny it, was the guiding force behind the move to four strokes in the premier class and the architects of the 800cc formula, cannot suffer the humiliation of seeing Ducati and Yamaha continue to beat them at their own game.

It all starts under the lights at Losail on April 11th -- the only motorcycle race on earth that shines so bright that it shows up on satellite photos.
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Post by mlittle » Sat Mar 27, 2010 1:51 am

mlittle wrote:Countdown to Qatar, Part III
----Part 3 of Dennis Noyes' preview of the 2010 MotoGP campaign


Image
Will the Kentucky Kid regain his 06' championship form or will he continue riding second to Casey Stoner?

~~~Pedrosa, Healthy But Off The Pace

The biggest surprise in the preseason tests was the poor performance by Honda’s lead rider, Spaniard Dani Pedrosa. For the first time since 2007 the Repsol Honda rider survived the preseason without injury. Pedrosa supporters, a legion in Spain, attributed his poor starts the last two years to a lack of preseason testing and, therefore, a lack of input into the development and direction of the Honda RC212V 800cc.

The most significant change in the Honda camp has been the switch from Showa to Öhlins suspension, but Dani’s Italian teammate, Andrea Dovizioso, third in the Qatar tests and third overall on combined testing results, has found the change to his liking. Öhlins is considered the state-of-the-art provider of motorcycle Grand Prix racing components, but Pedrosa believes the lack of confidence that he feels in the front is coming from rear suspension problems and was handicapped by the limited testing time available. “We are not where we want to be and the final night of testing was over before we could carry out all the changes we intended to try. Now we are going to have to continue where we left off in the opening practice session at the Grand Prix.”

With only two free sessions before the qualifying session, Pedrosa’s team will have, at most, two and a half hours to work before they have to decide on a package and get out there to try and qualify for good grid position, but counting out Pedrosa has usually proven to be a mistake.

He often emerges as a much faster rider on Sunday even if practice has gone badly, and when he is quick in practice he usually backs that up with strong rides. But for Honda’s lead rider to have accumulated only eight wins, exactly two a year, over his four years in the Repsol Honda team, is just not good enough. Of previous Honda “number 1” riders from Freddie Spencer through Mick Doohan, no Honda leader has won so few races over his first four years. Spencer took the title in his second year on the factory team. Gardner, promoted to the full factory team in 1986, won the title in 1987. Doohan was headed for the title in his third year, dominant at mid-season, but a terrible crash at Assen let Wayne Rainey through to the crown. A convalescent Doohan struggled in his fourth year, then won, in his fifth year, the first of his five consecutive titles.

Pedrosa’s place in the factory team clearly depends on a convincing 2010 season --and that means either winning the title or battling all year for it, and certainly winning more than two of 18 races.

Dani Pedrosa ended the 2009 season with a win at Valencia in front of the already-crowned MotoGP Champion (for the seventh time), Valentino Rossi and after the decidedly mercurial 2007 World Champion, Casey Stoner, had looped his Ducati Desmosedici on the warm-up lap, leaving the pole vacant at the start.

For Pedrosa it was a positive finish to a frustrating year, one that began with Dani still struggling to regain fitness after a post-season crash that caused him to miss almost the entire preseason of testing.

Pedrosa has been with Honda his entire GP career, winning one 125 world title and two 250 titles, but the combination has not brought the success that both the rider and the factory expected in the premier class, and both will be looking for other options if 2010 does not produce more wins, and, at the very least, a strong run at the title. Although most journalists feel that Pedrosa had underperformed, there are those (some of them MotoGP crew chiefs) who believe Honda has fallen behind.

After Hayden’s title, Honda’s 11th in a 13-year period that began in 1994, Honda has not yet won a title with their RC212V 800. For Honda to lose used to be an upset. This year a Honda title would constitute a major upset.

~~~Hayden Looking Stronger

Former World Champion Nicky Hayden had a rough time of it last year, struggling early in the year to get anywhere near the pace in his first year on the difficult (unless you are Stoner) Ducati, but a third place at Indianapolis sparked steady improvement over the final third of the season.

His situation is precarious. Ducati were offering big money to Jorge Lorenzo while Stoner was back home in Oz during his three-race recovery and that clearly meant there would have been no place for the Kentuckian in 2010. And even after Lorenzo turned Ducati down, then team director Livio Suppo (now at Honda and, perhaps, entrusted to bring Stoner to Honda in 2011) made a similar offer to Hayden’s former teammate, Dani Pedrosa. When Pedrosa opted to sign on for one more year with Honda, Hayden, Ducati’s third option, got another year on the Ducati.

Hayden, like most if not all MotoGP regulars, is hoping that 1000cc bikes will replace the finicky and tech-heavy (electronics) 800cc's a year early in 2011, but the job at hand is to do enough to either stay with Ducati or find another MotoGP ride at the end of the year, otherwise World Superbike beckons. Hayden’s management, International Racers, was deep in discussions with SBK teams last year while offers of his Ducati ride (since Stoner had another year to run on his contract) were going out to Lorenzo and Pedrosa.

It would be cruel luck if Hayden were not around the MotoGP scene when 1000cc bikes replace the 800s because the former dirt tracker is much more suited, by his aggressive nature and rear-wheel-steering style, to riding the bigger, more powerful bikes that can be over-ridden.

[..........continued in next post]
The Sci-Fi Station Come by and visit when you get the chance. :)
The Wayward Tarheel I'm even in the blogosphere.... :shock:

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