michaelm

His signing was still something of a fluke. As I recall it was partly on Troy Bayliss's recommendation, to wit no-one gasses it up like Casey; I believe he was their 4th choice, after Melandri of course who was unavailable for that year but also Nicky Hayden(I think) and John Hopkins.

Enough of Casey I guess, it is 9 years since he started his last motogp season.

birdman

I don’t disagree with what you say. Obviously Ducati saw potential. Which rider in motogp doesn’t have potential?

The question is did Ducati see Stoner as a contender? I think not. I think they thought even post 2007 it was the bike like everyone else until, that fateful day, Rossi threw a leg over it.

Keshav

Yeah... we're on the same page. Given Ducati's track record of valuing the tech over the talent, my gut says they were essentially looking for a reasonably good test mule to try out parts and innovations. I'd even go so far as to say, in their hearts they held no real convictions about the bike being sufficiently developed to win a championship. I think they were surprised as everyone else. Ducati as an entity really seemed to operate inside a bubble. I have no illusions that anyone there spied young Casey and thought, "Oooh, he can overcome all our engineering wackiness and gift us a championship."

p4p1

I think at the time everyone thought that Rossi was god, 2006 was basically a miracle of circumstances that lead to Rossi not winning. There was no way some 21 year old upstart was going to ride around a host of shortcomings to beat Rossi who was as motivated as ever to reclaim his title. Whether the tyres Stoner rode on were the better tyres at the time is still up for debate. They were the better tyres for Ducati but were they a better tyre than the tailor made Michelin's Rossi had? Who knows really. Rossi got the Bridgestones for 08 and won which 'proved' the 'Stones were the better tyres but the genius (or shall we say devious part) of what Rossi (or Carmelo) did was not just to get on a level playing field tyre wise with Stoner but have the tyres suit the Japanese twin-bar frame bikes over the idiosyncratic Ducati which disadvantaged Stoner.
Control tyres hurt Ducati but I don't think they hurt them as much as Rossi demanding a switch to the twin-bar frame. His status allowed it and if he can't win on it, then it must be the bike right? But KTM has proven that with time and diligent development a company doesn't have to lose a strong part of its DNA to compete on control tyres.
In '06/'07 did anyone really foresee that there would be 3 riders come along and wipe the floor with Rossi h2h? No way.

michaelm

To be fair they had already gone to the carbon fibre 'chassis' in 2009. Stoner always maintained the 2009 bike was fine and his health was the issue.

I think the 2010 bike Rossi inherited was a truly diabolical bike, perhaps because they had already attempted to make it into a Yamaha; as the old joke goes, when an Irishmen in a village was asked for directions he said first off I wouldn't start from here. The perception in 2010 was still pretty much that the bike was superior but Stoner was flaky, and if he could win on the bike as he did 3 times late season then Valentino would win on it more easily.

Hard to know at this remove whether the carbon fiber design direction was valid and the lack of a suitable tire was the problem as Ducati maintained for some time afterwards, but the possibility certainly exists it was a mis-step/an overly ambitious path.

AntG

Yeah according to his autobiography the GP9 was the best bike Ducati gave him and that when he first tested it in mid-2008 he said he begged Ducati to let him use that frame for the rest of the season but they declined.

birdman

The carbon frame was put in practise for production Ducati motorcycles and SBK, along with of course the Desmovalves. It is a part of their DNA. Not much use in Ducati punching out cookie cutter beam frames and i4 engines because ‘that’s what Rossi wanted’. In hindsight Stoner made Ducati more successful than maybe most riders ever had, just lacks the credit for doing so.