Honda MotoGP Withdrawal

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (povol @ Dec 17 2008, 02:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>A round about way to penalize the Ducati is to lower the revs.
Good point. Its not Ducati's fault that they built a more effective mouse trap. But I have an eerie feeling the Japs will find a way to take advantage of this economic "crisis" (as they will be sure to put it) to make some changes that will solidify their domination. I'm sure there must be an easy and economical way to race, but I bet Dorna will find a way to use this situation to skew the playing field. Dumb .......s, they haven't learned their lesson from WSBK, who's principal of making the field even has been an element of their success.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <div class='quotemain'>When asked this question: JP: And what will the new single-tire regulations bring?

Ezy said: CE: ...“ I don’t know if it will contribute definitively to making the races more or less hotly contested, but for me this was not our principal objective. Our principal objective is to reduce costs because we are in a world economic crisis." SpeedTV


Ezy mentioned in his interview that going to the spec tire was an attempt to address the onset of this economic situation. What a ....... lier. The decision to go to a spec tire was a backroom deal at best, and done BEFORE they realized there would be a distressing global predicament. Now the man is trying to take credit for actually trying to address the spiraling rise in cost that he helped create by stupid rules changes; notwithstanding, his unevenhanded support to move Rossi & Peders to Bstone which sealed the fate of Michelin. It reminds me of the Bush administration constantly changing their explanation for invading Iraq, this fool keeps changing the explanation to make himself look good. What happened to the we are going to a spec tire for "safety"?

You heard it here first, watch how they will introduce a change under the guise of cost savings that will be sure to attempt at skewing the field once again.

(I know this post fits more under the Ezy interview posted from Speedtv, but F it, we all read the threads).

Jumk, you know I'm rarely on Ezy's side, and I do agree that the man invoked "safety" concerns to alter the tires produced by the manufacturers, but I think at this point he is actually telling the truth rather than another lie.

Michelin were pulling out at the end of 2007 and I'm sure Bridgestone said there was no way in hell they could afford to supply 18 bikes for the 2008 season. Michelin was not going to hang around if budgets continued to rise exponentially.

Based upon the rules package that was recently released I think it is pretty clear that Michelin and Bridgestone probably agreed to a single carcass construction at the beginning of this season. At Jerez everyone showed up on the same carcasses but with different rubber compounds.

How else do you explain Rossi passing his offset data to Colin?

In the end, Bridgestone used it's resources to develop the control tires better than Michelin.

Ezy's plan has failed miserably. I don't think he ever intended for everyone to end up on Bridgestone, but after he realized Pedrosa was becoming uncompetitive, he allowed a switch and then enacted the single manufacturer rule.

I believe that the technical meetings during 2007 were actually centered almost exclusively around reducing costs. How can you tell? Lap times continued to plummet this season. I don't think they spent more than 5 minutes on the safety issue.

The good news from the CEO's speech today, is that there is no bad news about Honda pulling out of MotoGP.

In fact they will rely on motorcycle production to help them through the hard times, just as it has done in the past.



http://world.honda.com/news/2008/c081217Year-End-CEO-Speech/