I call ........ on that one. Here is why......
Had this have been a more normal weekend at Jerez-weather wise, the Ducati's would have been even further off the pace, as it stands Nicky held on through the others tentatively feeling out the track at the start and dicing with each other. After this subsided Nicky faded into complete obscurity and got beaten by a rookie on a sat Honda, both of whom only just then beat Rossi and Barbera. So all in all, across race distance the Ducati's are ....-worse than last season and more lost than ever.
I have a theory as to why.....
- The bike is ugly.......
No really it is, the Honda and Yam look awesome, the Ducati looks like a big block of smoothed Parmesan, fat long and low because of that lump of alloy in the middle of it, the pipe in the rear cowling looks like a Monkeys ... and the colors are horrendous.......
- The appearance of the bike, reflects its performance, after watching the race, I noted that all of the duck's would run wide by an extra metre or so upon corner exit, Rossi looked amateurish, particularly on corner exit, which is where the Honda just launches. The unbalanced bulk of the GP12 seems to force it wide at this crucial point, funnily enough, Rossi's ability to get the Yamaha hooked up holding a tighter line was one of his key strengths allowing him to dive up on opponents in between bends. Rossi admitted to GPone that the Ducati is very difficult to battle with-almost impossible. I feel as though the Deltabox frame has actually made this worse from last season, more stable sure, but more awkward and clumsy because of the length of that donk, and the additional weight issues the new frame has caused. Nicky burnt up his front really quickly trying to battle with the front runners, and then the midpackers, Within a couple of laps he'd lost tons of pace, wonder why?
- At present Ducati are in an interesting situation, they now have a factory team, which is starting to compete rather heavily within itself, and both sides are saying completely different things about the bike, their overall performances across the race however, are similar. There are a lot of calls for Rossi to now adapt and change his style to suit the Ducati more, ride it harder, I've changed my mind and now say, to what end? This is like saying that Apple should abandon its innovative product lines and development strategy, to produce product more like Dell or HP.......or that Coca Cola should abandon their formula and develop a blend like Dr Pepper......or Virgin should stop trying to be smart, funny, good value for money and sexy, and become seriously stuffy old corporate.....Rossi has a riding style which has earned him 9 world titles, he has beaten the best of three generations, including the currents, why change it to suit a bike that is not competitive for anyone?........The calls for Rossi to adapt are taking the heat off Ducati and buying them a little time to build their new donk, which seriously and now with the benefit of hindsight-should have been the first thing they changed. It will be interesting, I fear as though they won't be able to ever make this marriage work though-too little too late, especially in a series that now, punishes innovation instead of rewarding it.
Interestingly enough, the talk of Rossi returning to Yamaha next season is starting again, Jorge seems ok with it, with a little dig at his teammate, stating it would be good to have another top rider on the Yamaha, and Rossi seemed quite chuffed with that.
As for the race, well it had potential to start, but turned into a bit of a procession, I enjoyed Cal's performance-he deserves Spies seat on current form, and what is happening with Spies, arguably on the best package out there......? And we are critical of Rossi, Spies is really lost. Time to swap bikes boys
Jorge screwed his tyre choice, otherwise he would have pipped Stoner IMO, Casey has issues with this rubber and it was a great performance to hold off Lorenzo Land.
