Match the quote

Mick D said:

This is patently untrue. A 2.6% increase in total bike weight, as I have already stated, IS NOT a huge obstacle to overcome and there is relatively little expense solving how to add weight. Yes it is an unexpected curve ball, but not the game ender everyone is portraying it as. In fact in certain circumstances moveable ballast could be seen as an advantage. A change in engine displacement would be HUGE and expensive obstacle.

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Why did you cut out the first part of my post, this bit - The idea that it's Honda and Yamaha's fault for building bikes at 153kg is a bit harsh. I'm debating who's fault it is that the bikes are under weight. Using engine capacity was only to point out that DORNA has to be specific what the rules are going to be for them to be able to to start designing anything. Surely if they all knew it was 1000cc engines, they must of known for sure it was 153kg.



Blaming Honda and Yamaha for making bikes too light would be like blaming them for making bikes 50cc over capacity. They arent that stupid.



The ballast thing your probably right about, but perhaps Honda and Yamaha would prefer extra strength in certain components such as the engine, rather than a lump of lard. I would suggest they consider using 4 kg of fuel as ballast.

michaelm said:

...if it was so trivial then presumably they wouldn't be concerned, so your argument is to some extent self defeating.

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It is my belief that Hon and Yam's reaction to the weight issue is political posturing and pre-emptive manoeuvring prior to the Jerez round of powers-that-be meetings. It is simply a tactic to improve their future negotiating position. Not self defeating at all!

birdman said:

Why did you cut out the first part of my post...

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Simple. Because i did not disagree with it!

Talpa said:

Lets face it, almost all of these problems stem from overblown regulations in the first place. Dorna have been working harder than I've ever seen them to make this series truly competitive again. If anyone still feels the biggest factor in succeeding in Motogp today isn't the bike after reading the Yamaha Electronics write up on Crash, then your probably a Stoner fan anyway-which explains it all.........

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A little hard to explain how stoner winning at all on the gp10 was by the influence of electronics though.



Otherwise I agree with your post, including that the rationale for the weight change is a good one.



I have always been against the control tyre, and would cite that rule as evidence that dorna are capable of stuffing things up without help from honda and yamaha, who can be blamed for many things but not that imo. The tyre change was (also imo) a fairly large contributor to the demise of kawasaki and suzuki, as well as to ducati becoming uncompetitive as you say.



I would ascribe the control tyre rule to dorna and to 2 riders, rossi and pedrosa (with the latter's midseason change in 2008 the clincher), and not the msma. Ducati were obviously opposed, and my impression was that honda were prepared to stick with their long term partner michelin if not for dani's insistence.

Mick D said:

This is patently untrue. A 2.6% increase in total bike weight, as I have already stated, IS NOT a huge obstacle to overcome and there is relatively little expense solving how to add weight. Yes it is an unexpected curve ball, but not the game ender everyone is portraying it as. In fact in certain circumstances moveable ballast could be seen as an advantage. A change in engine displacement would be HUGE and expensive obstacle.

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A 2.6% increase in total bike weight may not make much difference to you or I or even a National Level racer on a modified production bike but on a MotoGP bike that is doing everything at a finely balanced and significantly higher peak it will definitely make a considerable impact. At this level everything has an impact because everything is happening at 100% (or sometimes more) of the limit.

Mental Anarchist said:

A 2.6% increase in total bike weight may not make much difference to you or I or even a National Level racer on a modified production bike but on a MotoGP bike that is doing everything at a finely balanced and significantly higher peak it will definitely make a considerable impact. At this level everything has an impact because everything is happening at 100% (or sometimes more) of the limit.

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No doubt most of what you say above is true except the intangible.- is the impact "considerable". Guess we have differences of what "considerable" is. I do not believe the impact is as dire as Yamonda would have us believe. In fact the 4kgs is probably about the same as the weight difference between the Yamonda team mates ie Spies 4kg heavier than George and Casey 4kg heavier than Microbot.

michaelm said:

A little hard to explain how stoner winning at all on the gp10 was by the influence of electronics though.

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Not at all, Ducati has always had an amazing electronics package, supplied by Marelli. Where they fell down has been in the chassis department, and the control rubber has been compounding their poor results ever since it came in. Stoner's performance on the Ducati became progressively worse and his crashing much more regular, I forget how many times he put the GP10 down-but it was significant, and he scraped his way to 4th place with Kwaka having given up by then and Suzuki were well on their way out.



Who is to blame for the control tyre? Ultimately and rather poignant for them considering their current situation-its Ducati and Dorna. For the boys from Bolonga did the hard yards with Bridgestone when Michelin was absolutely flogging them year in year out, Dorna added to this with the tyre supply reg which was another ridiculous reg. Rossi and Pedders jumping ship were the final nails, however. I have no doubt that if they had relaxed the supply reg a little and allowed Michelin to stay in they would have come back to prominence-and we would have had better racing and more competition. All of the regs they are now re-writing are to try to circumvent the sole tyre issue, and unfortunately until they change this reg instead of trying to plug the holes in other areas-we won't see a better series.



By 2011 Ducati were still flogging a dead horse in their Monoque concept with a spec tyre choice as inflexible as BS was supplying, notably during the first part of the season we heard complaints from Lorenzo, Rossi and Stoner on the rubber being supplied-and indeed all of the riders, Lorenzo in particular stating that it was worse than last season and fueling the theory that BS was supplying from their Stockpile which was created in 2009-10, with Ducati updating very little in the off season 2010-11 having spent a fortune on their rider, and Honda mounting their biggest title challenge of the 800cc era the stage was set for ultimate disaster for Ducati. I have no doubt that Ducati's electronics are still amongst the best out there, but without a bespoke front tyre, they will continue to struggle with that rather long donk and a chassis that is probably still a year behind its competitors.......Unless Burgess and Rossi have one or two more miracles up their sleeve with a bike they now understand a little better

Talpa said:

Not at all, Ducati has always had an amazing electronics package, supplied by Marelli. Where they fell down has been in the chassis department, and the control rubber has been compounding their poor results ever since it came in. Stoner's performance on the Ducati became progressively worse and his crashing much more regular, I forget how many times he put the GP10 down-but it was significant, and he scraped his way to 4th place with Kwaka having given up by then and Suzuki were well on their way out.

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You can explain the problems of the gp10 and gp11, how they got that way and the resultant crashes any way you like, we both have our opinions and have debated them ad nauseum, but even you can't deny some involvement from the rider in his 3 wins on that horrible bike.

If the Ducati electronics were so good why did Rossi claim that there was so much work to do on the electronics after his first rides on the bike?



If the electronics were anything they were minimal in comparison to others and it would seem that "fixing" them has made it go slower!

Jumkie said:

Kropo, Honda walked away from the AMA over disagreements with DMG executives. The US is a massive market, yet they felt enuf disagreement with the powers that be that Honda America decided staying was untenable. Granted, GP is a greater stage, but people hate swallowing pride (executives being people too). I wouldnt say never. I can imagine a world where Honda would walk away, thought i dont think Dorna would want this to happen. But who knows? Wsbk have managed to live on after Ducati "factory" has left. Not to mention Yamaha in its entirety.

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It is a common mistake to think that the factory teams in the AMA were, well, factory teams. Honda was run by American Honda, the US importer and distributor for Honda, with the help of HRC. Ray Blank got pissy with the AMA, and he made the call to pull out of the AMA. He had the right to do that. The MotoGP team is run by HRC, a wholly owned Japanese subsidiary of Honda Corporation which reports directly to the board of Honda. If HRC want to pull out of MotoGP, they will have to get approval from Honda's board first, and that could be very tough indeed. Honda has a continuous history in MotoGP, since the 1960s. Soichiro Honda believed in racing, and his spirit still guides the company.



There's a lot of confusion about what is a real factory team and what isn't. Yamaha's WSBK effort was not a factory effort, it was funded by Yamaha Motor Europe, the European distribution arm of Yamaha, which is a separate company. In effect, it was much more like Althea Ducati than Repsol Honda, the bikes being developed with input from Japan, but run and funded by a separate organization.

Mental Anarchist said:

I disagree that they will never walk away. If they are pushed too far then they could easily walk away or at least threaten it. The bigger threat would be if they have the top 3-4 riders signed up and walk away with them as well as their bikes and take them to WSBK.

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Infront (or rather, the Flamminis) make Dorna look like paragons of rectitude and honest brokers. They will fiddle the series however they want to make sure that the product provides what they want - close racing with multiple manufacturers - and have no qualms in letting manufacturers - even Ducati, for whom allegedly the rulebook is made to suit - walk away from the series. Going to WSBK guarantees that you will have less control over the series and the rules, and face much tougher competition.



Let me put this another way: the factories leaving MotoGP to go to WSBK because they think they will have more success there is like leaving China to move to North Korea because you want more personal freedom and a more democratic state.



There is a possibility that Honda and Yamaha could leave MotoGP, but they won't abandon MotoGP to go to WSBK. They might leave for financial reasons, or even out of spite, but they won't go because they think the grass is greener in the WSBK paddock.

Kropotkin said:

It is a common mistake to think that the factory teams in the AMA were, well, factory teams. Honda was run by American Honda, the US importer and distributor for Honda, with the help of HRC. Ray Blank got pissy with the AMA, and he made the call to pull out of the AMA. He had the right to do that. The MotoGP team is run by HRC, a wholly owned Japanese subsidiary of Honda Corporation which reports directly to the board of Honda. If HRC want to pull out of MotoGP, they will have to get approval from Honda's board first, and that could be very tough indeed. Honda has a continuous history in MotoGP, since the 1960s. Soichiro Honda believed in racing, and his spirit still guides the company.



There's a lot of confusion about what is a real factory team and what isn't. Yamaha's WSBK effort was not a factory effort, it was funded by Yamaha Motor Europe, the European distribution arm of Yamaha, which is a separate company. In effect, it was much more like Althea Ducati than Repsol Honda, the bikes being developed with input from Japan, but run and funded by a separate organization.

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In the end, this is true, but up until around 04-05 , the AMA Honda Superbikes were HRC. The fall off from the point of American Honda taking over was dramatic. When HRC was building the bikes, Honda matched Suzuki win for win. Afterward, they did good to podium.

povol said:

In the end, this is true, but up until around 04-05 , the AMA Honda Superbikes were HRC. The fall off from the point of American Honda taking over was dramatic. When HRC was building the bikes, Honda matched Suzuki win for win. Afterward, they did good to podium.

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You mean Duhammel didn't just forget how to ride in his twilight years?