I refrained from posting something about Valentino Rossi’s performance after the opening round of this year’s MotoGP championship, because Qatar really is such a unique event. The only MotoGP race run at night, there is a distinct lack of grip due to the cooler evening temperature and potential formation of dew on the track, along with the desert sands that regularly blow over the track. You could actually see this during the race telecast, as any riders in all categories who were unfortunate enough to run off line would kick up a cloud of sand behind them. Thus the conditions can tend to skew the relative form of rider and bike, although there was obviously some symmetry between the pre-season testing and race results.

When Rossi debuted on the Ducati at the Losail event in 2011, he finished in 7^th, 16 seconds behind race winner Casey Stoner. This year, he finished twice as far (33 seconds) behind race winner Jorge Lorenzo and in 10^th position. He has suffered a couple of false dawns with bike development in pre-season testing, and the GP12 seems to have retained it’s unpredictability and difficulty in finding a good setup. Rossi had a torrid Qualifying at Losail this year, qualifying as the slowest prototype.

The post-race interview with the Italian media saw Rossi vent publically for the first time in his Ducati career, complaining (albeit calmly) about the bike, using phrases like “I’m not able to ride the bike as I like” and “Ducati didn’t follow the direction that I indicated”. All this about the same motorcycle that team-mate Nicky Hayden has described as being the best Ducati he’s ever ridden.

A lot of people are taking great delight in seeing Rossi struggle, but I think that his troubles are much deeper than a recalcitrant motorcycle. Whilst trying very hard to refrain from drawing any parallels between myself and what Rossi is currently going through, I am familiar with seeing a good friend die in front of you, having seen 2 of my own good friends die on the road ahead of me some years ago. I suspect that a lot of you, dear reader, can relate to this aswell. Add to Marco Simoncelli’s death the fact that Rossi actually struck Marco while he was on the ground, and you have a devastating situation for Valentino from which recovery is assured to be slow. Physically he is fine, having had the rod from his 2010 Mugello broken leg removed earlier this year, but mentally he must surely be struggling, and an uncompetitive bike (in his hands at least) will be exaggerating the issue I feel. Obviously, I do not have even 1 percent of the competitive drive that Rossi has, so the fact that it took me months, even a couple of years to get back to enjoying motorcycling after the death of my friends is by no means a barometer for these things. However, Rossi is but human. Personally, I think that the effect that Marco Simoncelli’s death has had on Valentino Rossi is being underestimated, perhaps even by himself.

After a decade of good fortune (some of his 2006 title loss was at his own hands) and being on the right bike at the right time, he started the 2010 season with a win but was beaten in the next two races by his team-mate, not something he’s used to. He then suffered his first big injury of his career at the fourth round, a decade after his debut in the premier class. He then gave Yamaha a public ultimatum about choosing him or Lorenzo for 2011, where Yamaha called his bluff and chose Lorenzo over himself at the end of that year. He then suffered his worst season in his entire grand prix career on debut with Ducati in 2011, and has now fallen to a new depth this year.

He even acknowledged in the Qatar post-race interview that he considered pulling in to the pits during the race, surely a first for him? Alex Hoffman was sacked from Pramac d’Antin Ducati in 2007 for doing the same thing. Rossi is quoted post Qatar on Italian website GPOne.com, "We ran out of hope last season [2011]. When Barbera passed me, with a hard move that pushed me into the runoff area, he had only one objective: getting in front of me.  The actual race position didn't matter.  I even thought about pulling into the pits and finishing my race there, but I kept going only out of respect for my team members, and to collect useful data."

The restrained responses to below par performances are out the window too. Again, quoted on GPOne.com; "The problems with the bike haven't changed, and neither have my requests.  It's unrideable, and it doesn't make much difference what track we are on. I'm not able to enter the corners hard on the brakes, and we can't hope the situation will change completely with the new Bridgestone tires.  These aren't problems you can solve with setup alone." Crikey. He’s starting to sound a bit like Casey Stoner.

"I'm not able to ride the bike as I like.  I'm faster on used tires than on new.  The rear is pushing a lot, and things only improve slightly when the tires start to slide.  I have no confidence, and I can't even get ahead of Hayden, who gave everything he had to finish 28 seconds behind the leader." Is he having a dig at Hayden out of sheer frustration? You’d have to agree with his inference that, as number one rider in the team and with his status in the sport, he really should be finishing ahead of the Kentuckian. However, consider the fact that the 2012 season is the fourth one for Nicky Hayden on the Ducati, and he has still not spoken out against the bike or team to the extent that Rossi did after Qatar. You might compare Nicky’s single championship with Rossi’s 7 in the premier class, but does Hayden really have any less drive or ambition than Rossi just because he has not been as successful? Is Hayden any less frustrated by his and the bike’s lack of competitive performance?

Perhaps Rossi is having difficulty correlating Stoner’s previous pace on the Ducati with his own? In Stoner’s four year career on the Desmosedici, he won at least three races every year, whereas Rossi has only had one podium so far.

Some of the glee with which people are seeing Rossi (and vicariously Jeremy Burgess) struggle is due to an assertion attributed to Jeremy Burgess about taking '80 seconds to fix the Ducati'. I never referred to this in any of my previous articles because I could never find the source of the quote. A sharp-eyed reader of motomatters.com found it though, the interview in the Sport Rider magazine in the U.S. can be found here. The subject quote can be found in paragraph 6, part of JB’s answer to a question relating to the Ducati’s front end troubles. Read it yourselves and make up your own mind, but I feel that the quote, whilst made by Burgess, has been taken out of context. At the time of this interview he was a Yamaha employee. He makes an observation about the “lesser” Ducati riders and their bike setup, but where he says “When I think, clearly, if we had that issue with Valentino it’d be fixed in 80 seconds” I firmly believe that he is hypothesising about having that issue with the motorcycle of his current employer, Yamaha, in the present tense. They knew how the bike responded to changes, and they knew how Rossi liked the motorcycle to be set up. The only example of even the slightest bit of hubris would be “But, without question, I don’t anticipate any major dramas.” That comment is one that he may be regretting, although I really doubt that JB gives one about having said it. He has never struck me as being a particularly “mouthy” person. He’s not one for talking big, his success is attributed to large amounts of pragmatism, and a pragmatic bloke does not mouth off about what he’s going to do, he just does it.

His comments in the Channel 10 Qatar MotoGP telecast were far more interesting, and I wonder if the relationship between Rossi and Burgess has hit a bit of a rough patch. In the interview by former grand prix racer Steve Parrish, conducted over the race weekend, Jeremy Burgess said the following; “Experience is great, but sometimes too much experience is a bad thing, it’s not always going to be like it used to be, and in many ways this is a white paper bike, so his experience is enormously important to all of us to move forward as quickly as we can for Ducati and for him. He’s a realist, he knows he’s perhaps not at the level of Casey and Lorenzo, but he certainly still believes he can race with the rest of them and certainly challenge for the podium and that’s his targets”. “Well he’s been there, and been there probably longer than most, so I guess he realises exactly what the young boys are up against and what they’re doing, and at some point in your life you’re not as good as you once were, and I’m not saying that he’s not but we’ve got to give him a bike to show that he can get back up there”.

By all accounts, Ducati have committed a serious amount of resources to providing Rossi with a bike he can race, having made more chassis upgrades in a season than Casey Stoner ever received when he rode for them, even as reigning world champion. Ducati know that they are in a dire no-win situation, although it is interesting to see that, instead of everyone resolutely blaming the bike for Rossi’s ills, a portion of people are openly questioning Rossi himself, something that I honestly (and perhaps naively) did not expect to happen.

Still, Valentino can’t be that distraught about the situation; one week after the Qatar MotoGP event he raced a Ferrari 458 at Monza in an endurance race, where he shared the driving with his friend Uccio. In the promotional lead-up to this event, he confirmed to all who’d listen that he had no intentions of leaving Ducati, suggesting that it was “too early to talk of a divorce”. “I will stay with Ducati. We will do everything we can to make the pairing of Rossi and Ducati function successfully”. He remains committed to the team, “We will keep trying at every race”, “We will not give up”.

The first chance for potentially significant improvement comes at the Silverstone round, when Dorna will introduce a new specification Bridgestone tyre, one of two new tyres tested in the pre-season with “overwhelming positive appraisal”, apart from the factory Honda riders that is, both of whose riders preferred the ‘other’ tyre. The new tyre will be available in limited numbers (2 per rider for the weekend) for the 4 rounds leading up to Silverstone, the first of which was round 2 at Jerez, and it will become the standard specification tyre from Silverstone onwards. It’s another step in the direction of providing faster tyre warmup and better feel for the riders. Changing a tyre construction is cheaper than changing a chassis, something that I’m sure Ducati will appreciate.

The thing that has greatly impressed me is the fact that until now, Rossi has dealt with his issues at Ducati with good humour and joviality, where other riders (former world champions among them) would have emptied their prams of all their toys by now. Rossi can be disarmingly self-deriding. However, he is not scared to put the odd verbal barb out there. In Ducati’s official preview of the Jerez race released on 24April, Rossi was quoted thus; ”It will be very important to work well during the Friday and Saturday practice sessions, focusing particularly on maintaining a good direction and on taking advantage of what we currently have to work with”. There are 2 digs there, the ‘maintaining a good direction’ a possible reference to the second Sepang test where he felt they went in the wrong direction, and ‘taking advantage of what they have’, publically acknowledging that he is not going to get any significant upgrades for some time. Or, of course, he could have just been sandbagging.

So they got to Jerez, expecting to start the weekend in a better position on account of having had three days of testing there in March, but the weather was against them. Nicky Hayden had spent 2 days testing at Mugello earlier in April in an attempt to catch up on the pre-season testing he missed due to recovering from surgery, but that Mugello test was comprehensively washed out.

Unfortunately, the Jerez wet weather resulted in the qualifying session being the first real hitout in the dry all weekend, and with threatening clouds on the horizon, riders were forced to go for a qualifying time early in the session for fear of the rain arriving, instead of the usual practice of assessing or confirming race setup for the first 40 minutes. Rossi spent a lot of qualifying in the pits, and appeared on the broadcast to be spending a lot of time shaking his head in discussion with Jeremy Burgess. Hayden managed to qualify in third, Rossi ended up 14^th. The thing of most interest to me though was the sight of Vito Guareschi spending the weekend in Nicky Hayden’s garage, rather than Valentino Rossi’s. Has the team changed who they’re listening to for development now that Hayden’s out qualified Rossi twice this year (and by some margin)? Or is it that the team has decided to hand development to Hayden so Rossi can concentrate on getting his confidence in the bike back?

Utilising a bike setup similar to Nicky Hayden’s, Rossi started the Jerez race slowly but, according to the live timing during the race, he was posting times very similar to Hayden by the end of the race and only had a five second deficit to his team-mate at the end (the same as Round 1 at Qatar). Rossi actually recorded a fastest lap that was three tenths of a second faster than Hayden’s. Nicky set his fastest lap early before his front tyre went off, while Valentino recorded his fastest lap on the penultimate circuit. So while the race result itself may not suggest that the Jerez round is a turning point, Rossi’s post-race comments certainly do. He has essentially acknowledged that he is now changing his riding style to suit the Ducati, rather than trying to change the Ducati, as has been his focus for the last 16 months, and Jerez was the first race where he has tried it. A lack of dry practice hampered his progress with it, but his race times were positive.

There are rumours of a significant upgrade coming for the tests after Estoril, Round 3 at the start of May, and scuttlebutt suggests that it’s a revised V angle in the engine, something that lots of people have been surmising to be the problem with the bike. Ducati runs a 90 degree angle between the cylinders, with Honda running quite a bit less. Yamaha of course have an inline four, but their cross-place crank mimics a V4 engine. A narrower angle Ducati engine may be wishful thinking because it will eat into their engine allocation, and Ducati Corse General Manager Filippo Preziosi has regularly dismissed the need for such a configuration. During ONE’s Jerez telecast, Steve Parrish asked Jeremy Burgess about the upcoming tests, JB acknowledging that they will have something 'interesting' at the Estoril test, “we haven’t really moved as far forward as we would really like but I think we’ve got a couple of other pieces to the jigsaw puzzle, and for our test in Portugal we’ll have some very interesting stuff to test.” “Not really big but to create different character in the engine will be something that we’ll be looking towards”.

Sources:

GPOne.com 

SportRider.com interview with Jeremy Burgess 

MotoGP/Bridgestone tyre specification change 

MotoGP.com 

The release of the four-stroke Aprilia RS4 125 for 2012 signals an end to the last serious performance road-going two-stroke being imported into Australia. The model it replaces, the GP-replica two-stroke RS125, was first officially imported into Australia in 1999, with production ceasing in 2010. It’s bigger brother, the RS250 was first officially imported into Australia in 1998, with production ceasing in 2003. This was due to every tightening emissions laws in Europe.

It’s astounding that the two-stroke 125 lasted this long, managing to pass the Euro 3 standard but suffering at the hands of more restrictive tuning to do so. Great strides forward have indeed occurred in making these engines burn cleaner, but with so many manufacturers going to four stroke for their small engines Aprilia has finally joined the fray, and I reckon that’s it’s a good thing. The two-stroke RS125 was a great little LAMS bike, but it was unsuitable for true motorcycling novices, those completely new to motorcycling. While the “stinkwheels” of late have been better for maintenance, they are still bikes that require a level of mechanical sympathy and awareness that is not required of modern four-strokes. Those of you who first got your licences in the seventies or earlier will have grown up with two-strokes, and know the pitfalls of ownership and how to make them last. Those born later (myself included) had limited exposure to this engine, starting out instead on a diet of simple 250cc thumpers, or detuned single-cylinder dirtbike engines in a road chassis.

A rival to the Honda CBR125R and the Yamaha YZF-R150, the Aprilia RS4 125 has some tough and proven competition, but I think it is more than capable of holding it’s own.

When you first sit on the bike you could be mistaken for thinking that you’re sitting on it’s 1000cc big brother, the RSV4. This is from the fact that the fairings on the 125 looks damn near identical to it’s bigger sibling, and also thanks to the ergonomics making this bike feel like something larger than “just” a 125. It has nice wide handlebars, which actually feel the same width as the RSV4, providing good leverage for slow speed manoeuvres. I so nearly managed a full steering lock-to-lock figure 8 in the Macclesfield oval carpark in the initial stages of my test ride, with full-lock causing little interference between handlebar and fuel tank, something that afflicts smaller machines when ridden by a six-footer like myself. As I have said, this bike does not feel like a 125. Seating position is good, it’s certainly no racer crouch, but it’s not bolt upright either.

Of course, starting the bike reminds you that you are indeed not on an RSV4. Not that the skinny 130mm rear tyre would have deceived you otherwise, I was not actually aware that Slovenia was in the tyre market, but I can’t fault those fitted to this bike.

Pulling away from a standstill is kind of non-eventful. Releasing the clutch at lower revs feels like the engine is about to stall, but there is no need to slip the clutch when moving away from 4000rpm, getting off the line is easy if unspectacular. Below about 5000rpm, it feels like it has about the same grunt as the two-stroke RS125 it replaces, but it will of course fall behind as the revs increase. However, the RS125 is a bit more maintenance intensive and does feel like a smaller motorcycle than the RS4. Not to mention what emissions regulations have done to the two-stroke’s fuelling when off-throttle. It’s a nasty combination of surging and rough-running, thanks to a restrictively sized carburettor necessitated by Euro 3 emissions regulations. Still, the flipside is that a learner is less likely to get into trouble when grabbing a handful of throttle on the RS4. To someone with little experience on a motorcycle, a modicum of acceleration can feel like a lot.

This bike really seems to excel around town. A good riding position allied to wide handlebars sees it change direction very easily. Bar and footpeg pressure can deal with any hazard on the road and the engine, while not drive-chain stretching, is more than capable of keeping up with most traffic. It is geared quite low, so you find yourself going up through the gears quite quickly, settling into 4^th gear at 60kph for an indicated engine speed of 5400rpm. This is about where the good usable power starts, with a further boost above 9000rpm, and 7000rpm feels the nicest for mechanical sympathy. The DOHC 4 valve engine doesn’t sound like it’s over-revving or loaded at this engine speed, and is responsive thanks to a well setup Magneti Marelli fuel injection system.

I spent quite a bit of time traversing suburbia, and it really is a joy to ride this in traffic, as much as riding in traffic can be joyful. The brakes are very good in this environment, the front 300mm single disc having no trouble pulling up when required. Allied to a radially mounted 4 piston calliper, it is one of the best specification front brake setups in it’s class.

Adding to just how well optioned this bike is for a 125, the 41mm USD front forks give a firmish ride which is not that intrusive when the going gets a bit bumpy. Really rough roads will get the rear a bit bouncy, but it’s not stiff enough for this to be anywhere near painful.

Out on the open road and the RS4 acquits itself well. Progress is unhurried and slight inclines will require a lower gear. For example, I did Bull Creek Road from Ashbourne to Meadows and it was able to maintain 100kph for the bulk of it without absolutely ringing it’s neck, with only a few inclines requiring fifth instead of sixth. Dropping down a cog saw the bike accelerate back up to 100, but with 100kph in sixth gear showing 9000rpm you’ll be spending most of your hills road riding in the top 4000rpm of the rev range. At speed the bike is still easy to change direction, and the steering remains light and precise. Furthermore, you will be less likely to incur the wrath of SAPOL, as exceeding the maximum 100kph speed limit on this bike is something that is actually difficult to do. It’s not like the bigger capacity bikes, where a quick burst of acceleration will have you over the limit in no time. Yes, it’s a nice way of saying that the bike is incapable of travelling above 120kph, but surely this is a positive for those at the start of getting their licence? Not having to worry about exceeding the speed limit on the open road frees up one’s attention, especially at a time when a learner’s attention is taken up with turning fundamental riding skills into a habit.

Now, I did do Bull Creek on a late model two-stroke RS125 with the RS4 in tow, and the two-stroke definitely had the legs on the four-stroke, but it needed more precise matching of road speed and rpm to maintain good progress. They handle in a very similar manner through corners, both having suspension that borders on the firm side but seems well suited to L and P plate speeds.

So trying to look at the RS4 125 from the point of view of a motorcycling newbie, I think it’s a great learner bike. It doesn’t feel like a small bike, it’s wide bars give ample control and manoeuvrability especially around town, and it looks the business. The only thing against it is the price. At $7,290.00 ride away it is the most expensive of the competition, some $3,000.00 more than the Yamaha YZF-R150 and the Honda CBR125R, but both of those bikes feel like a smaller bike. While the Aprilia has ample room for taller riders, it is still more than manageable for those suffering from a bit of duck’s disease, making the RS4 125 suitable for a wider scope of rider than other bikes in this class.

It’s a premium price, but it’s specification makes it a premium learner motorcycle. In spite of a long history of riding sportsbikes, I still had fun on it, so how much more fun will it be for a learner?

* Stinkwheel is a term of endearment derived from the distinct oil smell emitted from a two stroke engine.

Barry Hartog (Posted 20/04/12)

I’m sorry but irrespective of your opinion of Casey Stoner’s personality and demeanour, as motorcycle racing enthusiasts you have to respect his abilities on a grand prix motorcycle. He finished the first official test for the 2012 season at Sepang with the fastest lap, which he set on only his second flying lap of the third day. This was after he missed the first day due to tweaking his back while doing his warming up stretches. This is a scenario that has played out at several grands prix over the years. He bangs in a quick lap very early in the session and waits for everyone else to play catch up, which they rarely do.

Of course it’s only testing at the moment but improvements made to a racing motorcycle ridden at 8 tenths may not transform to improvements when riding at 10 tenths, so these guys have to ride very close to the limit to evaluate and validate setup changes.

So, pre-season testing started in Sepang at the end of January. As mentioned above, Casey Stoner did not participate in Day 1 as he tweaked his back while stretching on the first morning. He was on track for the second day with a small amount of discomfort. Looking at the times recorded, nobody went for a race simulation, everyone seemingly content with doing a handful of laps to evaluate and establish a base setting, and to try any new parts arriving as a result of the Valencia test last November. Positive noises were emanating from the Ducati camp, because while Rossi finished fifth in the standings, he was less than a second behind second placed Lorenzo. I reference Jorge because Stoner was half a second in front of Lorenzo, an ominous sign. Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso were quiet, both having only recently undergone surgery for injuries sustained in January pre-season training. In fact, Hayden curtailed his participation at midday on the third day, his shoulder blade too sore to continue. Subsequent scans back in the US found that there was more damage to his shoulder than they first thought, specifically damaged ligaments and cartilage and underwent another operation before Sepang 2. Speaking of operations between the Sepang tests, it may be of interest to some of you to know that Valentino Rossi had his 2010 Mugello rod removed from his leg in the week following the first Sepang test. How long before it’s on an auction website?

The riders returned to Sepang at the end of February, for another three day test. Again, Stoner ended up with the fastest lap and again, he took the fewest laps to achieve it. Of course, each team and rider has a particular programme to run through during testing, trying different parts and setups. They are also gathering data for use during the season, establishing how setup changes affect the bike to give them some direction later in the year when fine tuning the bike for each track. The Sepang track conditions varied considerably this time round with rain appearing at midday on Day 1 and leaving wet patches on the track for the rest of the day. Embarrassingly, no Honda riders ventured out onto the track on Day 2 due to a rare Honda glitch. Dani Pedrosa stopped out on circuit with a red dash light illuminated, reportedly similar to an “engine check” light. The engine was inspected in the pits, and then flown back to HRC in Japan for investigation. As a precaution, Honda stopped all of it’s riders from riding until the result of the investigation was known. When the “okay” came through later the same day the rain had arrived, thus reducing Honda track time loss as few people went out in the wet, except the Ducati’s. Some good-natured humour ensued with Yamaha taking a light-hearted dig at Honda’s engine troubles on Twitter, posting: “So is it like when you get a red light on the X-box and it stops working?” Honda responded with “something like that” but Yamaha were not finished, following up with “Well, let us know if you want us to come and have a look.”

The Day 3 forecast was for more rain but, apart from a light drizzle, the track remained dry. Again, Stoner did minimal running over the test, at least compared to his closest competitors but still managed the produce the fastest time of the three days. Slower than when they were here in January, conditions appeared to be less conducive to sheer speed, especially with more riders doing long runs, the faster guys doing race simulations where they do a grand prix distance before coming back into the pits. This helps them check how their setup uses tyres, and to see if they can maintain grip for the duration of a race. An analysis of the times between the first and second Sepang tests, courtesy of David Emmett at the much-respected www.motomatters.com, shows that the factory riders generally failed to improve their times at the second Sepang test, but the satellite riders and CRT riders made decent improvements. Rider continuity and copious amounts of data allowed the factory riders to start the first test on the front foot, while the satellite and CRT riders used the first Sepang test to gather some data, the fruits of which were present at the second Sepang test. The Ducati ended up further behind Stoner than at the first test, creating a pang of angst no doubt. Although there was clearly still work to do they were also a victim of timing with the weather, but Rossi was not as upbeat post-test as previously, resulting in him suggesting that the Ducati suffered chatter at the rear and had lost some of the front end gains that had come at the first Sepang test with the onset of some understeer. Stoner suggests that his biggest issue at this test was still front end chatter, the new parts brought to this test not seeming to make a significant difference. Colin Edwards on the NGM CRT bike was again the best performing CRT rider in Sepang, finishing just over three seconds behind fastest man Casey Stoner, but still two seconds down on the slowest satellite prototype. Edwards suffered chatter problems too, but using the third frame so far for this bike saw a reduction in chatter at this test. There is to be continual improvement coming from this outfit, but the real test would be at Jerez against the Aprilia machine.

Respected European-based American motorcycle racing journalist Dennis Noyes suggested that preventing the Honda riders from doing stints of more than four laps on Day 3 was a result of the engine glitch, to allow for continued testing without risking possible mechanical failure.

Lorenzo’s gap to Stoner was less too, just two tenths of a second. Even Honda Racing Corporation vice president Shuhei Nakamoto acknowledges the threat that Yamaha’s pace constitutes to Honda, “the Yamaha has great handling. As a package, they have the best bike at the moment.” Stoner and Pedrosa have complained of significant chattering in the front, possibly as a consequence of the new Bridgestone tyres for 2012. No such complaints have come from any of the Yamaha riders. In response to persistent complaints from most of the riders last season about the difficulty in warming the tyres up, this year’s tyres reportedly have a softer carcass design, to allow the tyres to move around more, thus generating heat quicker. A result of this is that the tyres are moving around earlier in a race simulation, suggesting that managing tyre wear will be the priority for the year. Also blamed for the presence of the chatter is the increase in bike weight from 153 to 157kg, with the weight increasing to 160kg in 2013. While four kilograms does not seem significant, finding where to place it on an already very compact motorcycle is the difficulty. Especially when the increase in weight was communicated to the manufacturers late in 2011, a long time after Honda and Yamaha had committed to their 2012 motorcycles. Having to find somewhere to place 4 kilos of ballast on a motorcycle designed for the previous weight limit is proving to be problematic.

The increase in weight may have contributed to the difficulty in taming the extra capacity. In an interview on the official MotoGP website prior to the second Sepang test, Dani Pedrosa opined “The bike is obviously more powerful and more difficult to ride physically-the fatigue at the end of the third day was pretty obvious. The bikes can brake later and corner faster, although the times are quite similar.”

Some of the CRT bikes had their own hit-out at the Aragon circuit in Spain, March 8 and 9. Weather conditions, while dry, proved to be untenable for the first day, with wind gusts of over 60kph keeping riders in the pits. The second day was marginally better, but temperatures remained cool and severely restricted the amount of running that they could do. The cold meant that the riders had difficulty keeping heat in their tyres for more than a just handful of laps. James Ellison on the Paul Bird ART bit the dust around lunchtime and did not ride again, while Aspar riders Randy de Puniet and Aleix Espargaro concentrated on geometry solutions and practice starts respectively. The Avintia Racing duo of Ivan Silva and Yonny Hernandez were reported to have lapped in 1:53.373 and 1:53.588 respectively. When MotoGP was there in 2011 in warmer temperatures (an air temperature of 19 degrees) the fastest race lap was 1:49.046, and that four second deficit is not entirely the result of a cooler track temperature.

The Gresini team debuted their CRT machine at Imola on March 6^th. A Ten Kate prepared Fireblade engine in an FTR frame, contracted rider Michele Pirro completed 50 laps, but the test was curtailed early due to the belly pan bottoming on some sections of the circuit. The fix was not something that could be achieved at the track, so the team took the decision to end the test early to begin work on the solution.

The Jerez test at the end of March was the first time that all prototype and CRT machines were on-track at the same time, the first real chance for the CRT concept to go head-to-head with the bikes that they are expected to be replacing in season 2013. Casey Stoner ended up fastest again, but it was only in the last half hour of the final day that he pipped Jorge Lorenzo for the fastest time, 6 tenths down on Lorenzo’s outright Jerez lap record from 2008.

Jerez is a shorter circuit than Sepang, and with good weather for the first day the lap count rose considerably, except for Stoner. Throughout the entire pre-season testing, he has regularly only done about 60 to 75 percent of the laps that his rivals have done. Day 1 saw him pop in the fastest lap on his last circulation. Valentino Rossi was reported to have been somewhat downcast after the first day, with a fastest time 1.8 seconds slower than Stoner. Jorge Lorenzo was only a quarter of a second behind Stoner, with Cal Crutchlow the fastest satellite rider, albeit a second slower than Stoner’s fastest lap.

Day 2 saw the rain arrive, with only Ducati test rider Franco Battaini and CRT rider Ivan Silva venturing out on track in the morning. Everyone else sat in their garages until after lunch. Stoner only did 3 laps all day. In spite of being the fastest for the day, Nicky Hayden suggested that the GP12 is better in the dry now, but has lost some of it’s feel in the wet (remember Jerez in 2011?). Respected Italian website GPOne attributed a pertinent quote to Valentine Rossi. “We went in the wrong direction.” “You need to proceed step by step; you can’t gain a second per lap with just one change. We thought we found some revolutionary ideas after the first test, but instead we turned the bike to crap. You need to stay focussed and avoid making a mess.” Quite a frank and honest appraisal of their progress. And this; “One thing is certain however, this is the bike we will race all season.” I wonder how many major upgrades it will get. The whole point behind converting the bike to an aluminium chassis was to reduce turnaround times on frame changes and upgrades. I can’t imagine that they’ll simply stop development once the season starts. The GP12 could still conceivably end up like my dad’s 20 year old axe. It’s had 2 new heads and 3 new handles, but it’s still the same old axe…

Whatever happens, Valentino Rossi is again downplaying his chances for success this year. He was particularly upbeat after the first Sepang test, apoplectically downbeat after the second Sepang test, but has ended the Jerez test more realistic about the bike’s abilities. He sounds optimistic about improving what appears to be a reasonable package, his biggest concern being understeer on worn tyres, but remains happy with the feeling he gets from the front end.

Day 3, being the last hitout before the first race at Qatar, is expected to provide a form guide for the first few round of the season, before upgrades can be applied. Nicky Hayden and Hector Barbera both ran the highest number of laps for the day at 91. Stoner ran equal lowest of the prototypes at 61, along with Ben Spies. I’ve not mentioned Spies much, but he has consistently ended up just a few tenths behind Lorenzo. I expect that he’ll be there to pick up the pieces should anything befall the leaders, but he is sounding rather content with his situation, so he may well have things as he wants and has something in hand for the races, which is where you win the prizes.

Jorge Lorenzo was fastest for most of the third day, only being pipped after 5 o’clock when Stoner went back on track for a “cheeky” (in his own words) hot lap, posting 1:38.780 on his last lap, the fastest lap of the 3 days. Stoner managed 3 laps in the 1:38 range, Lorenzo just one, with nobody else hitting that mark. However, the long runs are a bit more telling.

Stoner’s longest run of 11 laps (which is a race simulation to him) elicited 11 laps at 1:39, including 3 in the low 1:39 bracket. Lorenzo’s race simulation, the proper 27 laps (actual race distance), produced 26 laps in the 1:40 range, with one 1:39 just 3 laps from the end. There was no discernible loss of pace near the end, so under these conditions, tyre endurance does not seem to be an issue. Lorenzo described the 2012 Yamaha M1 as “the best bike I have ever ridden.” High praise indeed.

Stoner seems to be indulging in a bit of psychological skulduggery now too. Bridgestone brought a couple of new tyres to this test, and funnily enough, Stoner likes one of them and everybody else likes the other one. With the difference reportedly being in tyre behaviour under braking, Casey may be employing a game that Mick Doohan utilised in 1997.

Here’s a brief history lesson. The nineties saw the advent of what was commonly referred to as the “big-bang” motor, which refers to a change in firing interval of the 500cc 4 cylinder two-stroke motor to provide 2 longer power pulses, further apart. This helped soften the delivery of the engine’s power, thus reducing tyre wear by providing an increase in the amount of time between the power pulses sent to the rear tyre, giving the tyre a bit more time to recover grip from the last lot of power. After a few seasons of this engine configuration, Mick asked for a “screamer” engine in 1997 pre-season testing (the previous more powerful and close firing interval engine). His team-mate at the time, Spaniard Alex Criville, reportedly tried the screamer and got spat off rather violently, choosing to run the “big-bang” engine for the year. Doohan, in a not-so-subtle display of doing something differently to everyone else, ran the “screamer” engine for the year, promptly winning the championship. Is Casey Stoner applying the same principle?

A look at the Claiming Rule Team teams (aaarrrggghhh!) shows that, surprising absolutely nobody, the Aprilia will be the CRT bike to beat, or more precisely the Aprilia piloted by Frenchman Randy de Puniet. The fastest of the second tier bikes at the Jerez test, he was 2 seconds slower than Stoner, and just 0.022 seconds behind the slowest prototype of Karel Abraham. Randy was less than a second behind the slowest factory prototype of Nicky Hayden, and was over a second faster than the next CRT machine.

However, the times from Jerez are not the full picture. It is a circuit that has a tendency to reduce the effect of powerful engines, since it is essentially a succession of corners except for the one straight, so the CRT machines have not really closed the gap to the prototypes as much as these times would suggest. Sepang has two very long straights which will exaggerate a power deficit.

Not surprisingly, there is a lot of talk about the validity of the ART as a CRT bike, with that old chestnut of “the spirit of the rules” being espoused ad nauseum. Well, if you don’t want manufacturers taking the mickey out of vague regulations, then write the “spirit” of the rules into the bloody rules. As I have previously explained in “What is a CRT MotoGP Bike?” the CRT rules as they currently stand contain holes through you could fly an Airbus A380. Quite a few websites are regularly suggesting that the ART machine is “bending the rules”, but there are virtually no rules for it to bend, let alone break. These writers have yet to specify exactly which rule is being “bent”. While the Grand Prix Commission can change a team’s status at any time, they will no doubt be mindful of the fact that Aprilia are providing 4 bikes on the grid, and an engine for a fifth.

2012 looks to me like it will be a contest between Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo. The fight for the last podium should see Dani Pedrosa, Ben Spies, and probably Andrea Dovizioso scrapping hard, joined now and then by Valentino Rossi. A win for the great man is a tall order, but surely there is no reason to doubt that it can be done, when circumstances allow. Contrary to popular belief, he is definitely not “past it”, but his (and Jeremy Burgess’) reputation for turning average bikes into winning bikes is taking a pounding.

Sepang Test Times          Jerez Test Times

Sources;

www.gpone.com

www.motogp.com

www.motomatters.com

Barry Hartog (Posted 5/04/12)

To be brutally honest, motorcycling in general has been largely ignored when it comes to emissions controls and other safety requirements. There have been a couple of scares along the way, front numbers being something that comes to mind, and those ridiculous knee protectors dreamed up by some so-called “academic” in the eighties, but most of the new legislation has been aimed at other vehicles. We do not have massive catalytic converters hanging from below our bikes (though they are being fitted now), most of our bikes are actually less emission friendly than a lot of cars. Lots of new driver aids are being introduced on vehicles, and it does not take much imagination to expect them to be mandatory in the foreseeable future. 

Personal motorised transport in the future is likely to be even more restricted as a result of various governments and vocal road safety organisations and their relentless pursuit of saving us from ourselves. Below are some of the proposals being touted as the next road safety silver bullet.

Compulsory Hi-Viz

The Irish Road Safety Authority is seeking to introduce the mandatory wearing of hi-visibility clothing in 2014, “subject to consultation with motorcyclists and industry on the most appropriate type of hi-vis material and possible solutions”. So said a spokesperson for the authority. Note that the consultation is only about material and ‘possible solutions’, not to see if the motorcycling community feels if there is a benefit or not. Personally, if the difference between a motorist seeing a motorcyclist and not seeing a motorcyclist is whether or not the rider is wearing a hi-viz vest, then I would have thought that perhaps the motorist should have to prove their competency as a road user first, because their eyesight sounds a bit lacking. In many states in the US, an eye test is mandatory for everybody who goes to renew their licence, every 10 years, regardless of age.

Compulsory hi-viz is now on the agenda of French politicians too, with it expected to become law in 2013.

Whilst it looks like it won’t be the hi-viz OH&S type fluoro vest, there will be a mandated minimum amount of reflective material required. You could conceivably ride naked but with a reflective armband and escape penalty, but if you were to ride in a set of white leathers without a reflective armband, you’d be fined. Drowning in logic.

So a sad example of governments taking the easy way out by persecuting a minority road user in an ill-advised attempt to prevent accidents caused by other road users (in many cases). I don’t expect that it will be too long before road safety zealots in this country think that letting car drivers who are clearly blind and incompetent drive is perfectly acceptable if you cover motorcyclists in day-glo. No doubt they’ll make pedestrians wear hi-viz too…….

Of course the other benefit to government in this is that, whilst they are seen to be doing something, it is completely at the cost of the motorcyclist. Government doesn’t have to spend a cent for this policy.

This is all just narrow-minded policy that will have long-term, negative consequences in the future, putting the onus for motorcycle safety onto motorcyclists and absolving other road users of responsibility.

EU Type compliance

Mandatory yearly inspections are on the cards for European motorcyclists, but they won’t simply be a quick check to see if your lights are working. Additional proposals include;

-Banning powertrain modifications, including changing sprockets for different sizes, and possibly even different size tyres. Everything has to stay as fitted when it rolled off of the production line.

-Mandatory introduction of on-board diagnostics, primarily to give warning of potential or degenerative component failure, but who doesn’t believe that recording your speed for the last six months isn’t something that will be seriously considered in this?

-New emission steps Euro3, Euro4, Euro5 (Euro6 for L3e M/C only) and durability requirements, where certain components have to last a significant amount of time or distance before needing to be replaced.

-Additional environmental requirements.

-Obligatory fitting of Advanced Brake Systems (Combined or Anti-Lock brakes) ABS. The greatest concern here is the increase in cost to the consumer of fitting these to the smaller motorcycles, ones that are cheap at the moment and where the cost of the ABS system is a significantly greater proportion of the purchase price than of larger motorcycles.

-Automatic headlight on. Contradictory data exists on how effective (or not) this policy is at reducing accidents, as it can cause many problems with depth perception of oncoming vehicles with their headlights on.

Are all of these restrictions and safety items going to be mandated for cars too?

ISA in National Road Safety Strategy

Closer to home, our relentless road safety authorities are investigating Intelligent Speed Assistance, which is effectively a GPS based system that firstly warns you that you are travelling above the speed limit, and then cuts the ignition to your vehicle if you persist in travelling above the speed limit, chiming back in when you have slowed under the speed limit. Something you’d love to happen when you’re on a motorcycle and cranked over in a corner.

Banning of GPS with speed camera sites

The French government has introduced a ban on GPS, satellite navigation devices and phones that warn of upcoming speed camera locations, with a fine of 1500 Euros for non-compliance. Introduced on January 4^th of this year, it requires motorists in France, irrespective of which country they are from, to switch off the function whilst traversing French roads. The ban has already been deemed to be “unenforceable” by some critics, as the police would need to access the phones of motorists, which has been suggested to constitute an “invasion of privacy” under French law.

Banning the Sale of children’s minibikes and ATVs.

The US Congress, in an act that will surely be used to illustrate the law of unintended consequences to future generations, proposed Consumer Product Safety Improvement legislation that was intended to eliminate lead from children’s toys but would have effectively banned the sale of children’s off-road ATV and Minibikes due to their lead content. Whilst it’s inconceivable that children would end up eating their Pee Wee 50 engine, the legislation that Congress was presented with effectively banned these bikes from sale. Only aggressive and persistent lobbying by the advocacy group American Motorcyclist Association with some sympathetic senators attached an exemption for off-highway vehicles to the legislation.

Consideration was given to the fact that, with dirtbikes and ATVs specifically designed for children not being available anymore, children wanting to go off-highway would have had to ride adult type bikes. The resultant safety risk to children from riding motorcycles not designed for them was a major catalyst for the exemption.

Now I suspect that a lot of you will have come to the end of this article and thought “Aha, posted just before April, it’s an April Fools article”. Well I wish that this was the case. All of the proposals mentioned above have been or are currently being seriously considered by various governments in Europe and of course Australia, and the sources are listed below. I could have reminded you all of previous proposals that were just as frivolous and did not make it into legislation, like front number plates, leg-protectors (which were found to cause more injuries than they prevented), audible indicators on all bikes (they currently only exist on scooters), but I didn’t want to invoke too much depression on what should be a day of hilarity and good humour.

Barry Hartog

Sources;

Mandatory hi-viz in Ireland

Mandatory hi-viz in France

Banning of speed camera site info in GPS

Motorcycle Type Compliance

Intelligent Speed Assistance; Australian National Road Safety Strategy 2011 - 2020

Off-Highway lead content law

When I sat down to compile this list detailing all of the Australians road racing overseas this year, I did not expect it to be this big, with 34 riders listed below. These are the ones that I could find and there may well be others of whom I am unaware.

I recently questioned the validity of an Australian Superbike Championship for providing a career stepping stone, and of the racers listed below, only Bryan Staring, Josh Brookes and Steve Martin have won an Australian Superbike Championship. The rest went to Europe and the UK early on, with several having established long road racing careers, with others just at the start of their career.

Of interest is the fact that Damian Cudlin has tasked himself with competing in 2 world championships, Moto2 and World Endurance. It’s been many years since a rider has competed in more than one championship in the upper echelons of the sport.

With MotoGP changing from 800cc to 1000cc in 2012, Dorna has introduced a new initiative aimed at wresting control of the sport from the long fingers of the manufacturers, or maybe just one in particular. Honda has previously been accused of being the driving force behind moving to four-stokes in 2002. They entered the four-stroke NR500 in 500cc grand prix racing back in 1979 in a sea of two-strokes, and it was considered by many (except Honda) to be an abject failure in grand prix racing. It even set itself on fire at Silverstone that same year when Mick Grant fell off of one at the first corner. It did however provide some mouth-watering engineering, including 8 valves per cylinder and oval shaped pistons with 2 conrods per piston. By 1983 it was producing 130 horsepower at 19,500 rpm (a power output on par with the two-strokes of the day) but was replaced by the two-stroke NS500 triple.

Now fast forward to 2010 and the genesis of the supporting act to the MotoGP prototypes this year, the Claiming Rule Team bikes. In spite of the clumsy name (calling teams operating this bike a CRT team, thus a Claiming Rule Team team) Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta is adamant that this motorcycle specification is the future of MotoGP.

The basic premise behind CRT is that they will be cheaper to manufacture than a prototype, so privateer teams will return to grand prix. The bikes will in essence comprise of a widely available engine, ostensibly from a production bike, with custom frames and “off the shelf” running gear, Ohlins suspension, third party electronics etc. In some ways, it heralds the return of custom frame builders, harking back to the early nineties to some degree when frame crafters like Harris and ROC provided privateer 500cc grand prix teams somewhere to hang their leased Yamaha V-4 two stroke motors. Peter Clifford’s WCM Harris MotoGP bike from 2002 was a prophetic glimpse into the future, and the fact that it was initially excluded from MotoGP eligibility as the engine was considered too close to the Yamaha R1 production engine upon which it was very loosely based is not lost on students of irony.

The CRT bikes will have 24 litres of fuel available, as opposed to the prototypes’ 21 litres. The CRT bikes will have twice the engine allocation too, 12 for the season instead of 6 for the prototypes (except where a new MSMA manufacturer enters the sport for the first time, getting an extra three engines for the season, thus totalling nine engines). CRT can run any size of carbon brakes for this year with the prototypes restricted to a disc size of 320mm only, but the regulations suggest that this CRT exemption will disappear for 2013, with the sizing freeing up for everyone or staying fixed for everyone, with the FIM yet to specify which way it will go in 2013.

With only 12 prototypes on the 2012 grid, the CRT bikes will save Dorna some embarrassment as we watch what will effectively be two races within the MotoGP race, with the better performing CRT bikes likely to battle with the last few satellite bikes for the bottom of the top ten.

The basis of the name for this new category is article 2.2.2 of the MotoGP Technical Regulations, allowing any MSMA manufacturer (Motorcycle Sport Manufacturers Association) to “claim” the engine, and also the gearbox if desired, from a CRT entry’s bike. It’s an attempt to stop other manufacturers entering the series through the metaphoric “back door” by supporting a CRT outfit and spending gobs of money on engine and gearbox development. They are discouraged from doing this by the engine (and gearbox if requested) being able to be “claimed” for the sum of 20,000 Euros for an engine including the gearbox, or 15,000 Euros for the engine without the gearbox, making any expensive engine and gearbox mods particularly expensive. The regulations stipulate that a maximum of 4 claims can be made against any one CRT operation, and an MSMA manufacturer cannot claim more than one engine from the same team per year. Dorna also appear to be banking on the manufacturers not wanting to lose face by claiming the engine of a competing manufacturer, especially if that manufacturer’s production based engine was propelling the CRT bike quicker than the claiming manufacturer’s prototype, but would this not encourage greater modification of the CRT engines if they suspected that the manufacturers would be reluctant to make a claim?

This claiming rule was actually a short-lived part of the American Superbike series in the nineties, and produced an anecdote involving a high profile “factory” team and a cashed-up privateer, whereby the privateer “claimed” the front suspension from the “factory” superbike, allegedly after the “factory” team had ensured that the internals of said suspension could never be used again. When confronted with the pair of useless superbike forks, the privateer suggested that he did it out of principle.

All MotoGP engines this year, those in the CRT bikes and those in the prototypes, have a maximum permissible bore of 81mm. This is the maximum diameter of each cylinder bore in whatever cylinder configuration is used, up to a maximum of four cylinders. Every bike on the MotoGP grid this year is a four cylinder, but the rules do not mandate this. There could be a twin or triple if someone wanted to produce one, but they would have to adhere to the maximum bore of 81mm. Conveniently, the BMW S1000RR engine being used by Colin Edwards’ NGM Forward CRT team is right on the 81mm bore limit however, according to people with far more engineering nouse than myself, the longer-stroke motors (with their resulting narrower bore to achieve the same capacity) will suffer. An 81mm bore in a four cylinder 1000cc configuration is reported to provide a maximum rev limit of about 16,500 rpm, thus keeping the engines at a state of tune that is sustainable without a massive outlay of cash for frequent re-building. The Gresini team are running a CRT bike in addition to their satellite Honda prototype, and they are expected to suffer with the longer stroke Honda Fireblade engine they plan to use. This is due to the premise that more revs means more power, and longer stroke motors are already close to the limit in terms of maximum safe piston speed, thus their tuning options to produce more power are limited. A longer stroke means that the piston has to travel further for the same revs, thus increasing piston speed, which increases stresses on pistons and conrods as they change direction at the top and bottom of their stroke. The Aprilia RSV4 engine has a bore of 78mm, the Kawasaki ZX-10 and Honda Fireblade are both 76mm. These engines can be bored out to 81mm if they want, but they’ll have to start changing lots of other things to adhere to the 1000cc capacity limit, and all the expense will be lost if someone else “claims” their engine. Hence, the teams running the BMW engine appear to be at an advantage already, except for the fact that Aprilia are developing a complete motorcycle, including the electronics.

The first tests of the 2012 season do not bode well for the CRT outfits. Lapping up to six seconds slower than the prototypes, the faster riders on prototypes are already raising “safety” concerns about slower traffic, but the CRT bikes look to be maybe four seconds slower than the fastest prototypes, compared to around two seconds for the slowest prototypes in testing. Will two more seconds over laps that are regularly over 90 seconds significantly increase the risks? The 107 per cent rule remains, requiring every rider to post a qualifying lap time within 107 per cent of the pole time. Over a lap of one minute and forty seconds, that’s a seven second deficit. The CRT machines have been given the race day morning warmup session to post a competitive qualifying time now, in addition to standard qualifying practice. That may still not be enough, as most of the MotoGP rookies in CRT are not people who you would have thought were destined for the premier class, with none of them really having had a standout season in the lower classes. Stefan Bradl is there on merit being the reigning Moto2 champion, but as for the others?

Still, it’s very early days for the CRT bikes, and it was not until their second test at Jerez at the end of February that they received the 2012 specification Bridgestone tyres, so they will have to make some setup changes for the new tyres. Interestingly enough though, at that particular test Randy de Puniet on his ART bike reportedly got within a few tenths of a second of Hector Barbera, who was testing a GP12 at the time. Barbera’s bike was the satellite “GP Zero”, like the one that Rossi first used with the aluminium perimeter frame at the post-season Valencia test, not to mention the fact that Barbera’s bike was actually one that had been almost destroyed the previous day in a fiery crash in the hands of Karel Abraham.

At the moment the CRT machines appear to be just grid fillers, but there is already some angst coming from some circles with regards to Aprilia’s involvement. Whereas every other CRT motorcycle currently testing is a production based engine with somebody else manufacturing the frame, Aprilia is developing a complete motorcycle, engine and frame included. Essentially a highly modified RSV4 superbike, modified to such an extent that it is no longer an RSV4 superbike of course, they are offering these bikes for sale to the Mapfre Aspar team, the Speed Master team, and Paul Bird Racing. Initial testing has been positive, but they are currently far from being a threat to the prototypes. So how grey is the area where Aprilia is treading with this bike? Very. Adding their own shade of grey is the FIM, in a press release on 12^th June 2011 at the Misano MotoGP round, aimed at clarifying what constitutes a CRT bike. In it they stated “Any complete motorcycle model derived from series production, homologated or not for the FIM Superbike/Supersport/Superstock is not eligible and will not be accepted in the FIM Grand Prix World Championship classes.” Now, how far removed from series production do you have to be to be eligible for CRT? The ART bike (Aprilia Racing Technology) being used by the Speed Master and Aspar teams (and Paul Bird Racing) is acknowledged to be derived from a World Superbike Aprilia RSV4, which is of course derived from a homologated series production bike, the……Aprilia RSV4. Is two degrees of separation enough? Initial development of the Aprilia CRT project was done using a World Superbike RSV4 with carbon brakes and Bridgestone MotoGP tyres. The next test had a modified frame in an attempt to adapt the bike to the extra grip afforded by the MotoGP spec tyres. There do not appear to be any definite rules on what constitutes a prototype bike and a CRT bike. The only differences that I could find in the rules were merely the fuel tank size and engine allocation, and those rules are applied after the Grand Prix Commission makes the determination about your team’s status, whether you’re deemed to be CRT or prototype. So you build a bike for MotoGP to the specifications for CRT, but you then have to wait for the Grand Prix Commission to confirm if they accept you as a CRT. If they deem you to be a prototype, then you have to modify the fuel tank capacity. A small modification, but the teams must feel somewhat in the dark when building and testing these motorcycles, not knowing if they’ll be labelled a prototype, but as I said before, there really does not appear to be a fundamental technical difference between a prototype and a CRT bike, it seems to be solely at the behest of the Grand Prix Commission.  Of course, should any technicians in the CRT operations be found to be under the employ of a manufacturer, questions will definitely be asked as to the nature of their duties. You could actually suggest that the Gresini outfit constitutes a grey area, as they are running a Honda Fireblade engine in their CRT bike, but will surely have Honda technicians in the team to look after their leased RC213V satellite prototype. Besides, is there really a significant difference between a CRT bike and prototype, other than an engine in a different state of tune? There will be a total of eight Honda RC213V bikes in the pits at Losail, one per rider and a spare, eight Yamahas and eight Ducatis. There will also be eight of the Aprilia ART bikes. Is the ART bike any less of a prototype when Honda, Yamaha and Ducati are putting exactly the same number of bikes on the grid?

I mention the Aprilia because I expect it to be the best performing CRT bike on the grid, simply because Aprilia has more resources available to it than the rest of the CRT operations, including an exceptionally good World Superbike electronics package that the rest can only dream of. Not to mention the fact that the bike is derived from a world championship winning motorcycle.

Now there is actually nothing in the CRT rules that mandates that the CRT bikes use production engines, nor is there a long list of modifications that you cannot make, other than banning certain expensive materials from being used in manufacturing the bike. The threat of your engine and gearbox being claimed by a manufacturer for just 20,000 Euros is being used to deter teams from spending 300,000 Euros on their engine, thus discouraging a manufacturer from building a prototype engine and trying to enter as a CRT outfit, or from heavily modifying an existing production engine. Besides, you can count on the CRT rules being gently massaged during the season to try and make them a bit more competitive with the prototypes (but not too competitive of course). Will Dorna acknowledge (even promote) the championship within a championship that will inevitably follow the CRT machines?

British Superbike has embraced this concept over the last few years, with the Privateers Cup and the Evo Championship running within the main British Superbike race.

The push for CRT was also deemed to be in the interests of reducing costs, enabling more teams, and thus more bikes and riders, to come and play in MotoGP. Ironically, it is reported that the majority of the CRT rides are being paid for by the riders themselves, hardly an endorsement of CRT being cheaper.

Is CRT the future of MotoGP? The factories are not in favour of it, and neither are a lot of fans. It may be dumbing down the series in the eyes of the manufacturers and fans, but would it really be that devastating if we went to CRT regulations across the board and saw the bikes lapping four seconds slower than the prototypes used to if CRT bikes are providing close racing? It is racing after all, not a parade.

Below is a list of the CRT entrants for the 2012 MotoGP season;

Mapfre Aspar Aprilia          Randy de Puniet (14), Aleix Espargaro (20)

Forward Racing Suter       Colin Edwards (5)

Gresini Honda FTR           Michele Pirro (51)

BQR Kawasaki FTR          Yonny Hernandez (68), Ivan Silva (22)

Speed Master Aprilia         Mattai Pasini (54)

Paul Bird Aprilia                 James Ellison (77)

IODA Racing Aprilia          Danilo Petrucci (9)

MotoGP Claiming Rule Team regulations are at the links below;

2010 Regs includes 81mm bore 11Dec2009

Regs for CRT (1000cc MotoGP regs) 30April2011

FIM statement at Misano “MC derived from series production will not be accepted” 12June2011

New tyre regs 10Aug2011

More CRT regs including carbon brakes for 2012 only 5Nov2011

Rain light 14Dec2011

Official entry list 13Jan2012

Barry Hartog

Back to Top

Well that didn’t take long. Whilst I will refrain from trying to “sex up” quotes from World Superbike’s two Italian manufacturers, attributed to them by the well-respected GPOne.com, some angst does appear to be brewing from Ducati over Aprilia’s results from the first round of the 2012 World Superbike Championship at Phillip Island last weekend. No doubt some Ducati supporters will be voicing their alarm too.

Handed an additional six kilograms of weight for this year with a reason yet to be given from the Superbike Commission (nor have we heard about the new performance parity system), I think that Ducati were somewhat justified in feeling aggrieved at the start of the 2012 World Superbike season, yet some in the Aprilia team considered the penalty to be largely inconsequential. Max Biaggi was quoted as saying “the six kilos of extra weight are a bit of a joke. They won’t change anything, and Checa is still the favourite” prior to Round 1 at Phillip Island. I suggested the same thing in a recent Oily Rag article, but don’t for a moment think that this couldn’t be a bit of sand-bagging on the part of Biaggi, in order to keep the focus on Ducati. 

In response to the weekend results, Genesio Bevilacqua (owner of the Althea Ducati team) was quoted thus; “We are a little worried because we saw a rider who could start last and still finish in second place, while we were penalised with six additional kilos of weight. It will be very difficult to overcome this handicap throughout the year, even with a true champion like Carlos for a rider”. Was the use of the word “true” when describing Checa’s championship a subtle inference that Biaggi didn’t deserve his 2010 title, suggesting instead that it was all down to the Aprilia motorcycle under his butt?

Checa had been fast at Phillip Island all week, and was leading the first superbike race when he crashed in Turn 12, so it’s not like the Ducati has a massive performance handicap with the extra weight. Checa did suggest during the lead up to the race that they were suffering a bit with tyre life due to the extra weight, but he seemed to have something in hand in Race 2, he reportedly finished with a rear tyre in better condition than those on the four-cylinder bikes behind him. Every other Ducati has the same minimum weight requirement, and there was a privateer example on the podium in Race 1 thanks to Sylvain Guintoli. Solutions to adding some weight to the motorcycle have included using a normal steel exhaust system on the 1198R instead of a titanium one, a nice cost-saving consequence, along with running an extra litre or two of fuel in the fuel tank for each race. The one-bike rule has prompted most teams to fit starter motors too, another way in which the Ducati can meet the higher minimum weight.

Aligi Deganello, Biaggi’s new crew chief, gave his opinion on the situation. “There is talk that the RSV4 is a thinly disguised MotoGP bike, but this isn’t true. Aprilia have transferred a lot of racing technology into their production bikes, creating an extremely sophisticated street bike. The Superbike is the racing version of the RSV4, so clearly it will take full advantage of this technology.”

Perhaps this is a way of justifying how much technology is on the production streetbike, so let’s see how the new Ducati 1199 Panigale goes in the FIM 1000 Superstock Championship when we head to Imola for Round 2 on April 1^st. The Panigale has technology which surpasses the RSV4, especially the electronics. It also has a hybrid chain and gear driven cam system as standard, similar to the Aprilia RSV4. This illustrates to me that Ducati are willing to forgo tradition for performance by replacing their traditional belt drive system with a chain drive.

So let’s try and have a look at how Max managed to come from the back of the field to finish the second Superbike race in second position and see if he really has a massive speed advantage over the rest of the field, or if he just rode the race of his life.

Carlos Checa headed the time sheets, or was close to the very top, for all five of the test days preceding the World Superbike round at Phillip Island. He topped the first free practice session on Friday, was three tenths from the front for both officially timed sessions, and was second to Biaggi by two hundredths of a second for the final free practice, which was the session prior to the cancelled Superpole. Biaggi was quick too, only a couple of places behind Checa in the results. They were the only two riders who spent the majority of these sessions doing mid and low 1:32 laps. No other rider did anywhere near as many laps at this pace, so Max and Carlos went into Sunday as consistently the two fastest riders out there, and by some margin. Melandri and Rea were able to match these times on occasion, but did not do anywhere as many in each session as Biaggi and Checa. Long runs like this are usually an indicator for race pace, and Max and Carlos were the fastest.

So, most of you will know what happened to Max in the first corner, when he run off the track at Doohan Corner to avoid contact with Tom Sykes. Max managed to stay upright after his grass-tracking and re-joined at the back of the field. Upon finishing the first lap, Biaggi was some eight seconds behind Checa, and in last place. Checa at this juncture was in second, and would drop back to third for a lap until taking the lead of the race by lap four. Biaggi meanwhile, was down amongst guys who were running a mid 1:34 pace. He proceeded to pass two or three riders per lap before reaching the top ten on lap 10. At this point, he was still eight seconds behind Checa. Biaggi was running low to mid 1:33 laps here, on par with Checa. However, the difference I think is the fact that Checa did his fastest lap on lap six, whilst in the lead and in order to establish a gap, whereas Biaggi did his fastest lap on the fifteenth circulation, when he was attempting to catch Tom Sykes for third place. Checa had obviously backed off a tad near the end of the race, because he dropped to 1:34 after lap 17, after doing two 1:32 laps early on to establish his lead. Biaggi never managed a 1:32, considering the first half of the race was spent in traffic and by the time he had some clear track, he had used the best of his tyres. He still managed a 1:33.0 as his fastest lap. Checa dropped down to a 1:34 on lap 18, and continued this pace until the end, whereas Biaggi was still firing off mid 1:33 in an attempt to catch Tom Sykes and Jonothan Rea in front of him. He succeeded on lap 19, after Tom Sykes and more dramatically Johnny Rea lost rear grip a few laps from the finish, and Max finished in second place just six seconds down on Checa.

This shows that Biaggi ran a pace similar to Checa for the entire race, but one that was faster than most of the people who were in front of him at the start of lap 2, and also that some of those near the front ran into rear tyre problems a few laps from the end and slowed. The lap times also suggest that Checa turned it down a notch with 6 laps to go, with the race victory well in hand.

Now I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. Yes, the team managers are more involved and experienced with this stuff than myself, but an analysis of the lap times for both riders does not seem to yield some magical blistering time from Biaggi during the race, nor do the times suggest that Biaggi was travelling any faster than Checa. Don’t forget, Checa set the fastest lap of the race early on, and was in a position to control the race from the front after lap seven. Biaggi nailed the Best Lap award for the fastest race lap from both races, setting it in the first race, only six hundredths of a second faster than Checa’s fastest lap from Race 2.

As for the Aprilia being so much faster on the straight than every other bike, an accusation raised by several commentators including those doing the live broadcast, you might be interested to know that while Biaggi’s bike had the fastest terminal speed in the second race at 325kph, Marco Melandri’s BMW was only 2 kph slower, with Leon Haslam’s BMW 3 kph slower. The Kawasaki managed to hit 319 kph. It was apparent that Biaggi was getting the Aprilia hooked up well out of Turn 12 onto the straight. It was also quite evident that the Ducatis are about 10 kph slower in outright speed, but with Checa on track by himself he was rarely under threat from the faster bikes, however the Ducatis back in the pack were regularly passed on the straight by the Aprilias and BMWs, and the odd Kawasaki.

Now here’s something else to consider before handing Biaggi the championship trophy already. For many years riders from both World Championships have described Phillip Island as being a unique track, and good pace there does not necessarily guarantee strong pace elsewhere, so the championship is definitely not yet over just because of this one result.

So let’s wait for Round 2 at Imola in April. It is in Italy after all, the home of Aprilia and Ducati.

Barry Hartog

Do any of you still follow the Australian Superbike Championship? Arguably, it has not produced a World Motorcycle Grand Prix Champion since Mick Doohan. That’s 20 years since our domestic championship can claim to have been the stepping stone for Australian greats.

Originally, the Australian Superbike Championship was run separately, almost ad hoc, with local clubs and the state regulatory body responsible for organising, officiating, and promoting their state round. In the eighties, there were two domestic championships, the Australian Road Racing Championships, and an Endurance Series. In recent times, MA took the commendable step of hiring a promoter, whereupon it was run by Terry O’Neill between 2004 and 2008. In this time there were “Official Distributor” teams from the four Japanese manufacturers. The series mantle has now been passed to Yarrive Konsky of International Entertainment Group, who was most unfortunate to have won the tender for running and promoting the Australian Superbike Championship (now known as the ASBK) when it coincided with the Global Financial Crisis recovery in 2009. Since then, Yamaha Australia moved their commitment to Terry O’Neill’s Formula Xtreme series in 2010, citing better value for money from a series running Superstock machines, and Kawasaki have not been represented in an official capacity in the Australian Championship since 2009. In spite of a specification close to Superstock, but with a small amount of allowable modifications beyond this, ASBK grid numbers are down too. Tellingly, within the leaked board meeting minutes that mistakenly appeared on Motorcycling Australia’s website for a few days in April last year, the board approved the ASBK as an Australian Championship Series, in spite of there being less than the minimum number required for such status.

There appears to be some skulduggery afoot too. Whilst Formula Xtreme released their 2010 calendar in September of 2009, the ASBK released a provisional 2010 calendar in November of 2009, containing only one date clash with Formula Xtreme. ASBK then released another version of the 2010 ASBK calendar on 25Dec2009 (a great way to bury a press release) with the new calendar having dates that clashed with three rounds of the Formula Xtreme series. This, however, may have been in response to an alleged similar action from the other side. Since 2010, the ASBK has been unable to book a date at Eastern Creek and Winton Raceway, both tracks being part of the consortium involved in Formula Xtreme, Australian Road and Track Rider Promotions. This consists of the Australian Racing Drivers Club through Eastern Creek Raceway, the Wakefield Park and Winton circuits, the Australasian Superbike Company, and AVE TV, a television production company. Run under the auspices of the Australian Auto Sport Alliance, Formula Xtreme does not have to answer to Motorcycling Australia. This suits O’Neill, as there is some animosity over how he was removed from the contract to run the Australian Superbike Championship. It does not end there though. The leaked minutes mentioned above also suggested that someone within Motorcycling Australia, referred to in the minutes as D.White, was seeking the assistance of the NSW Minister for Sport and Recreation in releasing some dates at Eastern Creek for the ASBK. Yarrive Konsky is reported in the same minutes as contacting the manager of Queensland Raceway to prevent Formula Xtreme from gaining a slot there in the future. Parties from all sides deny such direct action and statements, but do you believe that there is not an element of truth there? Why would it appear in these minutes if there was no truth to it? Unable to have garnered a copy of the minutes before they were removed from MA’s site, this information is gleaned from other sources that were privy to the minutes before removal.

Budgetary concerns were also discussed in these minutes. The television package enjoyed by the ASBK looks slick, but would be expensive to produce, and is broadcast via a media outlet (FOX Sports Speed Channel) with one of the lowest market shares available. The ASBK also rode on the coat tails of the V8 Supercars on Channel 7 at three rounds in 2011, in a throw-back to the 2+4 meetings of the mid-nineties. This meant that it appeared on 2 different broadcasters during 2011, an inconsistency not seen in many other motor racing series that I am aware of. For the last two V8 rounds of 2011, only one of the two ASBK races at each event was actually televised. Worst of all, they did not show the race in Tasmania where Glenn Allerton was crowned Australian Champion. Where’s the television exposure benefit in that? IEG is yet to be able to confirm broadcast details again for this year, and there is no guarantee that the same lack of coverage at V8 events will not afflict the ASBK again in 2012. Formula Xtreme, broadcast on SBS, certainly goes to a greater audience, especially regionally, and the broadcast schedule for every round is usually released before the first round of the year. The split broadcasting for the ASBK appears to be remaining for the 2012 season.

The 2011 ASBK calendar only clashed directly with one Formula Xtreme round, but with 2 of each series’ rounds happening within a fortnight of each other, and one of the ASBK series partners providing the transport to the long-haul rounds, competitors interested in doing both series were faced with a difficult choice. There were reports of ASBK competitors having to have their bikes with the transport company so early, and taking so long to make competitors’ bikes available for collection afterwards, that these competitors lost any chance of competing in an FX event held a fortnight before or after the ASBK event.

On September 14^th 2011, ARTRP released a statement suggesting that they had been negotiating with Motorcycling Australia to merge Formula Xtreme and the Australian Superbike Championship, but that MA then decided to not pursue this any further. As a result, 2012 will see the status quo of Formula Xtreme and the ASBK running separately. Is this in the best interests of the sport? Are these two series after the same thing?

Both series have Australian Championship status, yet MA does not recognise Formula Xtreme as thus, because FX got theirs through AASA. Sadly, it would appear that team managers in the world and strong overseas domestic championships do not recognise either series. They will, however, open their eyes and doors to a rider with financial backing. The suggestion is that the majority of riders progressing overseas have done so by paying for their rides. It has been stated by those in the know that it’s cheaper to buy a ride in America than to compete successfully (ie: competitively) locally in the ASBK. Those that have been successful without buying rides have gone to Europe as soon as they could, they did not wait around in Australia to win a national championship. Ask Casey Stoner. He left our shores when he was 14 to do the Spanish and British 125cc GP Championships. 1987 World 500cc Grand Prix Champion Wayne Gardner knows this too, he has already taken his eldest son to Spain to race. South Australian racer Arthur Sississ, at 16 years of age, is already in Spain racing, and competed in the 2011 Red Bull Rookies, a support category for European rounds of MotoGP. He finished the 2011 series in second position, with four wins, and will debut in MotoGP this year in the new four-stroke Moto3 category, replacing the two-stroke 125cc machines.

I think that the question needs to be: What do we want the ASBK to achieve? Running a motorcycle specification that is not used in the World Championships will hardly prepare a racer for Europe. The German Superbike Championship (IDM) runs very similar equipment to us, but few riders are plucked from that series and placed upon the world stage. Mat Mladin made a very good living in the United States racing equipment a couple of levels down from World Superbike, but they have only recently pegged back their superbike specification. The British Championship ran World Superbike spec machinery in 2011, and has done for most of it life in it’s current guise, but is de-tuning for 2012. Josh Brookes, competing for the official Suzuki GB team this year, has World Superbike and World Supersport rides behind him. He did not hang around in Australia proving himself having won both Superbike and Supersport domestic championships in the same year here. That needs to be done in the backyards of prospective teams.

Terry O’Neill tells anyone who’ll listen that his aim is to provide a series that is fair, affordable, and fun. He is to be commended for this, as he does not appear to have delusions of being a rider factory. He has a business to run, and wants it full of happy customers. The ASBK, rightly or wrongly, is seen as this country’s rider factory. However, MA appears to need a reality check. In the highlights programme of the Queensland round in 2010, then incoming President of Motorcycling Australia Mr Stephen Foody was quoted as suggesting that the ASBK “has to be the second biggest series in the world outside the AMA”. Unless he meant this as their goal, I regard this comment to be rather fanciful. Even at that time, the German, Japanese, and British series all attracted bigger grids, more sponsorship, and more factory involvement than the ASBK. It’s all very nice having a bunch of different brands racing around, but if only three of them are competitive, the ones at the back won’t hang around for very long. The Canadian series is closest to our level, yet they have managed to have television coverage and release a highlights DVD for 7 of the last 8 years, the latter being something that the ASBK has not achieved. The number of motorcycle brands in the 2012 Australian championship is very low, with only Suzuki, Honda, and BMW having any “official” support.

So let’s look at the customer base for both Superbike categories for 2011, to see how many “customers” they attracted. Taking the final race of each round as an example, to illustrate that a strong series will still have good fields after natural attrition through injuries and running out of spares during the round, the highest number of finishers in the third FX race was 22 (out of 23 starters) at their opening round, and dropped to 15 finishers (from 15 starters) at the penultimate round, with 16 out of 17 finishing the season at the final round. Comparing this to the Australian Superbike is fraught with traps, because it’s a hybrid series of standalone races and being a support act to the V8 supercars and World Superbikes. The standalone rounds saw a maximum of 12 finishers at the Symmons Plains event, with a low of eight at Hidden Valley in the Northern Territory. Overall, the West Australian V8 round saw the highest number of finishers (saying something about road racing in WA perhaps) with 15 riders greeting the chequered flag for race 2, whereas just eight riders crossed the line at the Darwin event. One other single digit finish was the Symmons Plains V8 round, which was the penultimate round of the ASBK. So, both championships seemed to suffer from a decline in entries as the season progressed, but FX’s lowest number of finishers was still more than the highest number of finishers for any ASBK event. You can argue that the ASBK will have fewer entries due to the distances covered by the series, but the promoter provided transport for all competitors to the interstate events. Formula Xtreme stays in NSW and Victoria for it’s championship, and provides no such travel assistance.

As for 2012, Formula Xtreme had their event schedule out early again, presenting it in September 2011. This gives competitors time to book annual leave from work and accommodation near the circuit. Whilst waiting for the ASBK calendar to be released, Motorcycling Australia confirmed that the agreement between themselves and IEG will continue through 2013, and Motorcycling Victoria jumped on the bandwagon handing over their state championship to IEG. Yarrive Konsky told Perth motoring journalist Trevor Hedge, in an interview posted on Hedge’s website on 11Nov2011 that the delay in announcing the calendar was due to delays in confirming some of the rounds. Mr Konsky stated that IEG had actually presented their calendar to Motorcycling Australia for approval at the start of October. They were waiting for V8 Supercars and World Superbikes to confirm that they wanted the ASBK as a support series. This is in an effort to garner more television exposure for the ASBK, but I don’t see how this can be achieved without ensuring that both races are telecast during the V8 broadcast, something that did not happen in 2011. This is what happens when you ride on the coat-tails of a larger series I guess.

The 2012 ASBK calendar was finally confirmed on November 21^st, after delays with finalising plans with V8 Supercars. Even with only one date clash with Formula Xtreme, and still with no event in New South Wales, the 2012 Australian Superbike Championship still doesn’t look all that attractive a proposition for privateer competitors. Out of seven rounds, there are two at Queensland Raceway, three at Phillip Island, one each at Barbagallo in WA and Hidden Valley in NT. You couldn’t get a series of events further away from each other if you tried. Still no South Australian round either. Previously, the South Australian round was held the weekend after the West Australian round. Since the majority of teams and riders are from the east coast of Australia, Mallala was usually scheduled to make it easy for those returning from the WA round to attend the SA round on the way back, but not for the last couple of years. Is there a difficulty between negotiations with the championship promoter, circuit owner, and our state sanctioning body? Is there some animosity left over from the last time the current promoter organised a round at Mallala?

As of the 15^th of February, the official entry list for the first round supporting World Superbikes at Phillip Island shows a total of 11 superbike entries for the ASBK. Things do not appear to be getting any better. I just hope that there’s good close racing, in both series.

Barry Hartog

Back to Top

A funny thing happened on the way to Round 11 of the 2011 World Superbike Championship. The Superbike Commission introduced a 2012 rule-change, effective immediately. In a press release on 16^th September, nine days before that round at Imola, the commission announced changes to the sporting regulations. Among other aspects pertinent to fuel injection systems was the following;

“Electronically controlled throttle valves, known as ‘ride-by-wire’, may be added or changed. However the safety systems and procedures must always be present and fully functional.”

A ride-by-wire system removes the mechanical cable between the throttle and the intake butterflies and makes the connection electrical. It is not quite in the form of snapping the throttle open and having the ECU sort out a smooth power delivery, that’s the realm of traction control. At the start of the 2011 season, ride-by-wire systems were allowed to be used only if the homologated machine had them. If your manufacturer did not fit one to the homologated model, then bad luck, you could not fit one to your superbike. BMW, Ducati, Yamaha and Aprilia fit ride-by-wire systems to their production 1000cc sportsbikes. Honda, Kawasaki, and Suzuki do not. Aprilia chose to fit the capability for a full cam driven valve-train to their production model for 2010, but nobody else did. As a result, Aprilia was resoundingly chastised for this and accused of cheating. Honda chose not to fit a ride-by-wire throttle system to their homologation model but no matter, the regulations were changed so that they don’t miss out.

Coincidentally, Johnathan Rea and the Castrol Honda World Superbike team arrived at Imola with a new ‘Ride-By-Wire’ throttle system, reportedly developed in conjunction with ex Formula 1 engine manufacturer Cosworth, and developed by the HM Plant Honda team in British Superbikes. Did people start complaining about this, labelling Honda “cheats”? No, of course not. The (newly changed) regulations allowed it. Rea then nabbed second position on the grid, after a season of mostly very average qualifying positions. Any complaints then? Well, no. Rea then won Race 1 at Imola, and was on the way to a dominant Race 2 win when the Honda suffered a minor technical glitch that produced a major non-result. This was followed up by pole position at the final round at Magny Cours, and a strong showing in both races before a crash and then a technical failure scuppered his weekend.

So why isn’t anybody throwing accusations of “cheating” at Castrol Honda or of “favouritism” by In Front, while people still accuse Aprilia of cheating in 2010? Aprilia developed the RSV4 to the regulations at the time, yet this last regulation change was released just over a week before Honda turned up with a bike modified to the new regulation, and just about wiped the floor with the opposition. I am not suggesting that this item is solely responsible for Castrol Honda’s miraculous improvement in performance, as Johnny Rea had spent the previous few months recovering from a wrist injury, but the gear-driven cam kit fitted to last year’s Aprilia was not the silver bullet to their performance either, but people were still up in arms about it. Aprilia had already won races before the gear driven cam was introduced in the racebike. Castrol Honda turned up at Imola just nine days after this system was made legal, with much development of this system reportedly being done by a Honda team in British Superbikes. Kawasaki are testing a ride-by-wire system for 2012 too, since they do not have one on their homologated production model either.

While a lot of people now seem to accept that the Aprilia was well within the regulations, the phrase “within the spirit of the rules” is now at the forefront of people’s dilution of Aprilia’s 2010 World Riders and Manufacturers Championship. The most vocal critic of the Aprilia situation last year was Ronald Ten Kate, Castrol Honda boss, quoted in Motorcycle Racer magazine Issue 134 as saying that “The philosophy is wrong for this championship.” Ducati World Superbike Director Ernesto Marinelli (formerly Troy Bayliss’ crew chief) said “I think the philosophy of superbike is still to be very close at least to the concept of the production machine and this one is going a bit over it.” And the limited run homologation specials that Ducati have produced sine 1988 is not going a bit over it too? Nor that they reportedly rolled up to the 2011 season opener at Phillip Island with their “privateer” 1198R adorned with the electronics from the Ducati MotoGP bike? And yes, I realise that Aprilia produce a limited edition homologation special in the RSV4 Factory, but you’ll find that it’s predominately the same bike as the “R” model, with identical engines, and you regularly see examples of them in the Adelaide Hills. Do you remember Yamaha’s YZF-R7? How many have you seen on the road? How about Honda’s RC45 RVF750R? I’ve only ever seen one in the flesh, and that was in my van, delivering it to it’s new owner who promptly placed it in his living room! How many times have you seen a Honda RC30 VFR750R down the bay? Have you ever seen a Foggy Petronas FP1 at Cudlee Creek Café? Or a Benelli Tornado Series Oro at The Amberlight Cafe in Lobethal? How about a Bimota SB8R at Garage Motorcycles?

Why isn’t Castrol Honda’s aftermarket ride-by-wire throttle, or Ducati’s MotoGP electronics any less within the spirit of the sport? Why are electronics worth tens of thousands of dollars, and capable of multi-tasking traction control, engine braking control and data-logging, still within the spirit of the rules? How many road bikes have a Magneti Marelli Marvel 4 electronics package on them, the staple ECU and data acquisition hardware of the World Superbike paddock? Why is it that Ronald Ten Kate can sit there last year lambasting Aprilia about their valve-train drive system, yet is quite happy to fit a system not previously homologated on the Honda, but is now allowed? Whilst it may not provide a significant performance increase (Troy Bayliss, during the Imola World Superbike broadcast, suggested that the only tangible benefit of a ride-by-wire system will only occur in the lower gears), I do not see how this can be seen to be “in the spirit of the championship/sport/rules”. Of course, no-one begrudged Castrol Honda these upgrades because they were not in a position to win the championship. That much appears obvious. The potential of the system is obvious to some too, because Ten Kate has been contracted by MotoGP stalwarts Gresini Racing to supply race-prepped Honda Fireblade engines for Gresini’s 2012 Claiming Rule Team bike in MotoGP.

Anyhoo, there were a raft of other regulation changes introduced for 2012. The Ducati has been given an extra six kilograms to carry this year. For 2012, 1000cc three and four cylinder superbikes have a 165kg minimum weight, with 1200cc twin cylinder superbikes increasing to 171kg. Carlos Checa has raised valid questions about this, citing the fact that after both Yamaha and Aprilia won the rider’s chmpaionship in 2009 and 2010 respectively, neither of those bikes were hit with a minimum weight increase. The organisers are striving for parity between the twins and four cylinder bikes, and they had a formula for maintaining this, using the race results of both configurations to decide if changes needed to be made. Ducati escaped any change last year because the system was designed to take into account the scenario of just one rider on a certain configuration being competitive, which is exactly the scenario which saw Checa win the 2011 title. He had tremendous consistency throughout the year, better than his competitors. However, the procedure above for handicapping the twin cylinder bikes for parity has changed, but the details have yet to be released by the FIM (Federation Internationale Motorcyclisme). I do not see this change significantly reducing Checa’s chances of successfully defending the title, but I expect that this year’s championship will be a closer fight to the end.

Thus, the most significant regulation change is the introduction of a one-bike rule. The British Superbike Championship ran a one bike rule for their 2011 Superbike category, and since they run a very similar overall race weekend format to World Superbike (including bikes very close to World Superbike specification), they provided a good litmus test for the proposal. Overall, it appears to have been a success. Of course, there were a couple of issues with riders damaging their bikes in the first race of the day, some through no fault of their own, and suffering in the second race with a bike that was still not 100 percent, or was not repaired in time. Both factory Honda riders suffered electrical gremlins too, whereby they had issues in both races as a result of not having time to trace the problem between races. Essentially, teams can have enough spares to make up a spare bike, but they cannot have these spares assembled as a spare bike. Only one bike will be allowed to go through Tech Inspection.

However, a number of teams who ran in the British Superstock Championship in 2011 have moved up to Superbike for 2012, and credit for this is being given to the one-bike rule. The organisers also ran an “Evo” class amongst the traditional superbikes in 2011, and the series is now a single specification, running engines in a near Superstock state of tune, but with World Superbike running gear. There is a control ECU fitted for 2012 too.

World Supersport ran a one-bike rule in 2011 too, but since they only have one race per weekend, it was not going to illustrate some of the potential shortcomings that would afflict the Superbike programme. The single bike rule in World Supersport has been vindicated by PTR Honda team principle and ex 500cc Grand Prix racer Simon Buckmaster, who credits the one-bike rule with the expansion of his Supersport team to five riders in 2012.

The Effenbert-Liberty Ducati Racing Team has now confirmed an entry for three riders in the 2012 World Superbike Championship, thus providing the first tangible clue that the single-bike rule may well see an increase in grid size for World Superbikes.

As for Australians running in World Superbike this year, we are now down to one with the retirement of Troy Corser. Mark Aitchison has signed for the newly formed Grillini BMW team. Having previously run a Yamaha R1 in the 2008 World Superbike championship, they have returned to World Superbike and picked up Atcho from Pedercini Kawasaki.

Superbike: Mark Aitchison - Grillini BMW

Supersport: Broc Parkes - Ten Kate Honda, Jed Metcher - RivaMoto Yamaha

Superstock 1000: Bryan Staring - Pedercini Kawasaki

Superstock 600: Matt Davies - Go Eleven Kawasaki

The first round of the 2012 World Superbike Championship is at Phillip Island on February 26^th.

Barry Hartog

I hope that you are sitting comfortably, because this is a bit of a long one.

Whilst I think that it is going just a tad too far to suggest that Valentino Rossi is MotoGP, since the series will undoubtedly continue after he retires from the sport, there is no doubting his influence on MotoGP today. He is responsible for a decent percentage of spectators at the track and for a percentage of television viewers. That is to say that a large number of people only watch MotoGP to see Rossi, they have no connection or interest in motorcycling or motorcycle racing other than him. This was made quite clear in 2010 when Rossi broke his leg at the Mugello MotoGP round in June.

Shortly after that fateful round, respected US motorcycle racing website www.superbikeplanet.com ran a poll on their website, where they asked the question; “With Valentino Rossi out with a broken leg, do you feel your interest in MotoGP is the same as it was when he was healthy or has his absence diminished it?” The proffered answers and results are below.

My interest in MotoGP is about the same as when he was racing and didn't have a leg held together with pins and screws. 76.4% (7909 votes)

Ah, no thanks. Call me when Rossi is back on the grid. 23.6% (2446 votes)

This result suggests that approximately one quarter of the fans who responded to the poll would not watch MotoGP again until Rossi was back on track. It also suggested (at least to me) that some of those 23 per cent may well stop watching MotoGP altogether when Rossi retires. This prospect is something that I suspect is on the mind of Dorna CEO, Carmelo Ezpeleta. I would suggest that it’s been on his mind for most of Rossi’s premier class career, and may go some way to explaining why Rossi sometimes seems to have had an influence on proceedings during his tenure at the top of the sport.

There is no denying that Rossi is a superstar (the whole G.O.A.T. thing will be dealt with at a later date). His popularity arguably surpasses any previous rider, world champion or not, and his “brand” transcends motorcycle racing. That is, he’s nearly as recognisable to people outside of motorcycling as inside, something that we have not really seen since Barry Sheene.

A lot of people barrack for Rossi because he’s successful, jumping on the bandwagon several years after his rise to prominence, and that’s fine. He’s very deliberate in how he comes across in the press, and he can use it to his advantage. I cannot think of a motorcycle racer who gets more motorcycle magazine covers or column inches than Rossi. Magazine editors know that a cover with Rossi on it will produce an upward spike in sales for that issue. A study into which periodicals take this principle to heart would be intriguing.

He has been on factory equipment since he started in grand prix. He was on what was widely regarded as the best motorcycle for his first 3 premier class World Championships, the Honda NSR500 and RCV211V. His move from Honda to Yamaha at the end of the 2003 season was ballsy, classy, and calculated. He did not move before receiving assurances from Yamaha that they would provide the resources necessary to go for the championship, and also that they would develop the inline 4 cylinder engine into a “big-bang” engine, now known as a cross-plane crank as fitted to the current Yamaha R1 production motorcycle. Rossi took his team with him from Honda, which of course included head spannerman Jeremy Burgess. This last fact is really the best decision that Rossi has made during his career. “JB” had played a part in 8 Rider’s World Championships (Freddie Spencer X2, Wayne Gardner X1, Mick Doohan X5) before being given the job of introducing Rossi to the 500cc grand prix circus in 2000.

Rossi promptly won the championship in 2004, becoming the fourth person in the sport to win premier class championships on different makes of motorcycle (after Geoff Duke, Giacomo Agostini and Eddie Lawson) and only the second rider in history to win consecutive premier class championships on different makes (after Eddie Lawson). His stock was rising to atmospheric heights.

Rossi has had the odd run-in with officialdom. His debut 500 race saw him involved in an altercation with Max Biaggi whilst accelerating onto the front straight at Suzuka. He passed Max the next lap and, whilst negotiating the very fast first turn, flicked Max the bird behind him. They were both given a warning by the stewards.

2003 saw a couple of yellow flag incidents for Rossi, which only served to endear him to motorcycle racing fans the world over, and to hint at what was in the future. He passed under a yellow flag at the Donington round, which resulted in him having 10 seconds added to his race time after the finish as the infraction was not reported by flag marshals at the time (possibly a symptom of a developing “hero worship” that was to reoccur) but by having had a protest lodged by another team after the race. He did the same again near the end of the season at Phillip Island, but this was reported and Rossi was advised via pit board that he would get 10 seconds added to his race time again. Doing well to understand the message on his pit board, he proceeded to give us a masterful display of riding to amass enough of a gap to still will the race by 5 seconds from Loris Capirossi.

A last corner lunge for the lead by Rossi at the season opening race in Jerez in 2005 saw him literally run into factory Honda rider Sete Gibernau at the final corner on the final lap. The impact forced Gibernau wide of the corner and into the gravel, while Rossi was able to continue through to take the win. Gibernau managed to make it across the line in second place, and was clearly injured by the contact and, whilst holding his arm climbing the stairs to the podium, Rossi was giving a wry smile to the cameras while motioning at Gibernau. Some people (predominately his fans I suspect) will have seen it as Rossi smirking about Gibbers playing the injury for all he was worth being in Spain (and I agree with them), but it could also be interpreted as Rossi laughing at the fact that Gibbers had been injured in an aggressive overtake. A bit of a stretch I know, but this is from a guy who has played the media card very well, and it’s surprising that Rossi did not see another perspective to his facial expression deriding Gibernau’s expression of pain. It was later confirmed that Gibernau suffered a shoulder injury in the altercation. No penalty arose from this incident. A miscalculation by Rossi this one, as any time he subsequently brought up the subject of forceful overtakes that had been perpetrated on him, he was reminded of the Jerez incident, which would usually elicit the backing down response of “I guess this is racing” from him.

Unbelievably, later in 2005 at Motegi, Rossi ran into the back of Marco Melandri in a braking zone, which resulted in the two of them crashing, and saw Marco suffer a footpeg through his foot for his troubles. Again, no penalty was forthcoming, in spite of the fact that at this very round 2 years prior, Japanese rider Makoto Tamada was disqualified from the race result for “riding in an irresponsible manner causing danger to other riders”, where he attempted to outbrake Sete Gibernau. Moving across ever so slightly in the braking zone, Tamada made contact with Gibernau’s front brake lever, causing Sete to take evasive action through the gravel trap before re-joining the race. It was an offence that several respected journalists thought was not that bad. Julian Ryder described Tamada’s overtake as “hard but not unfair”. It was a bizarre race anyway, with John Hopkins excluded from the following round for being deemed “at fault” for a first corner incident that eliminated himself and three other riders from the Motegi race.

Then came 2006. It was quite a tumultuous year for Rossi, compared to his previous years, and it was similar to (but less tragic than) Michael Schumacher’s 1994. Although, of course, Schumi did win the championship that year....

Whilst the 2006 Yamaha M1 was far from being uncompetitive, it did give some top-end power away to the Honda, something that the Yamaha had been doing for decades. This coupled with some uncharacteristic mistakes on the part of Rossi, like destroying his rear tyre at Laguna Seca, falling off at Le Mans, and crashing in the last race of the year at Valencia, saw absolute underdog Nicky Hayden take the title for Rossi’s old employers, Honda. Like Schumi’s 1994, Rossi’s 2006 saw some controversy, and seemed to illustrate to many observers that his stature in the sport was influencing fan, officialdom, and flag marshal alike, to his benefit. Previous incidents with race stewards were usually just put down to an insipidly inconsistent FIM stewardship, something that has been afflicting grand prix motorcycle racing’s sanctioning body for decades.

This perception of FIM incompetence turned somewhat askew on the afternoon of the 2006 Phillip Island round, with there now being favouritism thrown into the mix.

The race false started due to the inclement weather, suffering a delay of 10 minutes before being declared a wet race. It was the first race where riders changed bikes when they started on slicks and saw the rain fall midway through the race. Carlos Checa started the innocuous ball rolling by pulling off the track at Honda Corner with a technical issue, prompting a yellow caution flag to be displayed at the corner. On the next lap, Rossi passed Stoner around the outside of the blisteringly fast Turn 3, and slipped up the inside at Honda, thus passing under a yellow flag in contravention of the FIM’s sporting regulations. Now here is where it gets a bit farcical. Stoner appeared to get very close to drawing up alongside Rossi between Honda and the left-hander of Siberia, but Rossi was ahead entering Siberia. The race continued unabated, with Marco Melandri the victor, providing that wonderful piece of footage involving him doing a one-handed power slide out of Turn 12 onto the front straight. The piece of footage showing the flag infraction never made it to the end of year highlights dvd, and the race highlights commentary makes no mention of the overtake or resulting furore.

Since no penalty was handed down to Rossi during the race for the yellow flag infraction (the FIM’s sporting regulations stipulated a ride-through as the appropriate response), questions were asked immediately after the race. The race directors said that they did not see the incident. That may be, since the control room at Phillip Island at that time was not full of 30 odd television screens like it is now. However, there were several marshals at the marshal post inside Honda Corner, most of whom would have had a clear view of the incident, since this was the post showing the yellow flag. Whilst the person waving the flag may not have seen it, with both Stoner and Rossi denying having seen the flag themselves, there were other flaggies attending the post that surely should have seen it, along with some of the marshals at the preceding marshalling post on the inside of Turn 3. More to the point, English-speaking announcers on television and the internet broadcast saw the infringement, as they commentated on it during the race, and they will have been watching the same live feed in which the race directors failed to observe the incident.

One man who appears to have recognised the fact that the pass was made under a yellow flag was Nicky Hayden. He does appear to hesitate for a lap or two, expecting a ride-through for Rossi, before Nicky starts chasing the reigning world champion down, eventually finishing 2 places behind #46. Honda felt so strongly about the affair that they actually sent an official letter of complaint to the FIM.

So what was the FIM’s response to this incident? Absolving themselves and Rossi of blame, they reportedly palmed off Stoner’s half-overtake between Honda and Siberia as Rossi relinquishing the position, as required by the same rule that he broke. However, the rule requires the offending rider to raise his hand and drop back behind the person they overtook, in order for no penalty to be given. Rossi did not raise his hand to signal that he was dropping back, and his lap times show that he did not back off at all, running several tenths quicker than Stoner on the lap in question, as he did on previous and subsequent laps. It’s perfectly feasible that Rossi did not see the flag, as he and Stoner admitted, but for absolutely nobody in race control or at the marshal post to have seen it? It smells a bit of some favouritism from race control, or perhaps an element of idolising from some of the flaggies, in not wanting to admit that Rossi needed a penalty. He was behind Hayden in the championship at the time, and needed to get some points back. He was a couple of positions ahead of Nicky at the time of the infringement. There will only have been one marshal at the post with the ability to communicate the infraction to race control, so whether it was this person who exercised their own discretion or another who simply didn’t feel the impetus to mention the incident, it will not be clear. Either way, I fail to accept that professionals tasked with running the epitome of motorcycle road racing on the planet could fail to notice something like this, especially when an infraction by the same rider in the same corner attracted a penalty in the 2003 race. An athlete of Rossi’s stature does not deserve a free ride like this, not that he needs one anyway. Of course, he has no direct control over this type of thing happening, but you can bet that he’s not going out of his way to prevent it. His entire persona is aimed at being the “fans’ favourite”. This sort of thing is a natural consequence of that.

Let’s not forget of course what transpired at Estoril just a couple of rounds later, when Dani Pedrosa crashed into the side of Nicky Hayden, ending a rather optimistic overtake that saw them both fail to finish, setting the scene for a dramatic final round at Valencia. No penalty was given to Pedrosa for this incident either. So was Rossi’s lack of penalty at Phillip Island favouritism or blatant FIM inconsistency?

Rossi didn’t fare much better in the 2007 season, with Casey Stoner on the Bologna Bullet taking the title, tellingly on Bridgestone tyres, being the second of 2 seasons that had seen a gradual decline in the performance and consistency of the Michelin tyres. Whilst some people argue that the Bridgestones played as significant part in Stoner winning the Championship as Rossi’s Michelins played in him losing the championship, these same people seem to forget that Michelins played a big part in Rossi winning every one of his premier class championships prior to 2007, when he was the recipient of Michelin’s “Saturday Night Specials”, tyres manufactured during a race weekend after collection of Friday and Saturday data from the track (during a European round) and flown to the Grand Prix overnight for Rossi to use in the race, thus being the best tyre possible for the anticipated conditions. The upshot of the regulations forcing people to nominate their tyres on the Saturday of the event (and in subsequent years the Thursday before the race) was that tyres had to be made further away from the date of their eventual use, thus requiring a broader operating range with regards to temperature.

2007 also saw something of a Mexican standoff between Dorna and the riders over one of the most significant regulation changes since the four-stroke formula was introduced in 2002. The first half of the 2007 season saw a lot of discussion about implementing a single-tyre rule (ostensibly a control-tyre), to improve “The Show”. In spite of all of this, a quick glance would suggest that there was nothing terribly wrong with “The Show”. Bridgestone had 33 podiums in 2007, Michelin had 21. These stats may sound a bit one-sided at face value, but remember that there were over twice the number of Bridgestone runners that year compared to Michelin. Both Michelin and Bridgestone had one occasion where they had a clean sweep of the podium, but the only statistic where Bridgestone was a clear winner was, well, the number of wins. 12 wins to Michelin’s 6, but then Casey Stoner amassed 10 of the Bridgestone wins on his way to the 2007 World Championship, only two wins were achieved by someone other than him, Chris Vermeulen (in the wet) and Loris Capirossi (at the race where Stoner sealed his championship). Conversely, only Rossi and Pedrosa won on Michelins that year. More often than not, Stoner had a Michelin runner behind him when he won.

Rossi started his media campaign early for a single tyre rule, stating at the Laguna Seca round in July that “People are fans of Rossi or Pedrosa or Stoner, they are not fans of Michelin or Bridgestone”. Well, he certainly wasn’t a fan of Michelin at that stage, but I suspect he was quite keen on Bridgestones by then. In August he was asking for a return to unlimited tyre choice, the realm of Michelin’s European base. At the same time, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta was telling the European media that the “current tyre was has taken the focus off the riders and bike manufacturers and put it on the tyre companies”, thus echoing Rossi remarks from Laguna Seca. Come Estoril, and HRC confirmed Pedrosa for another 2 years, while acknowledging that Dani wanted Bridgestone for 2008 too, but Honda wanted Michelin to “improve the product”. Rossi still insisted that tyres were his biggest problem (in spite of Pedrosa being on Pole Position for this race) and had a pop at Yamaha too, especially as Yamaha racing chief David Brivio confirmed in Estoril that Yamaha were to remain on Michelins for the 2008 season.

Come the Motegi round in September, a meeting of the Grand Prix Commission there saw Dorna propose a spec tyre rule for 2008, with the decision to be made in Malaysia. Bridgestone initially responded to this proposal by stating that they did not have the logistical capability, for manufacturing and transportation, to provide tyres to any more riders than they were currently contracted for, especially if they were to provide tyres for all entrants as soon as the following year. At the Australian round in October, there were already rumours of Rossi being on Bridgestones in 2008. The weekend after the Australian round was Malaysia, where Bridgestone met with Ezpeleta. Reputable paddock scuttlebutt at the time suggested that, in this meeting, the head of Dorna had a careful word in Bridgestone’s ear, reminding them that MotoGP was definitely going to progress to a single tyre provider in the near future and that it might happen a lot quicker should Rossi’s request for Bridgestone tyres be denied, with the possibility that Bridgestone wouldn’t get the gig. Accusations were levelled at Rossi suggesting that Ezpeleta’s stance was at the behest of Rossi, an accusation levelled at Valentino by none other than the CEO of Bridgestone at the time.

Whatever the premise, Dorna formally withdrew the single tyre regulations from the FIM on 24Oct2007, and subsequently announced on 3Nov2007 that they would increase the weekend tyre allocation to 40 (18 front, 22 rear) for 2008. One day later, Yamaha confirmed that Rossi would race in 2008 on Bridgestone tyres.

Having cited a lack of loyalty as one of the reasons Rossi left Honda, this lack of loyalty to the tyre manufacturer that had helped him to 5 MotoGP World Championships until that point smelt a little bit of double standards. Rossi was the only rider who had changed tyre providers come the commencement of the 2008 season. Pedrosa would have them before the end of the year.

Now, 3 years later, it would seem that Rossi may have had an influence on the sport’s regulations again.

Testing restrictions have been an up-and-down affair in MotoGP over the last few years. Introduced ostensibly in an effort to reduce costs, they have moved between being quite restrictive and being relatively relaxed. Detailing them would take a couple of paragraphs and, since you are probably close to nodding off if you’ve gotten this far into this article,  I’ll refrain from detailing them. Suffice to say, they have generally restricted the contracted MotoGP riders from doing no more than a handful of testing days during the season, requiring MotoGP manufacturers to employ separate, and thus expensive, test teams for bike development. This restriction was achieved through limits on the number of days of testing allowed, and the number of tyres allocated for testing duties. The one aspect of these restrictions that seemed to escape those who introduced it was the effect that it would have on MotoGP rookies, severely reducing the amount of time they had to familiarise themselves with their new bikes and new tyres before the season started. Each year the testing restrictions were changed, usually becoming more restrictive, but not always, until the start of 2011, saw Rossi voicing his concerns about the prospect of learning his new Ducati over the course of a severely restricted pre-season testing programme.

So how much testing did Rossi get to do the two times he changed manufacturers? When he went into 2004 pre-season testing to acquaint himself with the new Yamaha M1, he did a total of 17 days of testing before the first round, with 2 of those days being wet, and the last day of testing before racing started being a total washout, prompting the main protagonists to depart early. With a couple of half-wet days, this produced a total of 13 days of dry track testing. He was in fact the fastest Yamaha on the first day of riding the bike at the first Sepang test, having been refused permission by his former employers to ride the Yamaha at the first official IRTA tests following the last round of the 2003 championship. In 2011 he had 11 useable test days out of the 13 scheduled IRTA test days (disregarding the two at night in Qatar in the lead up to Round 1 and losing 1 full day to wet weather at Ducati’s private test, all of Rossi’s official test days were dry), and he was the slowest of the Ducati riders at the first test following the final 2010 round at Valencia. This meant that he was slower than Ducati and MotoGP rookie Karel Abraham.

Hang about. He had two less useable test days in 2011 than in 2004? So what’s all the fuss about then? Well, the difference is that there was the potential for 17 days of testing during the 2004 pre-season, as opposed to the 13 days at the start of 2011. While not all of the days were utilised due to wet weather, especially at those days scheduled during the northern hemisphere winter, it suggests to me that for a productive test regime, no matter how restricted or not it may be, they perhaps should look at conducting all of their pre-season testing in the southern hemisphere summer.

So this still constitutes a significant reduction in testing, especially to someone who has changed bikes over the off-season. One wonders if Rossi would have been singing the same song had he stayed at Yamaha for 2011. History now suggests that even if Ducati had 20 testing days at their disposal prior to the start of the season, they would not have started the season significantly more competitive than they actually did.

The whispers now coming out of MotoGP-land point to the relaxing of these testing restrictions. Not an increase in test days as such but an increase in tyre allocation, giving each manufacturer’s team 240 tyres to be utilised for testing MotoGP class machines with test riders during the year. Contracted riders in the MotoGP class (meaning Rossi et al) may test using a tyre allocation of 120 tyres, effectively increasing the number of days they can test. Teams will thus have to juggle meaningful input from tests by using their race riders (with test riders rarely equalling race riders in pace, otherwise they’d be racing), and fatigue from using their contracted race riders too much for testing between events. Restrictions to testing at a circuit prior to the race weekend will still stand.

Whilst he can hardly be accused of being the catalyst for the change, with some riders and manufacturers previously questioning the testing restrictions, it has to be more than coincidental that the change has been made following Valentino Rossi’s worst season in his entire World Championship career, and one that started with him still trying to recover from corrective surgery on the shoulder that he injured during training at the start of 2010, all the while trying to turnaround a recalcitrant Ducati Desmosedici. Should Dorna be doing their darndest to ensure that their greatest drawcard is given a better chance of winning another championship? Millions of the yellow brigade would think so, as would Dorna’s accountants. I’m not convinced though.

Now I’m not suggesting here that Valentino Rossi regularly goes out of his way to incite favouritism from officialdom, but I think that the Bridgestone saga is probably the closest that he has come to using his stature to get what he wanted, and it worked. He got what he was after, a switch to Bridgestone when it was obvious that they were the better tyre. Now a lot of you will tell me that nobody can blame Rossi for wanting to be on the same tyre as the competition, it’s only “fair”, and that’s a fair point. However, everybody else on the grid had the same want, yet he was the only 2007 Michelin runner who got onto Bridgestone for the start of the 2008 season. Yes, racing isn’t fair, but blatant unfairness and using your position to get one up on your competitors is unacceptable in my eyes.

I may be labelled a “Rossi-hater” for this article, and that’s fine. I’m not a fan of his, but I am not a fan of any MotoGP rider at the moment. I’m a fan of watching good racing, and good battles for race position, irrespective of if it’s for first place or tenth. In spite of how selfish motorcycle racing can be, I am also a fan of fair competition. If this makes me a Rossi-hater, then so be it. I do not like seeing someone use their position to gain an advantage, nor do I like seeing those in power pander to those with a higher stature than others.

Anyhow, testing for the 2012 season starts soon. The first official IRTA three day test for the MotoGP teams starts at Sepang in Malaysia on January 31^st. They then return to Sepang on February 28^th, with the final test at Jerez in Spain starting March 23^rd.

Barry Hartog (posted 07/01/12)

Back to Top

There is now only a fortnight to go before the start of one of the greatest motorsport endurance events ever, which means that there is only a fortnight to go before social commentators and safety-nazis are likely to start calling for an end to said event, thus calling for a risk-free life where the only reason that someone dies is from old age.

The Dakar Rally runs from the 1st to the 15th of January 2012 and is open to competitors in cars and trucks as well as bikes and, more recently, quads. It originated in 1979 in northern Africa, and has previously travelled the entire length of the African continent in one edition when it went from Paris to Cape Town. Settling into a regular Paris to Dakar route in the nineties, the hangovers from French occupation and rule in some of the countries traversed by the event, particularly Mauritania, led to very specific terror threats levied at the event and it’s participants through the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs just prior to the 2008 event. Three Mauritanian soldiers and four French tourists were murdered in Mauritania in the days prior to the start of the event and, coupled with the terror threats, forced the organisers to abandon the race. This forced the organisers to look away from Africa for the first time in the event’s history, where Latin-America opened it’s collective arms to the Dakar. The 2009 race was the first in it’s new home, and saw the competitors crossing the spine of South America, travelling from Argentina to Chile and back.

The 2012 event will see those competitors travel from Argentina, through Chile, and finish in Peru. Those who arrive at the finish will have covered some 8000km, making the Dakar the most extreme example of the off-road Rally Raid genre, and it’s the bikers and quad riders that are most revered, at least in my eyes, as the motorcycle category represents the biggest challenge undertaken in the event. Riding for over 10 hours per day, for distances of over 600km, for several days on end, it has to be the greatest test of human endurance in motorsport. It’s not just saddle time either, as they can spend 5 hours digging their bikes out of talcum powder-like sand to cover a distance of less than 5 kilometres. Added to this, the majority of the riders have to service their own bikes during the event, catching a few hours of sleep only after they’ve seen to their bikes at the bivouac at the end of each special stage. They spend the bulk of the event in a perpetual state of tiredness, with just one rest day in the middle of the event. While sleep deprivation is a universally acknowledged tool of torture, it is but one of the challenges faced by Dakar participants, with competitors also having to deal with the beginnings of hypoxia, or oxygen starvation, due to the fact that some sections of the event ascend over 13,000 feet above sea level. As a result, only half of those who start the event manage to finish, which is why just finishing the event is such a massive achievement. Great camaraderie exists between the bikers, but it only goes so far. For an insight into the trials and tribulations of doing this event on two wheels, I recommend reading Race to Dakar by Charley Boorman, and To Dakar and Back by Lawrence Hacking.

Since the inception of this event, the bikes entered have grown from single cylinder 500cc units, think Yamaha XT500 and the like, to massive 990cc v-twins campaigned by KTM. With 2 high profile deaths in quick succession (Fabrizio Meoni in 2005 and South Australian Andy Caldecott in 2006) the decision was taken to restrict the top speed of the bikes to 160kph and the capacity down to 690cc single cylinder machines, with a subsequent reduction in engine capacity to 450cc from 2010. Initially, only the professional riders were restricted to the smaller bikes, in order to give the privateers time to build new bikes after they had been campaigning their own larger capacity machines for years. As of the 2012 event, every bike entered is 450cc, and it’s really the privateers that make the bike category. As a move that was initially regarded with trepidation and scorn, the 450cc limit has spawned a revival of the bike category with the return of BMW, and with new manufacturers entering the fold, names like Husaberg, Yamaha, Sherco, Aprilia, Gas Gas, Honda, and Husqvarna.

The allure of the event is amazingly strong, considering the event is made in such a way as to almost ensure that half the field fails to finish, but it’s a difficult balance. If too many people finish the event it is considered too easy, and may not attract as many competitors. Conversely, if it is too difficult and few people finish, it would be considered too hard and would put people off from entering, so the organisers seem to have found a great balance, considering that the Dakar is regularly over-subscribed with entries. However, with 188 bikers entered for the 2012 race, only the top 10 or so riders will be entertaining any thoughts of going for the win. Marc Coma and Cyril Despres between them have won the last 6 races, with 3 wins apiece.

Andy Caldecott-2006 Dakar.        Photo courtesy Tracey Caldecott www.andycaldecott.com.au

Sadly, it is almost a certainty that at least one rider will lose their life during this year’s event, just like the Isle of Man TT. South Australia, ironically, has lost a rider in each event. Kenny Blake died at the TT in 1981, and Andy Caldecott died during the 2006 Dakar. And like the TT, every competitor participates in these events of their own volition. They know the risks of competing, but they also know the joy that competing can bring. It’s a conscious decision they make, and no bureaucrat should have the ability to prevent people from doing this.

Every Dakar fatality brings out the usual group of naysayers, safety-crats, and self-righteous do-gooders, who see it as their duty to protect ourselves from ourselves. If they had their way, we’d all be at home wrapped in cotton wool watching Australia’s Next Top Master Chef Renovator Wants a Big Brother. Irrespective of public opinion on the subject, there is clearly a section of the human race that needs to challenge themselves, to feel alive by controlling risk, and who are consequently labelled as being “fearless”, or “risk takers”. Probably most of you reading this as it’s on a motorcycle website….

In my opinion, it’s thanks to these risk takers (and their ancestors particularly) that we crawled down from the trees (depending upon your belief structure) in the first place. It’s this proportion of the population that helped the early explorers find out what was on the other side of the oceans and bordering continents, and it’s this segment of the populace that sat in Supermarine Spitfire aircraft 70 years ago shooting down ze Germans over the English channel, ensuring that we now say attention instead of achtung. The human race has got to this point in our existence thanks to risk takers, not in spite of them, so where’s the sense in trying to stifle these people? It’s a risk versus reward equation. If it wasn’t for these people, we’d still be sitting in caves.

I put the Dakar event up there with climbing Mount Everest. Summiting Everest must surely be the pinnacle of human endeavour, one of the greatest physical human challenges left. Fighting freezing 160kph winds, an ascent where losing your footing results in a freefall of a few thousand feet to your death, the biting cold of temperatures below freezing, and hypoxia from the thinner air at altitude, it is a quest all about personal challenge for many and immense satisfaction for those few who make it to the top. Everest was conquered in 1953, yet people still attempt it. Over 2500 people have summited since the first attempt in 1922, from several thousand attempts. Conversely, over 200 people have perished on the mountain, most of who are still up there, acting as navigation points for other climbers, and a reminder to all of the harsh conditions encountered. Four people died during the 2011 climbing season. You sure don’t hear as many people suggesting that climbing Mount Everest should be banned.

With all of the hyperbole flowing on from Marco Simoncelli’s death at the MotoGP event in Malaysia in October, I fervently hope that the Dakar keeps going. It is one of the last bastions of self-exploration and individual challenge that we have left. Long may it continue.

There are currently six Australians entered for the 2012 Dakar, including South Australian David Schwarz (#62). He has teamed with Rodney Faggotter (#113) on Husabergs. While this is Rodney’s first Dakar, David has competed in three, finishing twice, including as team-mate to Andy Caldecott in 2005.

A half hour highlights show will be broadcast every night at 5:30pm on SBS starting Monday January 2^nd. They’ll also have news and photos on their website; http://www.sbs.com.au/dakar/

The highlights shows will also be shown on Foxtel’s SPEED TV from January 2^nd.

The official website will have live-timing of the stages and all the stage results; www.dakar.com

Barry Hartog (posted 17/12/11)

Back to Top

In the big picture of motorcycling, Ride Days are a relatively new concept. Performance Bikes magazine in the UK claims credit for having invented the ride day with their PB Frenzy event in the Eighties, where they had a 2 day ride event at Cadwell Park, complete with organised entertainment during the intervening evening.

Ride Days are now very popular, especially with those who are fed up with the heavy-handed policing handed out under the auspices of “Road Safety” by government these days. As a result, many ride days have large numbers of full-time track riders, people who have taken their bike off of the road and who ride it exclusively on ride days. Usually found in the medium and fast groups, a lot of them are easily distinguished in the pits by the presence of race glass, race stands, and tyre warmers. Don’t be fooled though, most of these guys do not actually race.

Newcomers to the Ride Day concept may be put off or intimidated by these riders but fear not. A lot of them are not as fast as they look, no matter how fast they may look whilst sitting in the pits. Besides, for your first ride day, these riders will be in a different group.

Why Do It?

So why should you do a ride day? Well, contrary to what the powers-that-be suggest, getting to know the performance capabilities of your motorcycle is entirely beneficial. You will learn how your bike reacts at speed, how well it can stop when required to do so, and you can further explore what your bike can and cannot do in an environment conducive to this kind of activity. There is also the advantage of there being no oncoming traffic whilst you are on track, constituting a safer environment, should you have an “oops” moment. Think of it as creating “safe emergencies”.

Irrespective of if you are a fast road rider or not, your first ride day should be for learning. Learn what you are physically capable of, because riding at speed around a track is generally harder work than a session in the hills. Hence, enrol in the slow group. There are plenty of examples of fast road riders being slow on a track, and vice versa.

Basic preparation for yourself and your bike:

There are only a few things that you need to do to prepare yourself for your first Ride Day, the first being to decide to do one.

Mental preparation is important. If you are doing a ride day for the first time, you will more than likely go through a period of anxiety about not being fast enough, being conscious of holding people up on the track etc. Let me try to placate these anxieties right here. Your pace will be fine, because there are sessions for every skill level. The whole idea of going to a ride or coaching day is to improve your riding, so you have to start somewhere. I promise you, if you go to a good operator and are honest with yourself about your capabilities, you will get to the end of the day and think “What the hell was I worried about?”

Basic motorcycle preparation for a ride day starts with cleaning the thing. This helps you identify parts that you may not normally think about because, when you get to the track, you will generally be asking more of your motorcycle than when you are on the road. The next step consists of taping up anything that is a lens which will shatter in an impact, like headlights, mirrors, and indicators. Removing your mirrors reduces potential distractions, as you do not want to feel compelled to be looking in them for fear of holding other people up or checking to see if your mates are behind you. It also forces you to look ahead, helping you focus on your path of travel and identifying your next reference point. What’s behind you is irrelevant. Going in the slow group is recommended for your first ride day, as you will be in a group of people in a similar situation as yourself.

Check all the basic things, like tyre pressures and condition, and all fluid levels. Check brake pad wear. If you find yourself going progressively faster during the day, your 25% of pad left will not see the end of the day, neither will your part-worn tyres. If you have road-orientated tyres on, remember that they will not offer as much grip as track tyres, so you may find yourself running out of tyre and grip near the end of the day.

Due to the increasing popularity of track and ride days, and the differing standards of ride day operations, insurance companies now have a list of approved ride day operators where your insurance is still valid, like Shannons (South Australia).

Try not to ride the bike to the track. Apart from needing time at the track to prep the bike, as prepping it beforehand away from the track will make it un-roadworthy, you will more than likely be too knackered at the end of the day to ride it home, not to mention the difficulty of riding home a bike that may have had a lie down during a session. If you can rise above the “hard-core” connotations associated with riding to the track, transporting the bike to the track will make the day less stressful. Leave the ego at home. You can hire a van, or a trailer, or ask your ride day provider. There are usually a couple of people with a bike size space on their trailer who can take somebody’s bike in exchange for a contribution to fuel.

“Dress for the crash”.

It’s an old saying, it’s origins are unknown, but it still rings true.

Make sure you have appropriate riding gear. Full leathers are mandatory, 2-piece are acceptable as long as they zip together with a zip that goes for the entire circumference of the leathers. You want what is called “double” stitching, at least on high impact areas. Don’t be fooled into thinking that seeing 2 rows of stitching constitutes double stitching though, because it doesn’t, you can’t actually see double stitching. Imagine sewing 2 pieces of leather together, where the top piece is folded over at the join, to present 2 pieces of leather, and the bottom fold is stitched to the adjoining piece. The top of the fold is then stitched to the adjoining piece; this is called “top stitching”. Even if 2 rows of stitching are used on the second stitch, it is still susceptible to damage when the leathers are sliding along tarmac. Any stitching that you can see is able to be worn away by sliding tarmac, and that’s bad news, as it will most likely result in the leather panels coming apart. The stitching that attaches the bottom of the fold to the adjoining piece is not so susceptible, as it has to have the entire section of leather above it worn away before the stitching suffers damage. Not everything advertised as “double stitching” is what it seems. Most of the better quality leathers have a removable inner lining, which should enable you to check for this stitching.

Try not to fall victim to fashion. You may want to wear the same brand of leathers as your racing hero, but beware. Different brands of leathers are cut differently, so you should try as many brands as you can to get the one that fits you the best, not the one that looks the best or is the brand you want. It is that important, as badly fitting leathers can reduce the protection they offer.

Buy a back-protector, no question. I never wore one until I saw a World Supersport race where Chris Vermeulen high sided into orbit, returning to earth on his back on a section of corner kerbing. He got up and walked away from that one. The next weekend I bought a back-protector. Get one that covers the spine from your neck almost to your coccyx. Back protectors have three uses; they protect the bones of your spine from injury when bouncing off kerbs and bitumen, they protect against penetration injuries caused by sharp bits of your bike (footpegs, levers) making their way into your body, and they can provide some insulation from the heat generated from sliding along the ground at higher speeds.

Let me be very clear about this next point. The compressed foam that you find inside the lining of jackets and leathers is not a back protector; it is just “armour”. A true back protector is a separate piece of equipment.

Buy a good quality helmet, with a D-ring fastener, as not all helmets are created equal. They all pass the Australian Standard, but some only just pass, others surpass the standard. Make sure you have the Australian Standards sticker on it, as it will not be passed through scrutineering without it, and it will invalidate any insurance claims you make. That 300 dollar internet special will make you liable for thousands of dollars in your hospital, ambulance, and bike repair bills.

Good boots and gloves that fit properly and securely are no-brainers.

It is important that you are aware that not all riding schools/operators scrutineer your riding gear. You may feel that this is an “out” so you don’t have to spend anything upgrading your clobber but, as I have already mentioned above, is saving money on not buying newer riding gear really going to save you money should you fall off? Sliding down the track watching the sleeve of your tatty 15 your old leather jacket roll down and then off of your arm is the worst time to decide that you should have bought new gear.

Following on from the above, it is highly recommended that you get Ambulance cover. SA Ambulance sells single cover for about 60 dollars. An ambulance ride regularly tops several hundred dollars for a comparatively short distance. Emergency helicopter rides are several thousand dollars, and if you need one, you certainly won’t be in a position to enjoy the ride.

If you want to be extra safe and insured to the hilt, sell your bike, buy a nice car with airbags, and sit at home watching telly.

At the track

A bit of courtesy at the track goes a very long way to making your day, and everyone else’s day, that much better and less stressful. Have some respect for others. Park your transport in a manner that uses the least amount of space possible. Most circuits that hold ride days in Australia have pit garages available for hire, so you don’t feel compelled to keep you tools etc. as close to pit exit as possible, as they can be left in a garage.

At the risk of going all OH&S, obey the safety rules. At places like this, they are there for a reason.

Try to arrive as early as possible, preferably when the circuit gates first open. There is a fair amount of standing around initially as bikes and riding gear get scrutineered, and this takes as long as it takes. If you are all prepared before arriving then the waiting is reduced, meaning more track time. This downtime can be used to familiarise yourself with the circuit facilities, finding toilets and the like.

Pay attention at the riders’ briefing, there will be important information about the day’s proceedings, like the schedule, what to do if you fall off, what flags mean if the event is marshalled etc.

Watch out for kids in the pits, they have absolutely no situational awareness. They can do quite a bit of damage to your bike if you run them over.

If you are in a position to help other riders if they ask, then do it. The whole experience is to improve your riding, and you can get as big a buzz out of helping somebody else to improve as you get improving yourself. However, if you don’t know the answer to what they’re asking, man up and say so. Bad advice can be worse than none. Leave the ego at home.

On track

The first session should be treated as a “warm up’, literally. Use it to warm your bike up because, after having diligently cleaned the bike as part of your prep, any problems like oil leaks will be visible when you get back to the pits, if the marshals haven’t already noticed any anomalies. It also helps warm you up. Depending on the track, you are going to experience speeds that you are not used to, so use the first session to get yourself familiar and comfortable with the speeds involved. It also gets your brain in gear and your muscles warmed up, because this whole motorcycle riding on a track malarkey is actually quite physically and mentally demanding. Concentrate on learning where the track goes, especially lines and reference points. Reference points will change as you gain confidence and speed.

For each and every session thereafter, treat the first couple of laps the same. For every session you spend on track, you will spend two or three sessions waiting for the next one, so you will start to cool down between sessions, hence the first couple of laps of each session should be used to warm up brain, body, and bike.

If you are not quite the Stoner of your group, then don’t dwell on being overtaken. Hold your line, stay consistent with your track position, and you will give those behind you the best chance for them to conduct a safe and comfortable overtake. It’s up to the person doing the overtaking to carry it out safely, so don’t alter your line from normal to give them room, they’ll find their own way past. If you want to overtake someone, look at where you are faster than them, more than likely it is greater corner speed or picking up the throttle earlier out of a corner. Use this to get a run on them out of a corner. This will enable you to get by them before you start braking, reducing the risk for both of you. Plan the overtaking manoeuvre, do not do it impulsively.

Ride at your own pace. There is nothing more hazardous than someone trying to ride faster than their comfort zone. If you are part of a group with someone who is slower, don’t egg them on. Giving them crap about being slow will not help them, and will likely result in them trying too hard and falling off. Just in case you haven’t figured this out yet, leave the ego at home.

Work on aspects of your riding that you struggle with. As a result, the things that you’re good at will become easier too. Ride days should be about improving your riding, not just naffing around in circles all day.

Don’t have a big lunch. When your body has to digest a lot of food it slows down, leaving you tired and lethargic. This slows down your thinking processes and reactions.

Make sure you maintain a level of self-awareness about your physical condition. I regularly see people starting to fatigue near the end of the day. Accidents at ride days usually happen first thing in the morning (cold mind, body, and tyres), just after lunch (cold mind, body, and tyres again and lethargy from your body processing lunch) or right near the end of the day (due to fatigue). Fatigue can begin due to a lack of sleep or due to dehydration, but the first symptom that you should be looking out for is when you go to the little boy’s room (which you should be doing regularly if you are drinking enough water). To put it bluntly, yellow is a bad sign, indicating that you are already dehydrated.

The second symptom is when you are on the track. If you start making small mistakes, missing braking points or apexes, then you are starting to become fatigued. As soon as you make a couple of these mistakes, the best option is to head straight back to the pits. Don’t go for “just one more lap” as that’s usually the lap on which you fall off.

A list:

Below is a list that I use to ensure that I don’t forget basic stuff. Yes it’s a logical and obvious list, but it works! I gave this list to a friend of mine who was going to a ride day and, if he had not referred to this list when packing his car the night before, he would have forgotten his gloves! Don’t laugh, I know people who have forgotten to take their bike key!

Ambulance Cover
Air Pump
Paddock Stand
Tyre Gauge
Chain lube
Cable-ties
Gaffa tape
Towel
Sleeping bag
Pillow
Licence
Earplugs
Bike key!
Spare Bike key!
Leathers
Helmet
Clear and tinted visor
Visor cleaner
Gloves
Boots
Back protector
Jerry can
Tools
Rags
Water
Hat
Sunscreen
Indemnity Form
Chair

Things you can leave at home

Your Ego.

Barry Hartog (posted 03/12/11)

Back to Top