Ducati Monster Forum

FP1

Pos.   Num.   Rider   Nation   Team   Bike   Km/h   Time   Gap 1st/Prev.
1   93   Marc MARQUEZ   SPA   Repsol Honda Team   Honda   333.6   2'04.704   
2   41   Aleix ESPARGARO   SPA   NGM Forward Racing   Forward Yamaha   317.6   2'05.591   0.887 / 0.887
3   26   Dani PEDROSA   SPA   Repsol Honda Team   Honda   334.2   2'05.676   0.972 / 0.085
4   46   Valentino ROSSI   ITA   Movistar Yamaha MotoGP   Yamaha   330.9   2'05.972   1.268 / 0.296
5   4   Andrea DOVIZIOSO   ITA   Ducati Team   Ducati   336.1   2'06.279   1.575 / 0.307
6   38   Bradley SMITH   GBR   Monster Yamaha Tech 3   Yamaha   324.9   2'06.336   1.632 / 0.057
7   35   Cal CRUTCHLOW   GBR   Ducati Team   Ducati   334.1   2'06.433   1.729 / 0.097
8   6   Stefan BRADL   GER   LCR Honda MotoGP   Honda   334.8   2'06.537   1.833 / 0.104
9   29   Andrea IANNONE   ITA   Pramac Racing   Ducati   331.7   2'06.602   1.898 / 0.065
10   19   Alvaro BAUTISTA   SPA   GO&FUN Honda Gresini   Honda   334.0   2'06.633   1.929 / 0.031
11   44   Pol ESPARGARO   SPA   Monster Yamaha Tech 3   Yamaha   327.6   2'06.680   1.976 / 0.047
12   99   Jorge LORENZO   SPA   Movistar Yamaha MotoGP   Yamaha   329.8   2'06.771   2.067 / 0.091
13   69   Nicky HAYDEN   USA   Drive M7 Aspar   Honda   314.6   2'07.450   2.746 / 0.679
14   5   Colin EDWARDS   USA   NGM Forward Racing   Forward Yamaha   317.4   2'07.644   2.940 / 0.194
15   68   Yonny HERNANDEZ   COL   Energy T.I. Pramac Racing   Ducati   325.6   2'07.689   2.985 / 0.045
16   17   Karel ABRAHAM   CZE   Cardion AB Motoracing   Honda   314.6   2'07.702   2.998 / 0.013
17   8   Hector BARBERA   SPA   Avintia Racing   Avintia   315.3   2'08.150   3.446 / 0.448
18   7   Hiroshi AOYAMA   JPN   Drive M7 Aspar   Honda   319.7   2'08.455   3.751 / 0.305
19   45   Scott REDDING   GBR   GO&FUN Honda Gresini   Honda   311.8   2'08.588   3.884 / 0.133
20   9   Danilo PETRUCCI   ITA   IodaRacing Project   ART   314.5   2'09.646   4.942 / 1.058
21   70   Michael LAVERTY   GBR   Paul Bird Motorsport   PBM   311.4   2'10.206   5.502 / 0.560
22   23   Broc PARKES   AUS   Paul Bird Motorsport   PBM   305.3   2'10.493   5.789 / 0.287
23   63   Mike DI MEGLIO   FRA   Avintia Racing   Avintia   314.1   2'11.100   6.396 / 0.607

Why is Lorenzo having so bad a time with the tires this year? One thing is to not feel as comfortable, but I would have thought that his riding style would suit pretty much any tire option.

Even stranger, the reports indicate that Bridgestone brought 2013-spec tires to Austin, so it's not just a tire thing.

(Edit: it sounds like just the Medium Rear is 2013 compound; from the Crash.net story on FP1 - "Bridgestone has reverted to the 2013 spec medium rear tyre this weekend - without the 2014 heat resistant coating that Lorenzo has struggled with - due to production delays, but it didn't favour Lorenzo in FP1.")

He's doing better in FP2.

The 2014 tire is the 'heat resistant' construction, which robs a bit of edge grip.

Lorenzo's style is to stay on the edge of the tire as much as possible, so it hurts him the worst.

BS had a production problem and couldn't have enough 2014-spec tires ready.

Or so they say.

Somebody better check to see if there's a mouse nest or something in the electronics Crutchlow's bike - after the horror show at Qatar, today the motor cut out on him in fourth gear accelerating on a straight.  :o

http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202036/1/cutout-scare-for-cal-crutchlow.html (http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202036/1/cutout-scare-for-cal-crutchlow.html)

Better there than leaned full over in a fast turn, I suppose.

...and the Crutchlow quotes start coming!  ;D

The rest of the boys better come up with the goods, or MM is just gonna check out.

If he's gapping 2nd place by ~1 sec a lap, he'll get small really quick.

Great ride by Iannone who faded from third late in the race and great run by Dovizioso who came on strong to finish 3rd. Another tough day for Crutchlow who appeared to have mechanical problems, later crashed, and may have broke his hand.

Wonder what happen to Rossi?
Really sad for the race today for Rossi.
Great race smith move on Esparagro was ballsy.

Wonder what happen to the "calm" Lorenzo early start

Damn bad race for Cal.  Hope his hand is ok.
Crash at last lap for Redding :(

I've got to say that's the first time I've ever heard anyone call a day aboard a MotoGP bike "boring."  [laugh] Pretty awesome show of dominance by MM. I was following on the Crash.net online coverage; I don't know if the TV feed was the same, but about two thirds of the way through the writer apologized for ignoring the front of the race. Basically, nothing unexpected was happening up there!

I have to imagine there are pretty mixed feelings at Ducati Corse; great rides by Dovi (who was apparently riding very sick) and Crazy Joe, but the injury to Cal & whatever issue it was that drove him into the pits mid-race for a wheel change.

No mixed feelings at all over at the Factory Yamaha garage, though. What a complete disaster weekend for them.

So much for the Lorenzo damage limitation scenario.  :P

Surprised by Dovi's performance, especially as he was sick.
He looked a bit the worse for wear at the post-race interview.

Iannone was looking strong, then faded.

Haven't seen anything official, but it looked like Crutchlow's rear tire went bad, so he pitted and threw a soft on.
No idea why he crashed, the only video shown was well after he went down, and behind a rise, so couldn't tell much.

I think Rossi's front tire went bad, he was doing well, then started knifing his way backward.
He took a good look at the front right side of the tire when he got back to the box.

I'm suspecting there will be a good bit of talk on the tires, a number of riders were going well and then suddenly started to go backward.
Iannone, Crutchlow, Rossi, and I think someone else....

Rossi's decline was particularly odd -- making a hard charge through the field to get up to and around Iannone, then almost immediately going backwards.

Redding was also going well up until midway, then dropped the pace (and then the bike). Hard to say if that was tires without more info, though.

Apparently Rossi, Iannone and Redding all had the front tires give up.
http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202202/1/rossi-we-destroyed-the-front-tyre.html (http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202202/1/rossi-we-destroyed-the-front-tyre.html)

Apparently good news on Crutchlow, only a dislocated little finger.
http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202196/1/dislocated-finger-for-cal-crutchlow.html (http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202196/1/dislocated-finger-for-cal-crutchlow.html)

I'll take Dovi's 3rd even though the Yamahas should have been up there if it wasn't for the jump start and tire issues. Dovi has always been good at conserving the tires, which is why he was able to bring it home late. It was great to see him holding off Bradl. On e step forward.

Bad luck for Rossi, Ioannone and Cal. Lorenzo flat out make the beast with two backsed up for the second time this year. He's not handling the pressure of losing last year and having to renegogiate his contract very well.

I believe we'll see another dominant ride from MM in Argentina. No one has ridden there and he has shown that he's the quickest to adjust, Rossi being one that hates going to new tracks. I will go out on a limb and say that Lorenzo should put his broken season back together next race. I simply can't see him making another rookie mistake 3 times in a row. He'll probably work at getting the bike home and battling with the Turd and leaving MM on his own until they get to more friendly tracks.

Bradl had a front tire go bad too, according to the post-race interview.
http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202205/1/bradl-ive-never-seen-a-tyre-like-this.html (http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202205/1/bradl-ive-never-seen-a-tyre-like-this.html)

I'm curious to hear Crutchlow's description of what happened to his rear tire, and then how the crash went down. I read that when he pitted, he switched to a soft rear; it seems an odd choice, given A) the fact that the softs don't seem to last long enough to have taken him to the end of the race, and B) his declared moral aversion to the soft tire.

http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202140/1/crutchlow-ill-race-hard-tyre-out-of-principle.html (http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202140/1/crutchlow-ill-race-hard-tyre-out-of-principle.html)

That's really bizarre.
I'm not sure if Iannone and Redding are 'front end' riders, but Bradl rides his Honda with the rear end hung out a lot, much like they seem to need to be ridden.
Yet he destroys a front tire.

The cameraman in parc ferme gave us a nice long view of MM's rear tire, and it looked perfect.

Cal's statement sounds a bit odd at first, but he's right, they've got to make the bike work with the hard 'open' tire.

I too am mystified as to why they put the Soft on.
I'm surprised they even had one on a warmer.
Good that they're covering all the bases, just weird.

Cal said the rear tire had a bad vibration from the get-go.
Team decided to fit a Soft.
A bump unhooked the bike and he got tangled up with it.

http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202212/1/crutchlow-i-got-caught-up-with-the-bike.html (http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/202212/1/crutchlow-i-got-caught-up-with-the-bike.html)

That soft tire wouldn't have helped much anyway. If they knew they were out of the points, they should have sat out the rest of the race.

Sounds a bit worse for Crutchlow: http://www.motorcyclenews.com/mcn/sport/sportresults/motogp/2014/april/apr1314-breaking-crutchlow (http://www.motorcyclenews.com/mcn/sport/sportresults/motogp/2014/april/apr1314-breaking-crutchlow)

rossi's front donut:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlL5sTpIAAA5KcU.jpg)

Does it seem to anyone else that Crutchlow is having some Spies type bad luck mixed in with his own style of pissing & moaning?  Too bad for the guy but c'mon. How is it the other Duc's aren't having these problems and he is?

That tire looks baked !!   :o

Otherwise known as Gibber's Luck or the Spies Curse.

The electronics failures were particularly dangerous and quite unacceptable really. The tyre problems are affecting a range of riders. It's time to open tyres up again so tyres can be built for each bike/rider. The one tyre Mfr rule isn't a level playing field.

I have the same feeling.

Nicky has been doing his fair share of pissing about his production Honda too. He is clearly not happy

Wow!  :o
I understand now why he mentioned about the bike behaving like on wet.

Proof that "control tyres" are undermining rider safety imo. One size does not fit all.

Yikes!  Interesting that the right side would go, as COTA is a counter-clockwise track.

Pretty sure it's the turns 16/17/18, which is taken as one long right, that's the culprit.

That'll buff right out.


What I'm wondering is if the rest of the tire manufacturers are willing to pick up the expense of providing specialized tires to motogp.  With the current reduction in viewership... their marketing dollars might be better spent in other places.  Especially when it's a pretty big black eye if they start to mess up like Bridgestone is now... and on top of that, it's going to create a new divide in performance.  Not just the factory guys vs the non... it'll be the custom tires vs the spec tire guys.  Pretty sure that any non factory rider is going to have a hell of time trying to get tires that work for him or his bike vs the factory guys basically dictating what they want to get.

I think we beat the one tire manufacturer horse to death, but I don't mind giving the corpse a few whacks!

Here's the deal, the biggest issue was that certain manufacturers were delivering tires to certain riders right up to the Thursday before the race. It really didn't help that Michelin had a dreadful season providing tires for Rossi. I think that they can go back to multiple manufacturers as long as they set some limits on the number of tires and at what point they need to deliver the tires. Also it becomes an issue when you're doing tests like they had in PI. The more manufacturers you add, the more moving parts that need to be coordinated. Hence the original reason of lowering cost. They might just need to open the contract so that they have to bid on a yearly basis. Also, Dorna has a contract with Pirelli for WSBK. What is stopping them from switching to them after the Bridgestone contract is up?

This is MM's tire, not looking so good either:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlSAdXvCQAAGe3t.jpg)

Relying on the twitter: https://twitter.com/manziana/status/456130704338731008/photo/1
Possibly it's Pedrosa's, I don't remember their respective gloves or boots.

That's exactly what they did in 2007-2008.

That's Marquez. Dani usually wears orange boots.


(http://superbikeplanet.com/image/2014/motogp/COTA/7/1404158.jpg)

Didn't go so well then.

Scott Redding's front tire.

Nuthin' wrong with that.  [roll]

(http://www.motorcyclenews.com/upload/303482/images/front-tyre.jpg)

 :o

 :o :o

What I dont understand is how these are the 2013 tires... supposedly should be the same ones they used all year with no huge probs cept at PI.  And now they run them again at COTA, where they did great last year, and now they all implode.

And it seemed to be all the riders in the paddock having issues so it's not just a one off defect.

< snork >  [laugh]

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlRR4FJCAAAzq9u.png)

Did he ride through a hay field?

Redding's tire is unbelievable...WTF!

From what I've seen in print, only the medium compound rear was a 2013 spec.

Leading one to assume that the soft and medium fronts, and the soft and hard rears were 2014 spec.
Supporting that to an extent, Bridgestone's chief engineer Masao Azuma specifically states  <strongly asserts but does not specifically state> in their press release that the hard rears are 2014 spec:
http://www.motomatters.com/press_release/2014/04/16/bridgestone_press_release_masao_azuma_ad.html (http://www.motomatters.com/press_release/2014/04/16/bridgestone_press_release_masao_azuma_ad.html)

Standard definition of 'assume' noted......

<edit>

Marquez had that anti-gravity rear tire fitted for Austin:

https://www.snappytv.com/tc/219536?autoplay=true&h=244&ss=&w=435 (https://www.snappytv.com/tc/219536?autoplay=true&h=244&ss=&w=435)

Nice laws of physics you got here. Sure would be a shame if something happened to them.

I liked the way Matt Oxley described it in his blog:

"Márquez has moved the game on and is now doing things on his Repsol Honda RC213V at every other corner that most riders can only dream off doing once every other race.

"What we saw at Austin was a new Márquez, a MM93 1.2, an updated version, upgraded with hitherto unseen levels of confidence. He spent the entire weekend playing with his motorcycle, getting into some frankly ridiculous situations: riding sideways over the inside kerb, front wheel two inches in the air, or rear tyre six inches in the air as he braked and cranked into a corner, front tyre tucking as the rear regained the asphalt, transferring potentially disastrous forces through the rest of the motorcycle."

http://www.motomatters.com/blog/2014/04/16/guest_blog_mat_oxley_marc_m_rquez_he_s_p.html (http://www.motomatters.com/blog/2014/04/16/guest_blog_mat_oxley_marc_m_rquez_he_s_p.html)

Things will even out as we go through the more traditional tracks. The old guys know exactly where to hang it out on the edge. Remember that Lorenzo mounted a pretty good come back last year on the second half f the season, even after he missed a few races. It seems MM's riding and general lack of concern is the way he's getting into Lorenzo's head, kinda like Rossi and Stoner.

I lol'ed haha

and the Oxley piece was a great read.  He's my new fave race writer... I'm glad that motomatters started to carry him or else I would have never known about him.

He's been with BIKE in the UK for a long time, afaik.