Melandri Speaks out on Ducati (a little)

[OT]

Snipped from another board...

Short interview with Michael Scott on page 22. He says he knew he was 
in trouble last year after one lap on the GP8.
Excerpt here;

MIchael Scott: What is it that suits you about Kawasaki and not about 
the Ducati?
Melandri: It’s Japanese. (laughs) In MotoGP the chassis feeling comes 
mainly from the engine character. For me, Ducati was so bad. And when 
you don’t like the bike, you need to trust the people you are working 
with. This is what I really missed at Ducati. Really, really missed. 
The confidence was zero.

Michael Scott: Nicky Hayden seems to be having similar trouble.
Melandri: Yeah. Everybody thinks I am not strong in my head, and that 
he is so strong in that way. But maybe he has done worse than me. And 
he looks so much more sad than I was. When I complained about problems 
with communication, Ducati sent me to see the psychologist. With 
Nicky, they changed the crew chief. The pressure I had
I knew 
exactly what was happening last year. I knew everything why I was bad. 
But I could make nothing, because I didn’t feel that people want to 
work to help me. I laugh, because when I try to see the eyes of Ducati 
people in the paddock, they don’t look at me. Nobody look at my eyes.

Michael Scott: So what exactly is the Ducati mystery, that Stoner is 
so fast and other good riders so slow?
Melandri: I don’t know. Sure Casey’s riding style might be bad for a 
Japanese bike but it’s perfect for that bike. If you want to make that 
bike work for other riders, for sure Casey will be not as fast. And 
Ducati knows that.

www.gpweek.com

[Spidey]

If you want to make that  bike work for other riders, for sure Casey will be not as fast. And Ducati knows that.

Interesting.

[duc996]

That's too bad,i really wonder why the rest of the Ducait riders just couldn't get it together with that bike.It is very interesting.

[gm2]

That's too bad,i really wonder why the rest of the Ducait riders just couldn't get it together with that bike.It is very interesting.

would you be confident riding a bucking bronco if he could go GP bike speeds?

[Spidey]

Is there a clear explanation anywhere as to what's so difficult about the GP9?  I've heard so many different things:  hard to turn, can't get/keep heat in the tires, barely tamed wild animal, can't ride unless you absolutely trust the traction control.

[gm2]

i think that's about as clear as it gets.

since the first iteration of the 800s, the other manus largely went one direction, ducati went another.  we saw the result of that on the 2nd or 3rd lap in Qatar that year: rocket ship.  but in relative terms, it's an old corvette or shelby cobra.  it'll peel your eyelids off, just don't try to turn it.

plus, not only is that terrifying and unique both, that is a very 'un-GP' way to build a bike.  theoretically the 800s (unspoken plan?) were supposed to more closely mirror the 250s: stable mid-corner speed machines.  that's what everyone else built.  and that 'GP' way of riding is how so many (most) of the riders came up; melandri for sure.  so you stick them on a rocket that dances all over the entry, mid, and exit of the corners.. you're gonna get some not very effective riders.

granted, at the same time ducati started using GPS, lean angle sensors, predictive fanciness, and any other electronic whizbang they could get their hands on.  but all that only went as far as allowing 1 guy the ability to ride the thing to it's full extent.  clearly that worked out, but as discussed many times and by melandri here, 1 dude does not a whole manufacturer effort make.  at least, not for more than a handful of years.  and when you have 5 bikes on the grid, 1 at the top, 4 at the bottom...

[Speeddog]

IIRC, in pre-season testing, Hayden didn't seem to be very far off of Stoner's pace.
It's much worse now.
That's puzzling.

Doesn't Stoner run old TC software and/or hardware?

I thought for a minute that it was the height/weight difference between Hayden and Stoner, but the difference is far less than with Rossi/Lorenzo, so that's out the window.

[gm2]

here's everyone who's raced an 800cc Ducati GP machine

regular riders:

stoner
loris
barros
hofmann
melandri
elias
guintoli
kallio
canepa
gibernau
hayden

replacement/wildcard riders:

silva
chaz
itoh

by the end of 2007 loris ended up with 4 podiums.  half as many as 2006, but he was starting to figure it out.  he used his ducati cred to make them make some drastic changes to the bike, which they only did grudgingly.  and he was also already out the door to suzuki.

the only other non-Stoner Ducati podiums since 2007:

barros, 2007 - 1 (3rd; fluke)
elias, 2008 - 2 (2nd, 3rd -- followed by 12th, 16th, 11th, 15th, 18th)

most of the other placements by all the other riders in the 2.5 years have been at the bottom of the sheets or they didn't finish the race at all.  it's not like they're riding around in 5th-7th Vermeulen'land, just not quite getting it done.

it (understandably) took all of 2007 and half of 2008 before the whole grid suddenly realized they don't want to be on that bike.  prior to that all they could see was stoner's exhaust and wish it were them. 

especially since he came from doing fairly well (not championship well, but fairly well) in the 125/250 smooth-riding-corner-speed support ranks, and because the all-new-bikes + the bridgestone/michelin mess made everything unclear at that time, no one realized that stoner was a little rubber man with no apparent rational sense of fear.

then they figured that out, got on even ground with the tires, and i think virtually the whole grid started to think, "give Nicky that ride.  He likes it when the bike is squirrely!"  ...we're seeing how even that sound logic is being put to test.

the bike is a monster.  and perfect for casey, only.  or perfect for anyone who is willing to throw out most of what he knows about racing a motorcycle, ignore the total lack of feel, ignore the wild movements, and trust that he can get mid-corner and wack open the throttle on what he already knows is a whiplash fast bike.

the real pregnant dog is that now here ducati sits, golden-handcuffed to stoner, and in the meantime Honda and Yamaha have closed most or all of the speed gap while maintaining rideable machines.

[EvilSteve]

especially since he came from doing fairly well (not championship well, but fairly well) in the 125/250 smooth-riding-corner-speed support ranks, and because the all-new-bikes + the bridgestone/michelin mess made everything unclear at that time, no one realized that stoner was a little rubber man with no apparent rational sense of fear.

He came second in the championship to Pedrosa on an underpowered, underdeveloped bike (Honda). He was the only one to seriously challenge Pedrosa.

Everyone says he can't ride any other bike but that's based on his crashiness on the Honda *in his first year in MotoGP*. Pedrosa has crashed as much in recent times...

[gm2]

He came second in the championship to Pedrosa on an underpowered, underdeveloped bike (Honda). He was the only one to seriously challenge Pedrosa.

Everyone says he can't ride any other bike but that's based on his crashiness on the Honda *in his first year in MotoGP*. Pedrosa has crashed as much in recent times...

are you mixing seasons?  he was on an Aprilia when he finished 2nd to pedro in the 250 class.

the '06 honda GP bike he was on surely wasn't underpowered or underdeveloped.  it was an RC211v fer chrissake.

i don't say he can't ride anything else, or anything critical of his riding at all.  i was really cheering for him in '06 and i think what he did in '07 was outrageously great.

that all has nothing to do with my long-winded description of ducati's problem. 

[EvilSteve]

I think I must be mixing it up, you're right, I was confusing him with Dovisioso on the Honda.

I wasn't saying you'd questioned his riding but plenty of people have. Not to mention, didn't he also change tires between LCR Honda & Ducati?

How are we arriving at any conclusion about Ducati's bike?

[Desmostro]

I wonder how much of it is the pit crew #2. He spoke about them more than the bike.
I remember seeing Loris screaming and throwing up his hands in the pits when his bike quit on him a couple of times in 2007.
Then both Melandri and Hayden are both saying they have communication issues and are being ignored.

It's like they don't want to change the bike, and they don't even want to hear it.
What are they going to do when they've got one who's actually winning with it as is? It would be pretty risky to throw out a sure thing and start messing with it for the unknown.

[derby]

It's like they don't want to change the bike, and they don't even want to hear it.

again, bayliss didn't exactly set the world on fire with his gp9 test.

how do you think he ended up on that bike at the test to begin with?

before:   "unrideable? oh yeah?? i bet troy could ride it! hey bayliss, wanna come show hayden how to ride a bike?"

after:   "uh... yeah, uh, it seems that troy was, uh, using settings that are completely, uh, different than what we've been using... uh, we'll have to take a look at that... laptimes? uh... yeah... um.... i think i have those around here, uh, somewhere..."

i think that bayliss' (lack of) performance during that test was a big eye opener for ducati.

[gm2]

Yes, they don't want to change it.  They're Italian; admitting you're wrong is the last thing you do .   That's why I referred to the changes made to capi's bike at the end of '07 as having been done grudgingly.  He talked about how much throwing stuff he had to do to get them to make any meaningful changes.

And I'm sure they wanted troy to come in there and prove everyone wrong, considering he crushed them all at the end of '06 on the 990.

[Jester]

And I'm sure they wanted troy to come in there and prove everyone wrong, considering he crushed them all at the end of '06 on the 990.

Ducati had to have known it was a very outside chance that Bayliss would post good times on the GP9 anyhow.  Aside from his lone 990 lashing at Valencia, he was no star in GP's by any means... say what you will about the quality of his bike or team at the time.  His hype should have been left where it belongs. SBK

gm2 I think you're earlier post about the Ducati and Stoner is spot on.