News

[ducpainter]

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/2015+MotoGP+Entry+List+confirmed

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/Moto2+Entry+List+for+2015+finalised

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/Final+Moto3+2015+Entry+List+is+published

[koko64]

25 entries, not bad. Six Ducatis. Great to have Suzuki back. The young fellas on the Suzukis will be exciting to watch (one way or the other).

[kopfjäger]

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/MotoGP+2015+field+gathers+for+Sepang+1+test

[duccarlos]

http://www.worldsbk.com/en/news/2015/DallIgna+We+are+confident+on+a+strong+2015+season

The rule changes should allow Ducati to be competitive at least in the short term.

[ducpainter]

No surprise here...

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/Marquez%20tops%20timesheet%20on%20opening%20day%20of%202015%20testing

[HotIce]

Both VR an JL seemed very happy with this year setup, and VR was ahead the whole day, besides  the 62nd lap.
Considering Sepang not being the best track for the M1, I predict this year will be much more fun than the last.

[duccarlos]

No surprise here...

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/Marquez%20tops%20timesheet%20on%20opening%20day%20of%202015%20testing

Poor little Turd, HRC is probably taking any of his feedback into consideration. Where JLO and Vale have more similar riding, the Turd simply can't handle bullying the bike around like MM.

[duccarlos]

It is definitely good to see that the Duc made up 2 seconds compared to last year's Sepang test. That is an eternity, but I think we all know that the Duc has the potential to go really fast for 1 lap. The problem is putting together a full race.

[duccarlos]

One more observation... we seem to be heading back to the old days of bike allotment. The factories teams get the real prototypes, satellites use the slightly downgraded prototype and the rest get last year's bike. All this BS of having the Open class has been worthless, except that now the old bikes are not ludicrously expensive.

[ducpainter]

I think the Open class was just Dorna's way of letting the factories know change was coming, and I agree otherwise a bunch of nothing besides keeping most of the field uncompetitive.

Next year when the spec ecu becomes mandatory, and years following, last years bike won't be very different without a major re-design.

The whole thing is is the big boys will do the re-design so how Dorna thought money would be saved still escapes me.

[duccarlos]

Spec tire. That's it. The redesign will be driven solely by Michelin. The electronics are impacting, but you're basically throwing away 7 years on development around the Stones.

[ducpainter]

I think you're under valuing the electronics impact. The factory teams shouldn't have much advantage due to spending power any longer.

The tires will obviously have a huge impact.

[koko64]

Apparently the factory teams budgets for electronics are huge, so it should help even things out a little (hopefully).

[kopfjäger]

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/Ducati%20Team%20Sepang1%20Day1




http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2015/Pirro+and+Petrucci+12th+and+13th+respectively

[duccarlos]

I think you're under valuing the electronics impact. The factory teams shouldn't have much advantage due to spending power any longer.

I'm not saying that it won't have an impact, but I doubt it will be as dramatic as the tires. Once the HRC and Yamaha engineers get a hold of the software, they will hack it to the point where they will squeeze at least 80% of what they get out of their own software. It really is about finding was to compensate. The engineers really don't have a way to understand the tires without the riders' input. That's where they will fall flat, at least at the beginning. MM will ride the shit out of any bike, but will he be able to provide the right info to really develop it quickly? We know Vale can speak engineer, but will he want to stick around and help develop the new bike?