There are 101 things to talk about now the end of the MotoGP season has finally arrived but we’ve got all winter to get through them and, for me, that last race at Valencia was all about Honda. Did you see the way Dani passed Casey down the straight? We’ve seen him passed only a couple of times for top speed towards the end of this season but I think this was the first time somebody out-sprinted him like that and then got far enough ahead to break the slipstream before the next lap.
As a former racer and as somebody who’s been in this paddock for over 20 years I was quite shocked at how far Honda were off the mark with their new 800 at the start of the season. So, as a journalist, it was my obligation to criticise them and that’s exactly what I did. Now I have to take my hat off to them and congratulate them on a job well done because the mountain they were forced to climb after that first race was a steep one and over the final four races of the season they finally reached the summit.
People will be glad they were beaten this season and I am amongst them – I think it’s fantastic to have a new factory and a new tyre manufacturer on top. But at the same time we have to be appreciative of what Honda give to our sport – not least the six bikes and seventh engine they put on the grid every weekend. Unlike Yamaha, who it seems were only interested in trying to help Valentino Rossi, Honda have breathed life into both of their factory bikes and the likes of Marco Melandri have also started to benefit. Unfortunately for the rest of the ‘satellite’ riders we ran out of races for them to pick up the hand-me downs but the signs for next season are encouraging.
I stayed on for a few extra days at Valencia to test the MotoGP bikes and watch the riders completing their first laps on what will be their new machines in 2008. To be honest I spent most of the time trying to work out which rider was which! John Hopkins was in black, Jorge Lorenzo in white and Loris Capirossi in gold and white – they looked more like Christmas presents than MotoGP racers!
One of the first things I noticed was how big Alex de Angelis looked on the Honda. At first I honestly thought he was one of the journalists going past and at first glance it looks as though he’s going to find it difficult to adapt to that bike as well as somebody like Andrea Dovizioso. The new Honda is quite a bit bigger and it seems to me that one of their priorities was to sort out the aerodynamic package. The 2007 model was almost a naked bike and that proved to be a real handicap when it came to straight-line speed this year – especially for Nicky Hayden.
I know Fabrizio Preziosi, Ducati’s Technical Director, reckons the bike Nicky and Dani Pedrosa rode in the race at Valencia is already up on horsepower compared to the Desmosedici. If they can match it for aerodynamic efficiency then they will have a real weapon on their hands. In the meantime, the satellite riders such as De Angelis could still struggle.
Michael Schumacher was also in Valencia and I had the pleasure of spending much of the day with him as he tested Casey Stoner’s Ducati. Michael clearly knows his way around a racetrack in a car but as well as showing that he is still in outstanding physical shape he also demonstrated that he’s a highly talented and intelligent motorcycle rider too. To clock a lap of 1’37.2 – just four seconds off race pace – was an incredible achievement. Perhaps Casey and the boys should be glad he didn’t pick it up sooner!
The first test at Sepang provided us with our first chance to compare James Toseland with what he will be up against in 2008, most notably the other rookies making the step up into the MotoGP class from 250. At this stage it is normal for James to be a little bit behind but the lap times were very close between all the riders and this is something we now know to expect from these 800cc machines.
Like the other rookies, James is using carbon brakes for the first time and compared to a Superbike there are million and one things he needs to learn how to adjust and decipher. He will get there after a couple more tests but I want to talk specifically about James at a later date. For now I want to reiterate something I have mentioned previously in this column, which is how these 800cc machines have changed MotoGP as a spectacle. We’ve seen at the Sepang test how good riders can jump on these bikes for the first time and lap within a second or two of race pace after just a handful of laps. It looks close but the truth is that a second per lap is a lifetime in modern MotoGP and it is the final tenths, hundredths and even thousandths that will make the difference between success and failure.
In 2007 we saw a variation of bikes running at the front and finishing on the podium, which was great. Some circuits suit certain bikes more than others but in general what we are seeing is factories working on the engine braking, clutch and electronic systems to the point that the riders are all braking and releasing in almost exactly the same point going into each corner. At the moment there are variations in traction control but for every factory the target is to stop the bikes from spinning up and eventually they will all come out of the corners at similar speeds. That leaves the rider with marginal scope to make up ground in the corner and puts huge emphasis on how much time you can gain in a straight line. If that advantage is half a second, as it was with the Ducati at the start of this year, then you’ve got a package that will be hard to beat.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that the main areas of focus for the factories with their new bikes is engine performance and weight distribution that favours stability in braking. When I tested the 2007 bikes at Valencia one of the main things I noticed was the weight balance – which is so low and far back that you almost feel as though the suspension is behind the front wheel axel under braking. Honda look to have gone even further in that direction with the position of the new fuel tank in the 2008 version, although it will be interesting to see how that develops.
I remember overhearing Valentino earlier this season virtually begging Jeremy Burgess: ”Please Jeremy, can you find one extra tenth out of this bike?” Over 30 laps that is the difference between first and fifth place and we saw this season that races are now decided more on the time sheets than they are on the track. It’s a new kind of racing that we all have to get used to – riders can’t make a mistake and then recover half a second in one lap anymore. The question for James and the other rookies is not whether they can get straight on the pace but whether they can take the bike to the limit and then find that extra tenth, hundredth or thousandth. That is what will decide the success stories of 2008.
Randy
Tyla Rattray of the Red Bull KTM team had everything handled at Lierop
Just seven days after the last round the field jumps over the channel for the Dutch GP in Lierop.
