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MOTOGP: Looking Back on Jerez
Dennis Noyes provides the inside scoop on what went down this past weekend in the MotoGP European opener at Jerez.
Dennis Noyes  |  Posted April 01, 2008   Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa (Photo: Honda Pro Images)

Valentino Rossi came away from Jerez with a solid second-place finish and a much better understanding now of what he is up against. Although he had praise for his FIAT Yamaha teammate, Jorge Lorenzo, after the 20-year-old Spaniard took pole with a stunning performance on Saturday, Rossi told Italian journalists that evening that the rider to watch was “piccolino”… the little guy… diminutive Dani Pedrosa.

It was a good call, although few would have picked the 22-year-old Repsol Honda rider after he was beaten back to third in the season opener in Qatar by a dominant Casey Stoner/Ducati combo and by the upstart Lorenzo, second in only his first MotoGP start.

Pedrosa broke two bones in his right hand in a preseason tests in Malaysia and had almost no input into the development of the new Honda RC212V that was put through its winter paces by 2006 World Champion Nicky Hayden.

Pedrosa, after coming out of surgery in Barcelona, dismissed Hayden as being unable to develop the bike and went on to say that until he could get back into the saddle the program would flounder. That angered Hayden fans and seemed unusually harsh, but when the 118 pound three-times World Champion (once in 125 and twice in 250) got back into action, he rode the latest 2008 version of the Honda to a surprising second place under the lights at Qatar in the season opener, charging into the lead off the third row at the start, while Hayden, who chose to ride a 2007 version, was never on the pace.

Neither of the Hondas that ran in Qatar was fitted with pneumatic valves, making Honda the only manufacturer still using mechanical valve springs. Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki use pneumatic valve closing and Ducati, of course, runs its unique desmodromic system (the Tech3 Yamahas of Colin Edwards and James Toseland, however, were also still on valve springs at the two opening rounds and are scheduled for an update to FIAT Yamaha spec in round three at Estoril, Portugal).

The latest 2008 version of the RC212V was a much-improved bike in Jerez as compared to the preseason tests. Pedrosa and Hayden qualified second and fourth and they improved in the race (Hayden taking fourth in addition to Pedrosa’s victory). Hayden led off the line, but ran wide to lose the lead and later lost contact with Lorenzo in the battle for third after a long slide and a great save.

Casey Stoner had a big crash on Friday when the front let loose as he entered Turn 7 at well over 100 miles per hour. After that the Australian was never a contender for the pole and rode a ragged race, running off the track twice at the Dry Sack hairpin and eventually finishing eleventh. Had he ridden within himself he seemed to have a good enough pace to have finished fifth.

Bridgestone 1 – Michelin 1

So what did we learn in Jerez?

First of all, that these 800cc MotoGP bikes are so loaded up with electronic rider aids that the only opportunity for overtaking is on the brakes… and since the 800s are slower on top speed than the old 990s, the braking area has shortened up, limiting the zone where a great rider can make up ground on a good one. The racing for the top places was processional after some early overtaking by Pedrosa and Rossi. After that the bikes held position with Pedrosa pulling inexorably clear. The Spaniard was the fastest man on the track for the first 18 laps until, having run out to a 4.6 second lead, he finally began to ease the pace.

For the claimed 131,000 fans it was exciting enough to see their rider slowly pull away from Rossi. And the Spanish TV figures were strong -- a record 42% share and over 4 million viewers -- but most experienced observers believe that we will be in for another season of Formula 1 type racing, that is, spread out fields and little overtaking at the front.

As far as the Bridgestone/Michelin duel goes, it was a Michelin winner with three of the top four riders. The only ones capable of sustained high 1’40 and low 1’41 lap times were on the French tires. The top Bridgestone runner was Rossi who -- and I can’t confirm this or say where I learned it -- was reliably reported by a confidential source to have been running a very special ‘Rossi tire’ that no other Bridgestone riders used.

That would not really be so unusual or even cause for Ducati concern, because Rossi always required Michelin tires that did not suit his previous teammate, Colin Edwards. But, if true, it would seem to indicate that Bridgestone and Rossi are beginning to understand each other.

Rossi’s crew chief, Jeremy Burgess, said that he has had to try to disregard fours years of Michelin/Yamaha data. “Anyone who is very observant,” said Burgess, “will see that we are moving things around a bit as we try and adapt the Yamaha to the Bridgestones.”
Fiat Yamaha Team's Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi (Photo: Yamaha Racing)

It Takes a King…

Another thing we learned in Jerez is that Jorge Lorenzo is trying to engage Pedrosa in a war of words. Lorenzo was annoyed in Qatar that Pedrosa did not congratulate him and said so in the Spanish press. He said, “If Dani had beaten me I would have congratulated him.”

Quite a bit was made of this is the daily sports papers.

Then after Lorenzo took the pole from Pedrosa, he approached his fellow countryman and offered to shake his hand in the parc firmé area. Pedrosa ignored him.

A journalist asked about this at the front row press conference and Lorenzo said, “I will not talk about this now. Tomorrow after the race I will speak.”

However when pressed in the post-race press conference on Sunday to say what ever it was that he intended to say about the snub, Lorenzo could not remember having said that he was going to talk about it.

Rossi, a wise old fox and veteran of many battles on track and also of many head games, watched all this bemusedly and made a point of chatting with Pedrosa while Lorenzo was answering questions, a tactic intended to annoy (once Carlos Checa turned to Rossi during a press conference when Rossi had been whispering and giggling with his then good friend Sete Gibernau and said, “Would you like to speak now or do I?”).

The hostility between Pedrosa and Lorenzo has been worked for all that it is worth in the Spanish press, even to the extent of a face-to-face Photoshoped cover of a weekly magazine with the huge words “Inevitable Hatred.”

All this unpleasantness was not lost on King Juan Carlos I making a rare visit to the Spanish Grand Prix. After the race the Spanish monarch took the two riders aside and managed to get them to shake hands very briefly. He actually took their hands and brought them together, a royal invitation that was reluctantly accepted by Pedrosa.

So all this will play itself out over the next few weeks.

The Last of the Valve-Spring Engines

Championship leader Pedrosa will go into Portugal still riding the valve-spring Honda RC212V unless HRC decides to surprise us by making the pneumatic-valve version, scheduled for testing on the Monday after the Portuguese GP, available earlier than planned. Pedrosa said after his win in Jerez that the Honda still needs more power but that the short straights at Jerez did not show up the Honda shortcomings.

Lorenzo, who suffered arm pump in the Spanish Grand Prix but who was fastest at the test the day after, looks like the real thing and is getting more confident as he accumulates experience. He does have a tendency to rub rivals the wrong way, however, and was involved in some on-track unpleasantness with American John Hopkins (Kawasaki) at Jerez during the Monday tests.

Stoner had a bad weekend at Jerez and seemed to lose confidence in the front tire of the Ducati. Rather than accept what would probably have been at 11-point performance, he pushed hard and made a couple of mistakes that sent him through the gravel twice at the Dry Sack hairpin and left him with only an 11th place and five points for the day.

However, we should recall that Stoner had a poor race at Jerez last year after winning in Qatar (as he did this year) and then went on to win another nine races and the title. The powerful Ducati and the talented Australian World Champion will have many better days and should be fighting for the title all season.

What I am beginning to wonder, however, is just how much of Ducat’s success has been due to the brilliant riding of Casey Stoner? The fact that Marco Melandri on the second Marlboro Ducati and the two Alice Pramac Ducati riders, Toni Elias and Sylvian Guintoli, are well off Stoner’s pace indicates that Stoner is making the difference. By contrast Pedrosa’s Honda teammate, Hayden, was fast at Jerez, as were all the Yamahas.

So, on the basis of what seems to be a more solid performance from Yamaha and Honda, my risky guess is that the riders who will emerge at the top of the fray will be Valentino Rossi on the Bridgestone-shod Yamaha and Dani Pedrosa and the Michelin-shod Honda, although that could all change in Portugal.
Ducati Marlboro's Casey Stoner (Photo: Ducati Corse)

The Traction Control Debate

I hope I am wrong, but what seems unlikely to change is the processional nature of MotoGP racing. There may be a couple of close races this year, but traction control has managed to take a lot of the thrill and awe out of MotoGP. The corner speed and the late, late braking are almost scary. From trackside it looks as if they aren’t going to make the corner. The tension is there too as these guys ride on the very edge for three quarters of an hour. This short MotoGP grid of 18 riders probably holds the top 10 or 12 roadracers in the world, but intrusive electronics have taken the control of the throttle away from the most talented wrists in the world and the sport is poorer for it -- and I say that in spite of the fact that this race was 18 seconds faster than last year’s Spanish Grand Prix.

If lap times were all that mattered, the most exciting laps to watch would be those turned on a particle accelerator. MotoGP is beginning to look too much like Formula 1. F1 authorities, however, have shown themselves sufficiently aware of their lack of overtaking to have successfully banned traction control.

Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta argues that traction control is an important improvement in rider safety. That is debatable since the introduction of large capacity four strokes with wide and forgiving powerbands in 2002 was enough in itself to do away with the highside crashes that were produced by 500cc two strokes. But, unless the FIM steps in to ban traction control as the FIA did in Formula 1, a ‘traction control generation’ of riders will be created that may have trouble readjusting to manual control of throttle openings and that would make the safety argument a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Former 500cc World Champion Alex Crivillé, now a commentator for Spain’s TVE, has joined four-times 500cc runner-up, Randy Mamola, currently a commentator for Eurosport, in openly calling for a traction control ban from the bully pulpit of the live microphone. Said Crivillé, who was the first Spanish rider to win a 500GP in 1992 and the first and only Spanish 500cc World Champion in 1999, “My advice to Carmelo is to ban traction control and give the riders 30 liter fuel tanks,” (MotoGP machines are currently limited to 21 liters).

With that statement Crivillé is asking championship authorities to choose between technology and ‘the show,’ a hard choice that will eventually have to be made if the MotoGP class continues to evolve in the current direction.

Two other former 500 champions, Kenny Roberts and his son Kenny Junior, have also been outspoken in their dislike of the current electronics. In fact, one of the most virulent opponents of intrusive electronics is FIM President Vito Ippolito. Ezpeleta argues that the members of the Grand Prix Riders’ Safety Committee, composed of Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, and Loris Capirossi, has told him that they support traction control for safety reasons.

Rossi, who has been critical of traction control, believes that the current 800cc Grand Prix bikes have been designed around the current electronics packages and would probably be almost unrideable if they were stripped of the aids, but he and current champion Casey Stoner agree that it would have made better racing to have increased capacity from 990 to 1200cc instead of decreasing it to 800cc. With more capacity, these two and many other current riders argue, the big power bands would have been wide enough to make traction control less important. The true rule-makers in MotoGP are the engineers who compose the MSMA (Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers Association) and they, largely Japanese, are committed to both electronic aids and fuel economy, and are unlikely to be dissuaded by arguments about ‘the show.’ But if races continue to be processional and with infrequent overtaking, something will need to be done.

Meanwhile, we await the next showdown at Estoril, Portugal, a track that combines slow, torturous sections with a very fast final turn and a long straight perfect for drafting. It was here that Toni Elias beat Valentino Rossi by .002 of a second in 2006, and last year it was a one of the best races of the season with Rossi just getting the better of Pedrosa by 0.175 and with Stoner third only 1.477 back of the winning Yamaha. Hopefully Randy, Alex, the Roberts, and I are wrong and MotoGP, electronics and all, will provide the thrilling races that we recall from they golden days of yesteryear 500.
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