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MotoGP
MOTOGP: Noyes’ Notebook - Stoner Even Faster Than He Looks
With this season's MotoGP World Championship opener less than two weeks away, Dennis Noyes takes a microscope to the 2012 preseason.
Repsol Honda's Casey Stoner (Photo: HRC)
Honda’s reigning champion, Casey Stoner, reminds paddock veterans of Mick Doohan. Jeremy Burgess used to say that Mick’s goal was to keep his name at the top of the timing monitors from the first free session right through qualifying. The reason was not so much to boost Mick’s always-strong confidence as it was to keep the pressure on his rivals.
If Casey Stoner had packed up and gone back to the motel with ten minutes to go on the final day of practice at Jerez, he still would have established the best pace over a 10-lap run and still would have ended the preseason with the best overall record. On a cooling track and with the hard work done, however, Casey went out and wiped Jorge Lorenzo's name off the top of the chart.
Casey uncorked a fast lap late in the third and final day of the Jerez IRTA tests, less than ten minutes from the end of 24 combined hours of testing from Friday morning to Sunday evening, to leave Spain with the best time of 1´38.780, bettering Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo by 0.173 and Stoner’s Repsol Honda teammate, Dani Pedrosa, by 0.377. Only three other riders, Ben Spies, Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi, managed to stay within a second of Stoner.
That final lap was good enough to deny Yamaha and Lorenzo any preseason bragging rights (although still well off the absolute Jerez motorcycle record of 1'38.189 set by Lorenzo on his Yamaha 800 back in the heady days of Michelin qualifying tires.) Stoner was a tenth of a second off his own best qualifying time from last year but said that the track was not giving the same grip as last year. (The new Bridgestones will be discussed later in this piece.)
Okay, he took less than two tenths from Lorenzo and less than four tenths from Pedrosa. That's relatively close, but, just as it was at Sepang II, when we look at pace we see that the two-time World Champion was actually faster than he looks just by glancing at the timing chart.
Lorenzo and Pedrosa both did full 27-lap race simulations. Lorenzo had an average lap time over race distance of 1'40.310 while Dani was at 1'40.496 for Dani. Lorenzo even did his fastest lap of the simulation (1'39.952) on the 25th of the 27 flying laps. Pedrosa's best time during his full-race run was 1'40.014 on his second lap but he ended the stint with his second fastest lap (1'40.036). (It appears, from this, that the Bridgestone race tire now not only warms up quickly, but also allows riders to turn very quick laps on the final laps. At least it does at Jerez.)
Stoner did not run a 27-lap simulation, but Pedrosa's pace makes it clear that there is nothing about the Honda's power delivery or set-up to give Yamaha hope that they hold any advantage over long runs. In fact Casey's only longish run of 10 flying laps produced a devastating average of 1'39.697. Stoner's best lap from that run was a 1'39.285 on his second lap, but over the entire run, nine of his laps were better than Lorenzo's best simulation lap.
Given Stoner's race pace average, he would have taken over 16 seconds from Lorenzo over full race distance. Does anyone really doubt that Stoner could have kept the pace up over 27 laps?
Casey’s answer, when asked why he usually doesn’t do full-race simulations is a simple one: "With these bikes and these tires once you have a pace you know what you can do. You don't have to wear your engine out proving what you already know."
Doubly worrying for Yamaha is the fact that Jerez is Stoner's worst track. In his six seasons in the MotoGP class he has never won at the Andalucian venue and only finished on the podium once (third in 2009). He might, however, have won last year in the rain had not Valentino Rossi taken him out in the famous incident that prompted the young Australian to inform the Italian superstar that "obviously your ambition outweighed your talent."
Ben Spies was a solid fourth overall, but made no long runs on the final day, and was 0.715 off Stoner’s best. Tech3 Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow was an impressive fifth less than a tenth of a second back of Spies on the factory Yamaha. This gave Yamaha three bikes in the top five along with the two factory Hondas.
Rossi's best time of 1'39.953 placed the Ducati rider just barely in the same second as Stoner but the nine-time World Champion ended his day with a 13-lap run that brought an average lap of 1'41.102 . That means that Rossi would be losing 1.3 seconds per lap over race distance assuming he could maintain that average over race distance -- and that would mean giving up 35 seconds over full race distance, the sort of pace that, in past years, would mean battling for tenth place.
It looks like a battle between Honda and Yamaha for the title with Stoner and Lorenzo leading the way. Ducati will not have their new engine until Portugal or France (the third or fourth race of the 18-race season) and nothing we have seen from Ducati over the last season or this preseason indicates that they will finally get it right.
If Casey Stoner had packed up and gone back to the motel with ten minutes to go on the final day of practice at Jerez, he still would have established the best pace over a 10-lap run and still would have ended the preseason with the best overall record. On a cooling track and with the hard work done, however, Casey went out and wiped Jorge Lorenzo's name off the top of the chart.
Casey uncorked a fast lap late in the third and final day of the Jerez IRTA tests, less than ten minutes from the end of 24 combined hours of testing from Friday morning to Sunday evening, to leave Spain with the best time of 1´38.780, bettering Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo by 0.173 and Stoner’s Repsol Honda teammate, Dani Pedrosa, by 0.377. Only three other riders, Ben Spies, Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi, managed to stay within a second of Stoner.
That final lap was good enough to deny Yamaha and Lorenzo any preseason bragging rights (although still well off the absolute Jerez motorcycle record of 1'38.189 set by Lorenzo on his Yamaha 800 back in the heady days of Michelin qualifying tires.) Stoner was a tenth of a second off his own best qualifying time from last year but said that the track was not giving the same grip as last year. (The new Bridgestones will be discussed later in this piece.)
Okay, he took less than two tenths from Lorenzo and less than four tenths from Pedrosa. That's relatively close, but, just as it was at Sepang II, when we look at pace we see that the two-time World Champion was actually faster than he looks just by glancing at the timing chart.
Lorenzo and Pedrosa both did full 27-lap race simulations. Lorenzo had an average lap time over race distance of 1'40.310 while Dani was at 1'40.496 for Dani. Lorenzo even did his fastest lap of the simulation (1'39.952) on the 25th of the 27 flying laps. Pedrosa's best time during his full-race run was 1'40.014 on his second lap but he ended the stint with his second fastest lap (1'40.036). (It appears, from this, that the Bridgestone race tire now not only warms up quickly, but also allows riders to turn very quick laps on the final laps. At least it does at Jerez.)
Stoner did not run a 27-lap simulation, but Pedrosa's pace makes it clear that there is nothing about the Honda's power delivery or set-up to give Yamaha hope that they hold any advantage over long runs. In fact Casey's only longish run of 10 flying laps produced a devastating average of 1'39.697. Stoner's best lap from that run was a 1'39.285 on his second lap, but over the entire run, nine of his laps were better than Lorenzo's best simulation lap.
Given Stoner's race pace average, he would have taken over 16 seconds from Lorenzo over full race distance. Does anyone really doubt that Stoner could have kept the pace up over 27 laps?
Casey’s answer, when asked why he usually doesn’t do full-race simulations is a simple one: "With these bikes and these tires once you have a pace you know what you can do. You don't have to wear your engine out proving what you already know."
Doubly worrying for Yamaha is the fact that Jerez is Stoner's worst track. In his six seasons in the MotoGP class he has never won at the Andalucian venue and only finished on the podium once (third in 2009). He might, however, have won last year in the rain had not Valentino Rossi taken him out in the famous incident that prompted the young Australian to inform the Italian superstar that "obviously your ambition outweighed your talent."
Ben Spies was a solid fourth overall, but made no long runs on the final day, and was 0.715 off Stoner’s best. Tech3 Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow was an impressive fifth less than a tenth of a second back of Spies on the factory Yamaha. This gave Yamaha three bikes in the top five along with the two factory Hondas.
Rossi's best time of 1'39.953 placed the Ducati rider just barely in the same second as Stoner but the nine-time World Champion ended his day with a 13-lap run that brought an average lap of 1'41.102 . That means that Rossi would be losing 1.3 seconds per lap over race distance assuming he could maintain that average over race distance -- and that would mean giving up 35 seconds over full race distance, the sort of pace that, in past years, would mean battling for tenth place.
It looks like a battle between Honda and Yamaha for the title with Stoner and Lorenzo leading the way. Ducati will not have their new engine until Portugal or France (the third or fourth race of the 18-race season) and nothing we have seen from Ducati over the last season or this preseason indicates that they will finally get it right.
Grand Prix of The Americas
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