A WSB bike faster than a MotoGP bike?

Grendaseba.com-Which is why November’s combined MotoGP/World Superbike tests at Jerez have become a big deal for top WSB riders.

Many World Superbike riders believe their talents are overlooked and underestimated because they race far away from MotoGP’s all-consuming limelight. And they’re not wrong. WSB’s TV audience is roughly 10 per cent of MotoGP’s. This explains why WSB’s top men spent some of their time at Jerez riding the outer limits to make the 14 MotoGP riders present look a bit silly.

Twice World Superbike champ Jonathan Rea was the star of the show and flew home with a big grin on his face after outpacing half the MotoGP grid (albeit mostly the back half).

His astonishing 1m 38.721sec lap on his factory ZX-10R would’ve put him on pole at last May’s Spanish Grand Prix, 0.015 seconds ahead of Valentino Rossi, 0.137 seconds in front of Jorge Lorenzo and 0.170 seconds ahead of Marc Marquez.

Alvaro Bautista was second fastest at the tests on a Ducati Desmosedici GP16, just edging out former 250 GP rival Chaz Davies on a factory Ducati 1198 Panigale. Third was another Desmosedici, Loris Baz bettering former WSB team-mate Tom Sykes by a fraction.

How is this possible? How can anyone on a trick road bike go faster around a racetrack than the three men presumed to be the world’s best on hand-crafted MotoGP prototypes?

Firstly, this is nothing new. In 2002 the late, great Steve Hislop bettered Valentino Rossi’s pole time at the British GP, making a BSB Ducati 996 faster than a factory Repsol Honda RC211V.

Here’s why such things can happen...

Racing is all about grip. And the more horsepower you have, the less power matters and more grip matters, because it’s all about getting that power to the ground. This becomes apparent if we compare lap times at actual MotoGP and WSB events at Jerez.

The WSB lap record (fastest race lap) stands at 1m 41.135sec, established by Rea in 2015. The MotoGP record stands at 1m 38.735sec, recorded by Lorenzo in the same year; which makes WSB 2.4 seconds slower than MotoGP.

In Jerez’s fastest MotoGP race (2015) and fastest WSB race (2016), the winning MotoGP pace was low 39sec to low 40sec, against WSB high 41sec to high 42sec; another two-second gap. Last season MotoGP’s advantage halved, winner Rossi’s race pace varying between low 40sec and low 41sec.

The gap shrank dramatically due to a change of tyres and subsequent reduced grip. At the 2016 Jerez GP Michelin supplied extra-hard rears, after Scott Redding had delaminated a tyre in Argentina. The Jerez tyre caused wheelspin, even in a straight-line in fifth gear. Hence the race was 31 seconds slower than the 2015 Jerez GP.

Track temperature also plays a part because Jerez offers much less grip in the heat, which is why winter testing times at the track are always impressive. At the 2016 Jerez GP track temperature was 40 degrees, compared to 35 degrees at WSB 2016 and 30 degrees at MotoGP 2015.

Obviously, MotoGP bikes are better than World Superbike machines. A MotoGP engine accelerates with 260 horsepower and stops with carbon brakes. Rea’s ZX-10R makes maybe 230 horsepower and uses steel brakes.

But superbikes do have good things going for them. The second most important factor in bike racing is feel, and a softer superbike gives more feel than an ultra-stiff MotoGP bike.

“A superbike is so forgiving,” says Aprilia MotoGP rider Sam Lowes, whose brother Alex rode both WSB and MotoGP during 2016. “When you’ve got that feeling, feedback and forgiveness you get so much confidence that you feel like you can nearly crash and it’s okay, but when you’re on a stiff MotoGP bike you feel good, good, good, then crash… and you’ve no idea why.”

That begs the question: why bother creating expensive prototype race bikes? A hard one to answer, except to say that MotoGP bikes can do astonishing things given the grip they deserve and, also, wouldn’t it be a tragedy if all bike racing was limited to street bikes?

Machine performance in both championships has been hit by cost-cutting regulations, but MotoGP has been hit hardest. The old 500cc two-strokes weighed 40 kilos less than a superbike; now the difference is 11 kilos due to MotoGP’s sky-high minimum weight limit. And WSB bikes now have more sophisticated electronics, following MotoGP’s introduction of unified software.

And then there are the riders. Rea is very talented and highly motivated. In 2012 he subbed for Casey Stoner at Repsol Honda, scoring a seventh place at Aragon and an eighth at Misano. He worked at the job in his usual professional manner, but didn’t ignite enough interest from top teams.

There’s little doubt that Rea, Davies and Sykes could fight for MotoGP podiums on the right bike. But getting the right bike is another matter. Most factory contracts go to Spaniards and Italians, because these countries are MotoGP’s heartlands. That’s just the way it is, but it wasn’t always thus. During the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s, many factory rides went to Britons, who were employed by British brands, then Italians and Japanese. In the 1980s and 1990s the factories wanted American and Australian riders. Times keep changing.

Rea, Davies and Sykes could have a MotoGP ride if they wanted. But switching championships is risky. They would have to start on non-factory bikes, as did Baz, Cal Crutchlow, Neil Hodgson, James Toseland, Danilo Petrucci and others.

Crutchlow won three WSB races in his rookie season; it took him six years to win his first MotoGP race, during which time his ride was in jeopardy on various occasions. And he still hasn’t got a factory bike.

Petrucci switched from WSB’s Superstock series to MotoGP in 2012, riding the slowest bike on the grid. For three years he finished mostly at the back and became so miserable he nearly quit racing. Next season, his seventh in the category, he will ride a top-spec bike for the first time.

Meanwhile Rea, Davies, Sykes and others know they can race top-notch bikes at the front of WSB and earn nice factory salaries, year after year. They have the choice to take a full-time shot at the premier class but they haven’t, and who can blame them?

The Message To Ducati

Grendaseba.com-Why Jorge Lorenzo’s fourth win of 2016 was possibly the most important victory of his MotoGP career

A few months ago, many people believed that Jorge Lorenzo had given up on the 2016 season because his title defence had collapsed like a game of Jenga played by a bunch of two-year-olds.

You can perhaps understand his critics’ way of thinking. After winning three of the first six races, Lorenzo apparently fell to pieces. He was beaten at Assen, Sachsenring, Red Bull Ring, Brno, Silverstone, Misano, Aragon, Motegi, Phillip Island and Sepang. That’s 10 consecutive races, with just three visits to the podium; his worst-ever performance in MotoGP, even worse than his bone-crunching rookie season in 2008.

Some people suggested that his brain was already elsewhere – thinking about his new job in Bologna and his big, fat Phillip Morris pay cheque. Others suggested he had obviously given up caring about winning more races for Yamaha. Others believed he was giving himself a bit of a holiday, cruising through the last few weeks of his old job, no longer caring if he doesn’t win the employee of the month award.

But this is utter nonsense. Racers don’t think like that. A large proportion of any top racer’s brain is what we will call the F**K YOU department. This sector of the brain is entirely given over to proving a point to the rest of the world; it is the sector that gets racers out of bed in the morning, it is the sector that has them grinding away in the gym for six hours a day and it is the sector that has them focused on getting back on the bike when their broken body is screaming at them to take a holiday: please, please, just a couple of weeks off sitting by the pool, letting the broken wrist/arm/collarbone/leg heal.

Motogp Master Plan

Grendaseba.com-A few months ago this column speculated that MotoGP rights-holder Dorna was quietly working to undermine the power of the factories to achieve its aim of closer, cheaper racing. Now the peace has been broken, with Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta turning into something of a Bernie Ecclestone, abandoning diplomacy and uttering diktats.

Ezpeleta (a bit taller but balder and poorer than Bernie) used to be friends with the manufacturers. He thought they were vital to MotoGP ’s existence. Now he believes the opposite – that it is their costly R&D programmes that are actually threatening the sport.

This confrontation has been coming for a while and will be familiar to F1 fans – on the one side are those fighting for entertaining racing, on the other are those arguing for a technology race.

For several years MotoGP has struggled to fill even half the grid. Last season there were usually just 16 or 17 starters. The problem, of course, is a lack of sponsorship that had already claimed several teams before the global economic meltdown.

Ezpeleta’s henchmen are now concocting a radical new set of MotoGP rules to slash costs and massively restrict technology. No surprise that the factories – the few still left – aren’t happy with this plan to ‘dumb down’ the sport. Honda has threatened to quit.

Dorna’s assault on racing purity has been well planned. A couple of years ago Ezpeleta outlined his plans for a new kind of low-cost MotoGP bike designed merely to fill the back end of the grid. These machines – grudgingly accepted by the factories – would run tuned streetbike engines that make around 230bhp (like Colin Edward’s Suter BMW , above) and would never trouble the exotic factory prototypes that make 250bhp or more.

But as soon as these so-called CRT bikes (this stands for Claiming Rule Teams) began shakedown tests they were no longer grid fillers, instead they became the thin edge of the wedge. During a press conference to launch the first 2012 CRT team Ezpeleta announced – almost by the way – that within a few years all MotoGP bikes will be like this.

No one knows whether he planned it this way all along or whether his decision to con the factories came more recently. Either way, it’s a genius move: once the CRT bikes were up and running the factories effectively lost most of their power because Dorna no longer relies entirely upon them to put bikes on the grid.

Dorna won’t ban factory prototypes, instead it will reduce them to the level of CRT bikes, most probably with an rpm limit and control ECU . These new rules could be introduced as soon as 2013.

The factories argue there is no point in them being in MotoGP if there is no technical challenge and they may well be correct. But Ezpeleta is adamant: his interests are a full grid and close racing, even if that means one or more of the factories departing.

The new technical rules have yet to be finalised, so we don’t yet know whether MotoGP ’s control ECU will feature traction control. No doubt Ezpeleta will be watching this year’s British Superbike Championship with special interest because it is the first majorbike racing series to ban traction control. BSB has also introduced a milder engine spec, which (in some people’s minds) does away with the need for traction control. If the British series gets through 2012 without major incident then Ezpeleta will surely be emboldened to ban – or severely limit – traction control in MotoGP.

The factories aren’t the only people displeased with MotoGP ’s new direction. World Champion Casey Stoner has also threatened to walk. “If MotoGP isn’t prototypes then I’ll be out of here,” he told me recently. “It’s like Formula 1 switching to touring cars.”

Stoner exaggerates somewhat but you get his drift. But even if the Aussie does retire early Ezpeleta knows that most riders will stick around. Their only real alternative to MotoGP is World Superbikes, where the machinery is even less exotic and salaries are massively reduced. Dorna, it would seem, is going to win this war.

Test Valencia Kompetitif, Vinales Menajdi Mimpi Buruk Rossi Meraih Gelar ke 10

Grendaseba.com-Hasil kompetitif di tunjukan Vinales di hari ke dua test pra musim Valencia. Kerja keras Vinales membuahkan hasil, menjadi satu satunya pembalap yang mencatat waktu kurang dari 1:3 detik. Grandee....!!!!!

Membahas catatan waktu rasa rasanya sudah banyak yang berbicarakan mengenai ketangguhan Vinales, bukan itu yang mau saya lirik di sana, tapi menjadi sosok yang akan menjadi batu sandungan Rosi untuk meraih gelar ke 10 nya?? Jelas sangat berpotensi dan ini menarik

Masih ingat, bagamana imut dan unyunya Lorenzo, atau mungkin Marquez ketika mereka baru gabung di Motogp, mereka akan bilang Rossi adalah idola saya dan bla...bla.. tapi di lintasan dan yang terjadi belakangan, kalian bisa nilai sendiri pastinya. Mereka berubah menjadi rival dan orang paling menyebalkan di mata fans the doctor, baik di lintasan maupun di luar lintasan, itulah yang terjadi. Mungkin kalo saya jadi Rossi saya akan bilang.. "Spanyol maning... Spanyol maning!!!"😁.

Dengan melihat kemapuannya selama test valencia, Vinales berpotensi menjadi Alien barisan depan yang pastinya akan membuat Rossi kerja keras layaknya bertandem denga Lorenzo, melihat kecepatannya dia tidak akan mau menjadi layaknya Collin Edward, atau Ben Spies, yang hanya menjadi pembalap kedua, yang "Trimo Ngalah"(menerima, keadaan atau legowo). Dia akan menjadi salah satu kandidat perebut Juara dunia di 2017 nanti. Dan lebih Tragisnya.. dia adalah Spaniard layaknya Lorenzo dan Marquez... bukan Italiano...Seru iki Cuk.!!😎

Boleh dibilang selama ini, Selain Stoner yang merupakan Orang Australia dan Hayden yang orang USA, ada 3 Spaniard yang selalu menghalangi Syahwat Valentino Rossi dalam mengejar gelar ke 10 nya dengan karakter dan performa yang berbeda beda. Awalnya adalah Jorge Lorenzo. Saat Jorge Datang dari Kelas Intermediate, Nggak langsung menjelma menjadi Raksasa MotoGP dimana saat itu ada Stoner. Namun setelah era Stoner akan berakhir, Lorenzo sudah semakin Matang dan berpengalaman sampai sampai saat itu Yamaha harus pilih Rossi atau Jorge. hasilnya sudah kita semua ketahui bahwa akhirnya Rossi pun pilih Pindah dulu ke Ducati.

Belum selesai Era Jorge Lorenzo , Stoner secara Official Pensiun dini. Pengganti Stoner adalah Spaniard lagi Marc Marquez yang saat itu langsung lompat dari Moto2 ke team factory Repsol Honda. Seperti Kita ketahui 2013 dan 2014 Marc Marquez menguasai Championship. Kesempatan paling bagus Rossi untuk mendulang angka ke 10 nya adalah 2015 dan siapa yang menggagalkan Rossi Juara Motogp 2015.Spaniard toh???. 2016 ? Lawan Spaniardnya Yakni Marc Marquez mengubah cara pandangnya terhadap Championship dan bertindak lebih perhitungan. Sementara itu beberapa Kali Rossi melakukan kesalahan baik itu Kesalahan pribadi maupun kesalahan mesin. So 2016 Juga Gagal maning.

Awalnya Mungkin kita berfikir bahwa salah satu power spaniard agak lemah karena salah satu Pabalapnya harus belajar lagi dari Nol karena pindah Pabrikan. Namun Jorge Lorenzo langsung menyatakan dirinya siap di atas Ducati Desmosedici GP. Secara kasat mata sepertinya Valentino Rossi ketika pertama kali pakai Ducati jauhhh lebih Sulit, dibanding saat Jorge Lorenzo kemarin menggunakan Ducati desmosedici. 

Last.. 2016  dengan 2 Spaniard s Jorge Loreanzo  dan Marquez Rossi masih belum juga jadi juara dunia, di tambah nanti tahun 2017 dengan kompetitifnya Vinales.. ??? Judule PHP Maning ki Rossi 😁😁 (grendaseba.com)

Do You Want To Be A Champion??, Maybe You Need it

Dear Next Big Thing:

So you made it into Moto3. Well done. That feat alone makes you one of the most talented motorcycle racers on the planet. You may think that the hardest part of the battle is behind you. You would be wrong. You have your foot on the bottom rung of the ladder to MotoGP stardom. It is a rickety old thing, slick with grease, littered with broken rungs and what look like short cuts and easier routes.

Before you embark on your Grand Prix adventure (and what an adventure it is!) some words of advice from someone who has been in the paddock long enough to have his illusions shattered.

1. You will get nowhere on talent alone

The fact that you are in Moto3 means that your talent is not in question. To get here, you will have beaten the kids your own age, simply by being better at racing a motorcycle than them. That is already an impressive achievement.

The trouble is, Moto3 is full of kids who have all done the same. They have come up through the same system, beat the same kids, towered head and shoulders above their contemporaries. They are at least as good as you are, and some of them will now have a couple of years of experience on you. Getting into the Grand Prix paddock is 90% talent. From here on in, you can't rely on just talent any longer.

So how do you beat a rider who is just as talented as you are? You work on the details which make a difference. Switch your focus from talent to preparation, from being fitter and stronger than the riders you face. The fitter you are, the less quickly you tire. The less quickly you tire, the easier it is to concentrate as the race goes on. You need to be able to sustain your body at or above your anaerobic threshold for 45 minutes. If you can't do that, then the equally talented kid who is fitter than you will beat you in the last five laps.

Fitness and talent together are a good basis, but they are not enough either. The last two pieces of the puzzle are by far the most important. Intelligence and attitude are the difference between a competitive rider, and a rider capable of winning. Intelligence is not pure IQ. It is being aware of what you know, and what you don't know, and what you need to know. It means understanding what your role is, and how you can play your part in winning. It means being able to analyze what you are feeling on the bike, prioritize what is most important, and communicate it as clearly as possible. It means deciding whether the dive under braking, mid-corner chatter or lack of grip on corner entry is your current biggest problem, and telling your engineer about it.

Which brings me to attitude. Get the people in the garage on your side, and they will go the extra mile to help you win. Sure, you can be angry when they make mistakes, and angry when you don't achieve the results you want. But shouting all the time won't make you faster. Use your anger when it matters, when it will achieve results, but focus on what is important. You want to win? You need the help of the people around you.

2. You need a manager, but beware of the sharks

You probably made it into Grand Prix thanks to the hard work of your parents, or perhaps a friend of the family. Along the way, they learned a lot about dealing with teams, and the way the business of motorcycle racing works. They want to make the next step with you, and will want to help you on your way.

They won't be able to provide the help you need in Grand Prix, however. The Grand Prix paddock is a village, and like all villages, are a spider's web of relationships, a network of trust. Unlike most villages, however, the paddock sees a mass of new faces every year. Most only last a season or two. Very few newcomers make it past their third or fourth year.

If you want to get on in the paddock, you need one of the old guard, one of the established members of the village to look after your interests. Managers who have been in Grand Prix racing for a while will know the teams, will know team managers, and most importantly, will have a network of sponsors they can call on for backing. Your manager from outside the paddock may be able to find you a great deal with a team. What they won't be able to do is sort out your helmet and leathers sponsorship, energy drink sponsorship, and a host of other smaller patches which will fill your leathers and make the difference between scraping along and having a solid financial foundation.

A word of warning here, however. Most of the managers you will meet will be vampires out to suck you dry, signing you to deals which generate the most income for them, but which could potentially jeopardize your future in racing forever. For far too many of those who play at being rider managers, they see it as an easy way of making money, leeching off the back of the talented.

Your problem is distinguishing between the good, the bad, and the ugly. How to do that is the hardest thing in the world, and something I can't help you with. Beware of big promises, and always ask yourself what a manager hopes to gain when they present an offer to you. Talk to other riders, and pay special attention to their horror stories. Those stories are probably your most important resource.

3. Ditch your dad (or your mum)

Your parents are the most important people in your life. Their hard work and sacrifice is what put you in the situation you are today, staring your big opportunity in the face. Without them, you would not even be here.

Time to ditch them. The Grand Prix paddock is full of people who have far more experience of every aspect of motorcycle racing than your parents ever had, even if they are former racers themselves. Your mother and father can't help manage you, they can't help set up your bike, they can't help motivate the team, they can't help you manage yourself at the racetrack. In any direct role at the racetrack, they will be more of a hindrance than a help.

That does not mean that you never see them again. It can be a comfort and a help to have one or both parents around. But their role should be just that: a support, and a comfort. Someone to talk to away from the track, someone to help your relax, a shoulder to cry on from time to time. Above all, someone to help with the practical aspects, driving to and from the track, organizing travel and carrying bags.

Once at the track, though, they cannot help you. After all, do you go their place of work and tell them how they should be doing their job and how they should handle their boss?

There are great examples of how a parent can help alongside a rider. Dek Crutchlow, father of Cal, is one. He provides practical support and help, and is around to provide entertainment and light relief. His only involvement at track side is to hold Crutchlow's pit board. That is enough, and in that role, he is a hundred times more helpful than some of the parents hanging around other garages.

4. You need a good team

You are talented. You know you are fast. You have taken my advice about physical fitness, about hard work, about attitude, about using your intelligence to heart. You enter the paddock filled with hope and optimism. You are ready to conquer the world.

Unfortunately, you face perhaps the biggest hurdle of all. The paddock is filled with teams which are at best mediocre, and at worst verging on incompetent. That is not to say they are not passionate about racing – they give up so much to be here that they have to be passionate – but passion alone is not enough.

What do they do wrong? They don't work systematically, relying more on instinct to try to set up the bike than raw data. They don't have the experience with analyzing data to be able to use it properly. They don't have the right personnel to do the work needed. They don't have the skill or experience to prepare every tiny detail of the bike as perfectly as the top teams do. Most of all, they don't have the money to fix these problems.

Most likely, they have turned to you to solve this issue. You, as a rider, have been told you need to bring money to help pay for your ride. This is your bargaining chip: find out who the good mechanics are, who the good data engineers are, who the good crew chiefs are. If you are paying to ride, you want to buy the best ride you can afford. That means having the right people in place to help you.

How can you tell which team you should ride with, which crew chiefs you should be working with? Compare the results of riders when they switch teams. If a rider goes from running in the top 5 one year to struggling for points the next, the chances are the new team is to blame. Likewise, if they went from struggling one year to podiums the next, you know which of the two teams to join. It may not even be technical expertise or experience, it may be simply not understanding how to manage a rider. Want an example? Mika Kallio, 2014 to 2015. At the Marc VDS Racing team, he had a crew chief who understood him, knew when to follow his feedback, and knew when to pull him back and tell him to ride what he has. At Italtrans, they listened to Kallio too much, and he disappeared down the rabbit hole of minutiae which Kallio believed would lead him to perfection. Instead, it led him to the middle of the field.

5. Paying for a ride? Make sure you get value for money

Unless you came in with a top team, you will have been asked to pay for your ride. It is a deplorable aspect of motorcycle racing, but it is hardly new. We used to call racers who paid for a ride privateers. Now we call them, well, riders.

Given how hard it is to get in to Grand Prix, you may well feel a sense of gratitude at being given a chance. Lose that feeling as soon as you can. The reality is that a team which is asking you to pay is probably not very good at something, namely, raising sponsorship. Why are they not good at raising sponsorship? Because they don't have the people to help their riders get results, and they don't have the people to sell their product – motorcycle racing – to potential sponsors.

If you are bringing money to a team, you are a customer, which means you get to make reasonable demands. You need assurances of good equipment, and good people around you. If you end up paying €300,000 or more for a seat on a Moto3 or a Moto2 bike, you had better make sure you get value for money. That's a lot of cash to stump up to finish 28th every week.

6. It's not about you - don't take criticism personally

The biggest shock you will face in Grand Prix racing is when you return to the pits after the first session of practice. All of a sudden, three or four people will crowd around you, pens and clipboards at the ready, waiting to take note of your every word. That can be extremely intimidating, and can cause you to feel nervous about what you say. Some riders even just either shut up altogether, or say anything, so as not to look stupid in front of their team.

Don't do that. All those people who surround you have the same goal: to get you around the track as fast as possible, and hopefully, ahead of everyone else. Be honest about what you feel on the bike, tell them what the biggest problem was preventing you from going any faster, tell them what the bike did well and what it did badly. If the bike felt fine, say so. If it didn't, say what was wrong, and where it was holding you up.

Be honest and open in your criticism of the bike, do not hold back to spare the feelings of your crew chief and mechanics. But in turn, be prepared for them to criticize you. You may tell them that the bike feels terrible going into a particular corner, but they may respond by telling you that the problem is with you. They may see you need to brake later, or harder, or deeper, or sit on the bike differently, or any number of different things.

Don't take that personally: it really isn't about you. Their comments are not an attack on you as a person, as a young rider. When they tell you to brake at a different point, they are not saying you suck at braking, they are telling you that they know from the data and from experience that that particular corner needs a particular approach. They are offering suggestions to you to help you go faster, not saying you suck. You need their honest feedback to help you go faster just as much as they need your honest feedback to help make the bike better. The end goal is the same: to go faster.

7. The bike will always be shit

And now, for the greatest secret to success of all. The hopeless hunk of junk you just jumped off, that won't allow you to brake where you want to, that can't get you out of the corner how you want to, that needs all your strength to get around the corner? That's as good as it is going to get. The bike you have underneath you is what you have to deal with, and will never be anywhere near perfect. It won't even be particularly good.

What about all the great racing motorcycles of the past? I hear you say. The honest truth is they were all awful. That magnificent Yamaha M1 which dominated 2015 with Rossi and Lorenzo? Sure, it went round corners and accelerated, but it was weak on the brakes, wouldn't let you force it into the corner, and needed to be treated with kid gloves in every corner, or you would lose half a second. The dominant Honda of Stoner and Márquez? Sure, it was a monster on the brakes, but it had a horribly aggressive power delivery and took every ounce of strength just to control it.

So how did Lorenzo, Rossi, Stoner, Márquez all win their world championships? Like all of the great champions who came before them, by shutting up and riding the bike. By understanding that they can make the bike a bit better in some places, but that it would always feel terrible in others. By working on their riding styles, their approach, their technique to get the best out what the factories had given them. By understanding what strengths of the bike they could exploit, and how to minimize the weaknesses of the bike.

When Casey Stoner was on the Ducati, he had to trick the bike into overcoming its understeer, find a way to lose the front and save it just to get around the track and win anyway. At the ripe old age of 36, Valentino Rossi had to teach himself a completely new riding style, to manage a bike very different from the one he rode when he first entered the class. He watched the young kids who had painted a target on his back, then worked his ass off to copy and improve upon the tricks they used against him.

This is the point. The bike your team will give you will be the best bike they can build for you, using your input to try to get the set up as near perfect as possible. They will try to give you a bike that gives you the confidence you need to lap the racetrack as quickly as you can, and quicker than the rest. The bike will still feel awful, it won't do the things you want it to, and it will be worse than other bikes at some points in the track. It will feel like the bike wants to pitch you into the gravel everywhere, and is looking for a way to betray you.

What you have to remember is that your bike isn't the only one that is shit. Every other rider on the track is going through exactly the same thing. They too are screaming in their helmet about how awful their bike is, how it won't turn, won't brake and won't accelerate. They are using exactly the same words to describe their bikes as you are. The only difference is they are doing it in a different language, in Italian, Spanish, Czech, Japanese, German, French, or Dutch. Their teams are telling them the same thing as your team is telling you: brake earlier here, or later there. Use more throttle here, and less there. We can fix this on the entry to Turn 1, but we can't do anything about Turn 3.

A final word

Motorcycle racing is a mechanical sport. The machine on which you compete is a key part of the equation. But the key part of any sport is the human factor, the individuals involved. The bike is important, but not as important as the people you surround yourself with, and the way you communicate with those people. Whatever the machine you find yourself on, in the end, it will come down to you. You will make the difference between success and failure, by your approach, your attitude, the effort you put in, and the way you treat those around you. It won't be easy. In fact, it will be the hardest thing you have ever done. But it isn't impossible.

Good luck. You will need a bit of that too. (grendaseba.com)

On Motorcycle Death Race

G6speed.blogspot.com- "MOTORSPORTS CAN BE DANGEROUS" it says on the back of my media pass, the hard card I wear around my neck and which gives me access to the paddock and the media center. It says the same thing everywhere around the circuit: on rider passes, on the back of tickets, on signs which hang on fences around the circuit.

You see it so much that it becomes a cliché, and like all clichés it quickly loses its meaning. Until reality intervenes, and reminds us that behind every cliché lies a deep truth.

Friday brought a stark reminder. During the afternoon session of free practice for the Moto2 class, Luis Salom exited Turn 11 and got on the gas towards Turn 12. Just before the turn, traveling at around 170 km/h, the rider caress the front brake to help the bike turn through the fast right hander of Turn 12, an engineer told me. At that point, Salom lost control of his bike, fell off, and he and his bike headed towards the air fence which protects the wall there. They slid across a patch of tarmac put in to help the cars if they run straight on at that corner, and Salom's bike hit the air fence and wall, careened off the wall and into Salom, fatally injuring him.

Salom received treatment in the corner, and was then taken to a local hospital where doctors did all they could to save his life. Sadly, they could not. Luis Salom died at 4:55pm on 3rd June 2016, at the age of 24.

Motorsports can be dangerous. In fact, motorsports can be fatal, though we are lucky enough to live in times where such fatalities are rare, at least in short circuit racing. The last fatality at world championship event was Andrea Antonelli, who died in 2013 during the World Supersport race at Moscow Raceway. Before that, it was Marco Simoncelli, who was killed in the opening laps of the MotoGP race at Sepang in 2011. A year before that, Shoya Tomizawa died at Misano, during the Moto2 race.

Luis Salom's death is another reminder that motorcycle racers risk far more than they care to think about. After Salom's accident, a shiver of fear ran through the paddock. We all knew that what had happened was bad, yet we all kept our fingers crossed and indulged in the hundreds of individual rituals, religious or otherwise, with which we hoped to influence fate to look kindly on the fallen rider.

We had started the normal round of rider debriefs, but the mood quickly changed in those debriefs when the seriousness of the situation became apparent. Questions were shorter, answers simpler, more to the point. Worried looks went between riders, team staff and journalists.

When Dorna announced there would be a press conference, our hearts sank. Our hopes, wishes, prayers had been in vain. We knew Luis Salom was dead. A few moments later, a press release confirmed our fears. The press conference was not a press conference, it merely consisted of MotoGP's medical director reading out the official statement confirming Salom had died. We were told no questions would be allowed. At first, I was indignant. I quickly realized that there was no point. I neither knew what to ask, nor could anyone at the press conference know much more about the situation. It was too early.

A pall descended upon the paddock. One regular described the atmosphere as "eerie". It is a particularly apt description. The paddock is unnaturally quiet. Normally, after on track action has ceased, the paddock is filled with sound. Music blares from speakers, as parties are held in hospitality units to celebrate some spurious achievement or other. There is a general hubbub, as the adrenaline of the day finds release through activity, through chatter. Conversations are struck up, people stand around gossiping, greetings and insults are shouted in the vast lanes between the paddock.

On Friday, there were none of these things. Groups of people stood around talking quietly, eyes lowered, the presence of others acknowledged with a nod or a hand gesture, rather than a shout. A sense of sadness prevailed throughout, yet there were few tears, few public expressions of grief.

This is the truth which Luis Salom's death exposes, and it is a memory I carry from being in Misano when Shoya Tomizawa was killed. Death stalks the paddock, always, and we all pretend it is not there. Riders believe it will not happen to them, and take risks without thinking about the danger they expose themselves to. Journalists spend millions of words glorifying the danger while playing down the risks of serious injury.

Teams work to make bikes which will go as fast as possible, and work as perfectly as possible. Race Direction, the marshals, the medical staff at the circuit, the staff of the Clinica Mobile all work to make the track and the practice as safe as possible, and minimize risks where they can. Track designers, helmet manufacturers and protective equipment producers all work to find new ways of improving safety, looking for ingenious ways of reducing damage should a rider crash.

We all know that riders can be seriously hurt when they crash. We all know they can risk fatal injury, though thankfully, such fatal injuries are increasingly rare. But though everyone works to make things safer, it is still all relative. The risk is not reduced to zero. It cannot be reduced to zero. And so we try not to think about it, and work harder to find ways of reducing risks still further, and hope that we can stay lucky for a while.

Things have improved immeasurably. If you open the FIM MotoGP Results Guide(link is external) to any season during the 1950s and 1960s, in any class, there is a list of notes after each season. Died following an accident in practice, one note reads. Killed in an accident during the race, reads another. They do not include every fatality, as they only refer to riders who scored points during the season, and appear in the official results. Once upon a time, there were deaths at almost every event, and funerals every week.

Riders, journalists and teams dealt with it then in much the same way as they deal with it now. They didn't think about it too much. Because if they did, they would have to stop, and find another way of making a living, and another passion to pursue.

This is the dichotomy at the heart of motorcycle racing. Ask a rider what draws them to the sport, and they will tell you it is the thrill and the danger, the feeling of riding the razor edge of risk to go as fast as possible. Yet those same riders all head to the Dorna compound on Friday for the meeting of the Safety Commission, and complain about the dangers at each track. It is the danger which draws them in, and yet it is that same danger which they fear. It is that spectacle of danger which draws the fans in, yet when danger materializes, it leaves the fans shocked and grieving.

Why did the crash happen? At the moment, there is too much uncertainty, too much is unclear. It would be easy for me to point the finger of blame at the track surface, at the track layout, at where the wall is, at the hard standing at that point of the track. But that would be premature. The facts are not all known, the situation is being investigated. I have not spoken to everyone involved, we have not seen the data. In short, we cannot be certain what happened, and how much each part of the tragic sequence of events contributed to Luis Salom's death. In time, we may know a little more, be able to form a better picture of what went wrong. But not yet.

We can review what we do know, however.

The track is incredibly slippery, the track not having been resurfaced for many years. Riders in every class complained how bad the surface was even before Salom's crash happened.

The outside of the corner at Turn 12 has hard standing, an asphalt surface all the way to the air fence. It is just a very narrow section, meant to allow cars to brake before they hit a wall. It is at a point where riders do not usually fall. (The most notable exception was Niccolo Antonelli in 2014, but even he crashed a little later and ended up sliding through the gravel before hitting the wall). Gravel would have done more to slow both Salom and his bike, but crashes were not expected to happen there.

The bike layout – all of it, from Turn 10 through to Turn 12 in the FIM-approved layout – is fast and flowing, with high corner speeds and rounded corners. The FIA-approved F1 layout has a much sharper hairpin at Turn 10, and adds a lot of corners to slow the cars down, including a sharper right -hand corner where Turn 12 is, and a chicane before the final corner.

The riders will be using that layout for the rest of the weekend. Several MotoGP riders tested the layout in 2014 at the post-race test, but only Marc Márquez said he liked it. Everyone who tried it said it was safer, but they all hated it, as it took the flow out of the track. They rejected the idea of using it, and stuck to the bike layout on which Salom was killed.

Hindsight is 20/20. If the Safety Commission had demanded that the track had been resurfaced, perhaps it would have had more grip. If the FIM Safety Officer had judged that a crash was possible at the exact point at which Salom crashed (or used a model to calculate the chances of a crash there), they could have demanded the hard standing was replaced by gravel.

The circuit owners could potentially have decided that the wall was too close there, and dug out the earthmoving equipment to move the wall back, and create more run off. The FIM Safety Officer could have decided the bike layout was simply too dangerous, and forced MotoGP to adopt the F1 layout.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. But they didn't, and a rider is dead. Does that mean they are to blame? It is way, way too early to be apportioning blame.

The reality is also that Luis Salom himself knew that motorsports can be dangerous. That is in part what drew him to the sport. It was a risk he probably tried not to think about, and something he probably never expected he would have to face. Luck was not with Salom, however.

Tomorrow, we will put all this to the back of our minds, and carry on with the business of motorcycle racing. Everyone – riders, teams, journalists, fans – will be rather more acutely aware of the danger involved, but after a while, we will get caught up in the thrill of it all, in the excitement of qualifying, then the thrill of the race. We will stop thinking about Luis Salom's tragic accident, and start thinking about who will win the Catalonia Grand Prix, and how that will affect the 2016 championship.

That is probably exactly what Luis Salom would have wanted. His family have given their blessing on continuing with the Grand Prix weekend as before, albeit with minor changes. On Sunday, as we bathe in the glory of on-track battle, of young men and women risking life and limb to see who can ride a motorcycle the fastest over a set distance, we will forget the tragedy, and enjoy the spectacle. This is how we honor our dead: when we see a race, we see the memory of the riders we have lost. They live on in our hearts and in our thoughts.(G6speed.blogspot.com)

Meet Dani Pedrosa: On Relations With The Press, And Changing From 990 to 800 to 1000

Dani Pedrossa

Grendaseba.com-Dani Pedrosa is in his eleventh season in MotoGP. Throughout that period, he has seen many changes in the premier class. He raced in the last year of the 990s, then throughout the 800 era, and saw the return of the 1000cc machines. Only Valentino Rossi has been in MotoGP for longer, or raced, and won on, a greater variety of machines.

Pedrosa arrived in MotoGP being heralded as the next big thing, the prime candidate to challenge Valentino Rossi for the title. He started strongly, winning races in his first season, and clearly being competitive. But the focus would shift in his second year to his former 250cc rival Casey Stoner, who took the factory Ducati ride and blew the competition out of the water in 2007.

In 2008, Jorge Lorenzo came to strengthen the top of MotoGP, creating the narrative of the four MotoGP Aliens. When Stoner hung up his helmet at the end of 2012, Marc Márquez stepped into his boots and upped the level of competition even further.

The level of competition Pedrosa has faced has meant he has not received the recognition he deserves for his incredible record. In eleven seasons, Pedrosa has won 29 races in MotoGP, putting him in 8th place on the all time winners list. His win at Misano, after a very difficult start to the season, laid any doubts to rest over his motivation, and his ability. Pedrosa remains capable of winning any race he lines up on the grid for.

I spoke to Pedrosa at Misano, intending to look back at his time in MotoGP, and to discuss how things had changed. But the conversation took a slightly different tack than I was expecting. In our conversation, Pedrosa talked about his relationship with the press, and how that had colored his time in the class. Pedrosa has not always been the most talkative of riders – questions are sometimes answered with a tiny nod or shake of the head, where another rider might explain in great detail – but when he does talk, it is always worth listening carefully.

Q: This is your eleventh season in MotoGP. You’ve seen a lot of changes. When you came to MotoGP was it what you expected? What were your first impressions of your first year in MotoGP?

Dani Pedrosa: I remember that the media effect compared to 250, or 125, was huge. The interest of the media about the classes, and the effect of being a rider in one class or in a different class, even though you were always in the front was totally different.

Q: Was it a shock?

DP: Yeah, as a negative. Not for the media obligations, but for the feelings, of heart.

Q: For example the criticisms?

DP: No. For you, the passion, the passion for riding the bike and riding it fast is the same if you are in 125 or if you are in MotoGP. The love you have to expose yourself there is the same. But the effect of that on others was a disillusion, to see that they care a lot more about the big class. Which is understandable because it’s the big attraction from the three races on Sunday..

Q: Did you feel it almost devalued 125s, 250s and the things you achieved?

DP: No. For me it was huge to be world champion, only one guy can do this a year. But it was just that maybe then, I expected the people to care the same way. But then when you jump, you feel it’s not the same.

I thought that when I was in 125 and 250, I thought that my experience with the press was already normal for the experience with the press. But then when you go to MotoGP the experience with the press expands way bigger. And then you see the difference. Now you see that you were actually playing just a small percentage part.

Q: In English we have an expression, a big fish in a small pond, and you suddenly realized it was a very small pond you were in. Was there distraction? Did that actually make it difficult to concentration on adapting to MotoGP?

DP: No. It’s not easy, the part that you have to measure every word you say, because there’s always someone willing to twist the things you say to profit off that. At the beginning you make a lot of mistakes because you are naive about that.

Q: Have you changed to be a little bit more cautious with the press over the years then?

DP: Cautious is not the right word, but basically you cannot always say everything as 100% of what you want. Sometimes your feelings or the truth actually is there, but you cannot always share everything that you want and at that moment. But you get to know that.

Q: Is that frustrating sometimes? Certainly when I’ve spoken to some riders after something happened, at the time they will tell you, “no, this is what happened, why it was doing this, and it was okay.” And then afterwards they say, “I couldn’t tell you that because things were a little bit different but I couldn’t tell you the whole story because of the way that things change in the middle of one season. After the season is finished you look back differently.” Is that the same for you? Is it frustrating that you can’t always speak your mind?

DP. Sometimes. Depends on the situation. Sometimes, yes. But most of the time I’m not one that likes to share a lot of my things and my thinking. So actually I struggle more with that part than to want to say.

Q: It’s more frustrating that you have to speak.

DP: Yes! [Laughs]

Q: The championship, you came in on a 990 and then immediately the rules changed to 800 which were totally different bikes. Was that difficult? Were all the changes which we’ve seen, because we went from 990 to 800 and then to 1000 and now we’ve got spec electronics. Have those changes made it more difficult or easier?

DP: Difficult, of course. When I jumped into the 990s, the bike was amazing. It was just get on the bike, put the tires in and ride. Just by riding you get to know how to ride it and you get fast.

Then all of a sudden there were changes. No experience in MotoGP, just one year, and need to develop the bike, need to develop the tires and need to race at the same time. It was in my second season, so if it turns out that those changes all fit together and the combination is working, that's fine. But if it turns out that it’s the opposite and you have to carry all that and try to get out of the problems, then it’s very difficult. Of course after debuting the 990 would be perfect to have a continuation of that experience. Continue with the same bike, the same team. You just do one step better.

Q: Was it almost like starting again?

DP: At the time with Honda we struggled to get the 800 to work.

Q: The first 800 was a difficult bike?

DP: Yes, the first and the second year.

Q: Was it almost like starting again from zero?

DP: The project, yes.

Q: How much fun was it? Was it a lot less fun to ride the 800 as well?

DP: A little bit less fun.

Q: Was it more like a 250 or not?

No. Way much more power than a 250. But the weight was there, and I don’t know, it was not like a 250.

Q: These bikes you’re riding now, the 1000’s, now that we have a bigger bike, more power, smoother power, and Michelins again, are these bikes easier to ride? Are they again more fun than the 800 or not? More like the 990s or are they very different?

DP: No, they are different now. These days they are different. The way of riding the bike is also different. Because we come from an area of, the riders now they are all used to the Bridgestones for a long time, most of them. So we push the new tires and the new bikes the same way.

The riders, the tires, they all are different than when I started in 990, the riding style wasn’t like that. In the 990 it was very strange to start the race and push from the beginning. You play a bit in the beginning, warm up the tires, do some cruising on the first laps, try to get your position, try to see the line, see who is faster or not. And then when you see clear, boom. You attack middle of the race, end of the race or when you see the chance. But these days now, since 800s the strategy is "last one home is a bad egg".

Q: Some people probably blame Casey Stoner for that change, or was it you?

DP: And me! When I was in the 990 if I had the chance in practice, I went out and I’d profit every lap. Then when everybody wake up I was already gone! I remember it was like this before.

Q: I remember lots of people always complaining when you won because you were gone within a lap and a half. That hasn’t happened for a while now.

DP: Sepang my last victory was like this.

Q: Is it more difficult to do that now? Has something changed?

DP: No, now what is difficult is not to get caught or to get the right position. Because everyone is going from the start. If you get in the middle of something or with someone, the race can be…

Q: Almost over in the first corner, which is why qualifying has become so important?

DP: Yes. And then you spend all the race trying to recover one position.

Thanks.. (Grendaseba.com)

Sources: Motomatter