Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Sat, 11 Sep 2010 19:50:23
>Revisionist history, I think. In '07 and '08 Michelin was still winning
>races, and much of their problem was arriving at the track with a
>broad-range tire which could work under varying or unpredicted
>conditions. The Bridgestone front may have been superior overall, but
>that still marginally. And the style of racing hasn't changed in some
>marked way since '08.
It kind of goes like this. The Ducati engine configuration means it's
naturally rear weight biased. They can't move the engine any further
forwards because the lower cylinders hit the front tyre. Bridgestone
develop a set of tyres to work with this. The front is super sticky to
work with the lower load. The rear needs the rearwards weight transfer
to get heat into it and work properly. Yamaha and Rossi switch to these
tyres. They have to mirror the Ducati frame setup to make them work. So
they progressively move the forks forwards takeing weight off the front
and raise and shorten the bike to get the rearwards weight transfer.
Because the Ducati worked the tyres best with quite a high CoG and lots
of weight transfer to get heat into the tyres, Yamaha mirrors this.
Stoner is off for a while and Rossi pushes development. Bridgestone then
start to develop a compromise tyre that is somewhere between what Ducati
and Yamaha want. This forms the basis for the control tyre. For whatever
reason, Honda don't get quite so radical with chassis setup as
Yamaha/Ducati and Pedrosa's lighter weight makes it harder to get the
weight transfer the tyres are designed to work with.
Then we switch to control tyres and Bridgestone base it on this
compromise modified to be a little less radical so it more or less works
for everyone at most tracks. It's actually Ducati who suffer most from
this because the tyre design has moved away from what they need to what
everybody else needs. The front tyre no longer works so well with their
more rearwards CoG. Stoner can't just chuck the front in and rely on the
front tyre to just stick. IMHO, he hasn't been able to alter his style
by the fractions needed to work with the current tyre so what he gets is
a series of front end crashes.
>Or is this something of a mirage, created by their fresher engines, a
>play-it-safe Lorenzo, a suddenly-human Rossi, a handicapped Spies, etc.?
I think something has changed at Honda. It seems it was them who pushed
for the engine rule because it gave them an edge as a motor company.
That fresh impetus and hope has also made them a bit more open to
actually trying to get the chassis right. Put all that together with
Dani's temperament which is to be stunningly fast when everything is
exactly right and it all finally comes together. For the reasons you
give along with some others, everybody else is suddenly racing for
second. You can add in Dovi who's a 10th slower than Pedrosa, Stoner
who's lost his way and the other 10 non-aliens who either don't have the
last 10th or are manipulated into not having the machinery.
It's entirely possible that Dani now wins every race left but it won't
actually be enough. If they'd just hit form 2 or 3 races earlier or he
hadn't fallen off at Laguna this might have been his year. I know the
racing has been god awful boring this year, but I'm really looking
forwards to the last 3-4 races. It's all more of a technical chess game
than a proper man's sport but it's going to be fascinating seeing if
Yamaha-Lorenzo or Honda-Pedrosa can keep it together long enough. The
big fly in the ointment is if Lorenzo's pit lane start comes at exactly
the wrong time, or if Pedrosa's 5th and 6th engine are one race wonders.
--
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