LeMans tidbits

Lorenzo ahead now, but on the other hand I expect him to start falling
off again when he starts to put pressure on himself. When he isn't
quite as fast he still believes he is... at least that's been his
pattern. Let's see.

Rossi is close enough -as always- to pounce and take advantage of any
mistake.

Ducati must be very happy with Hayden's results. Stoner is looking
like a total rookie, and given his pattern he can't continue to blame
it on bad luck alone. He is fast, but much like Lorenzo he tries to go
too fast too often.

Dovizioso finishes ahead of Pedrosa, again, and is ahead on points.
The days of Pedrosa at HRC should be numbered. HRC must know he is not
a rider that can get them the title unless they magically hand him a
bike that is very superior... and he does not know how to contribute
to bike development, period. His years in HRC betray that fact.

Spies for now seemingly and very disappointingly following the pattern
of WSB greats that underperform in MotoGP. Hopefully the trend changes
soon, but he is entitled to a learning season. Or two.

The bottom ten positions are quite close to each other in points, it
will be interesting how the season develops. And it is shocking to see
just how far ahead the official teams are, with the possible exception
of Melandri and De Puniet.

 

Except that the rear spun out on him this time. Spalding speculated the
same thing and that Ducati had put so much effort into rear grip that it
was now overpowering the front. Then had to eat his words when we saw
the helicopter shot a few seconds later.

Edwards has had a pole and podiums at Le Mans. Like Haga, was last year
his last best shot?

 

What happened in that bunch on the last lap? Presumably Barbera put a
hard pass on Simoncelli who then got swallowed up by all the others.

 

Except that in his interview with the BBC during the race, and in the
comments he made quoted on the MotoGP.com site, Casey says it was a
front end problem. I've got to admit it looked like the rear going in
the pictures. So is it possible that the front went first? Could the
racers in the group comment on whether it is possible for a rider to
mistake a rear end crash for a front end crash?

 

It's very possible to lose the front and then spin out. The front
washes on you, but not totally. The bike leans over more and starts
to fall as the front washes, but then the front wheel turns in with
the slide, catches and arrests the fall but by that time the rear is
at an aggravated lean angle because of the situation and is
overwhelmed . The rear then goes away from you and to the outside
observer it may seem like a rear end crash. I may not be describing
it correctly but I've seen it happen. I watched a friend of mine
crash exactly this way a long time ago from about 20 yards away so I
saw the front go, then catch and he spun out after the front caught
again.

-Dirt-

 

That seems universal: Stuart Easton had no idea why he'd crashed in
the 1st BSB race on Sunday.

 

It is a great description.

 

On the live feed you can see where Stoner lost the front, the camera
behind him and he's just headed out of frame, and his foot suddenly
comes off the peg at corner entry. Then it switches to the shot from
the front, and Stoner comes tumbling through a second later. He said
he lost the front, slid some distance on it before it all came
unglued, apparently at the rear. Not much question that this was a
front-end crash.

 

Michael Sierchio says:

I was about to agree with Champ and then:

I almost spit my sandwich into the monitor.
Excellent!

 

Funny how that goes.
- Stoner crashes out.
- Spalding immediately says, "another Ducati front end crash"
- Helicopter shot appears to show the rear going
- Spalding immediately apologises and says he got it wrong.
- Some time later we get another view and Hayden's transcript. Stoner
loses the front, holds it on his knee, almost rescues it till the back
end comes round. And down he goes.

So we're finally back to the same question. Why does the Ducati keep
chucking people off from a loss of front grip? When Michelin were still
in the game, the story was that the Ducati was light at the front so
Bridgestone had built an unusually grippy front tyre. Yamaha then
adjusted their bike to suit these "Ducati style" tyres by moving the
weight back. Honda followed suit but less so. Then we get spec
Bridgestones, and it all changes again. It seems like this year's
Bridgestones are more even front to back and Ducati is back to having a
small problem with their layout and weight distribution. They can't get
any more weight on the front because of the forward facing cylinders in
the L. If they lengthen the swing arm, they lose rear grip. Then there's
the fuel load. Stoner is crazy fast as always in qualifying trim. But a
full fuel load seems to catch him out.

 

thank you

that had me giggling a lot