Trouble in Motorcycle Paradise ...........
105 race wins and 9 world championships .... rider Valentino Rossi says .....
I can't ride this ....
Pretty amazing. I figure that Ducati is going down the tubes in the near future as a race powerhouse.
This failure to evolve their world class race bikes in the direction that they need looks like the engineers have followed the design and development of the machines down a dead end path ... if not having finally reached the performance envelope boundary for the desmo engine as a stressed member of the rolling chassis. It makes me wonder why .... after all the historical failures of this layout that the Ducati designers chose to go down this route.
Past efforts to use the stressed member engine layout in a motorcycle were aimed at reducing weight rather than obtaining the best chassis dynamics. This is a strategy indicates the power plants are at the end of their potential for more output and that the weight reduction tradeoff against best handling is a "last chance" sort of effort to extend the life of the current technology.
Apparently ... the street versions of the bike are fantastic .... but they deliver something like 100 hp LESS than the GP Bike.
Although it is sure that Ducati has produced the finest handling and most powerful combination ever and most likely possible in the Desmosdici and Panigale machines.... At this point I would think that a clean sheet of paper and some fresh ideas would be in order.
Perhaps this will be, since it looks like Audi is taking over the Ducati brand. Or ... perhaps not.
In the mean time .....
"It is unrideable and it doesn’t matter what track you are on. I cannot enter the corners hard and we can’t hope the situation will change with the new Bridgestone tyres. These aren’t problems that can be solved with set-up alone."
OMMAG
I can't ride this ....
Pretty amazing. I figure that Ducati is going down the tubes in the near future as a race powerhouse.
This failure to evolve their world class race bikes in the direction that they need looks like the engineers have followed the design and development of the machines down a dead end path ... if not having finally reached the performance envelope boundary for the desmo engine as a stressed member of the rolling chassis. It makes me wonder why .... after all the historical failures of this layout that the Ducati designers chose to go down this route.
Past efforts to use the stressed member engine layout in a motorcycle were aimed at reducing weight rather than obtaining the best chassis dynamics. This is a strategy indicates the power plants are at the end of their potential for more output and that the weight reduction tradeoff against best handling is a "last chance" sort of effort to extend the life of the current technology.
Apparently ... the street versions of the bike are fantastic .... but they deliver something like 100 hp LESS than the GP Bike.
Although it is sure that Ducati has produced the finest handling and most powerful combination ever and most likely possible in the Desmosdici and Panigale machines.... At this point I would think that a clean sheet of paper and some fresh ideas would be in order.
Perhaps this will be, since it looks like Audi is taking over the Ducati brand. Or ... perhaps not.
In the mean time .....
"It is unrideable and it doesn’t matter what track you are on. I cannot enter the corners hard and we can’t hope the situation will change with the new Bridgestone tyres. These aren’t problems that can be solved with set-up alone."
OMMAG
Labels: Motorsports
posted by OMMAG at 9:07 p.m.
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