bertusras

Nope. No changes to aero rules.

Okay scrap yesterday's post, six guys UNDER the previous fastest lap this morning.

Vinales laid down the gauntlet in the closing minutes today, coming within 0.067 Jorge Lorenzo's outright record set at last year's test

Gigi is not from this planet Some eagle-eyed reporters picked this up some time ago, but for the first time think that they can confirm what it is. https://twitter.com/gponedotcom/status/1093421876565569536/photo/1 Seems that it's a mechanical lockout for the rear shock (no electronic suspension control is permitted) at the start of the race, to prevent the bike from squatting under acceleration, thereby generating better drive. Motocross have a similar thing on the front forks, which drops the nose of the bike down. https://www.instagram.com/p/BtkxVPxh74y https://www.instagram.com/p/BtkyUjCBwZv

The salad box (as SK mentioned below) arrived with some radical aero innovations from Ducati's side, which eliminated a lot of space behind the front fairing, necessitating the need to move the electronics elsewhere. They've just not bothered to move it back after that. And in fairness, looking at CFD simulations, not too much air that actually hits the tailpiece as it passes around the rider, so there's not too much real affect by not having a symmetrical tailpiece. Edit: Took me a while to find the correct picture, but it coincided with the arrival of this monstrosity (no not Jorge) Edit: Okay not actually coincided. The salad box came first and everyone was ooohh aaahh, Ducati are going to use a variable jet exhaust to halt wheelies, or it's some sort of mass damper, or whatever. Then a few weeks later a light aircraft arrived in pit lane.

Have they been out on track in their livery yet?

Not when you're competing against a bunch of hockey moms it appears. Which is such a shame.

That explains it, thanks! Lots of aircraft have been hauling it across Waterkloof/Brooklyn the past few days.

Anywhere up North where we could actually put these lids on our noggins to see if the fit is correct?

Not quite Touching on fast and consistent times Apart from Lowes, Rea had more sub-43's than the next 4 riders combined. Moving on to Bautista. He is really showing his class so far, and I fear that Chaz is going to end up on the same trajectory as what Tom Sykes ended up on. Now let's get to Sykes. In 2012 he climbed onto the new, 1-year old ZX-10R platform, and came within half a point of winning the championship. That was really impressive (even though I was rooting for The Emperor). The next year he wiped the floor with everyone despite Eugene Laverty's strong run in the 2nd half of the season. Then came 2014 where Sykes narrowly lost out to Guintoli (GUINTOLI), but hey, his team mate did T-Bone him in turn 2 at Malaysia. Bear in mind that Rea finished 3rd on a 7-Year old Honda, but a long way off the points totals. Then, 2015. Race 1, Philip Island. JR P1, TS P6. Race 2, JR P2, TS P4. Then Rea went on to win the next three races, then second, then won four more. Long story short, at the end of 2015 the points totals were JR P1 548, TS P3 399. Now I'm expected to believe that in less than one year the bike developed so much in Rea's favour that Sykes managed to score nearly 150 points (6 race wins) less than Rea? The years following I can totally believe that development favoured JR's input, 100%, but why wouldn't it? They're there to win races and championships, and JR was by far their best chance of doing that.

Karma for screwing Ronald Ten Kate over... And hiring Kiyo... THE. F.

Well if you end the Portimao test nearly a second faster than anyone else, you are pretty much guaranteed to leave them for dead once you get clean air

It would be sweet, if I didn't already have carbon wheels on that machine

Yeah, seriously impressed by the bloke. Didn't get to watch the start of our innings but listened to it on radio and it certainly didn't sound very good. I'm really concerned about our batters, especially against spin-strong teams, for this world up.

I think it does/should. Especially when it comes to weight transfer (ie manipulating your CG) and changing surfaces (ie dealing with slides and stuff). Edit: Allrounder

And they liked to crack the shock mount IIRC. That's a lot of kilos for a motorcycle, and whilst the GS motors are super strong, I'd be wary.

This is awesome, well done Rob!

Episode 3 is out, you know...

It's interesting when your frame of reference makes you think what you want it to think, and not what it actually is

This popped up in my inbox yesterday

Well Caleb is also about 2 feet tall, so he needs to be on his tippie toes to reach the ground...

Their dilemma is that it's the first year of an entirely new platform. I don't see them winning the championship on their first attempt, perhaps next year when they've been able to refine the package. You've got to remember that the KRT effort has been winning for the past four years, and they've not had to change much. Heck, they had to work with less last year as JR65 got hit with rev-limit penalties as he was wiping the floor with everyone. Instead of complaining about it, they focused on getting the bike through the corners faster and smoother. Ducati have gone and smashed as much power as possible out of a V4 platform in an attempt to catch up. Rea was comfortably faster [in the first test] than anyone else, and even Bautista managed to embarrass Davies as a debutante on the new V4R, by riding it like a proper MotoGP bike, and not waiting until you saw death, brake, hope you make the corner and then climb on the gas as hard as possible. I don't think there's going to be much of a shake-up this year to be frank. The KRT/JR65 package is just on another level. Edit: Brain and fingers not in sync

An event is an actual organised and timed event on their events list, not just a swim by yourself. You won't get 3000 points for that.

Well it is a homologation special, allowing them to "up" the starting base of their World SBK effort. It's an ultimate race bike (the Ducati test rider came within 4s of Chaz Davies' time who was on the full factory Superbike), which will unfortunately be confined to supercar garages and luxury mansions, not the race track as it is really intended.

Yes, but it's the rules. You accept it or you don't. And then use the rules to your advantage.