Ducati boss Paolo Ciabatti highlights problems with the Desmosedici – MotoGP news
According to Paolo Ciabatti, too much horse power is one the basic reason for Desmosedici’s continuous failure over the past few seasons. Ideally, any MotoGP rider will prefer massive amounts
of horsepower but for Ducati, increased horse power has created problems instead of giving the Ducati riders an edge over other MotoGP riders.
“From what I remember when I was there that there was always a kind of idea that horsepower can never be enough. So we said, ‘Let’s make as much horsepower as possible and then we’ll kind
of adjust it with the rest.’ And it was the concept of Ducati when we entered MotoGP; it was like a rocket on two wheels,” Ciabatti explained.
The idea is very simple. A bike with too much horsepower just becomes impossible to manage around the corners of a Grand Prix track. That is what happened with Valentino Rossi in his two
years of MotoGP career with Ducati. Rossi, who had won MotoGP crowns riding for three different manufacturers in the past, could not manage even a single Grand Prix victory riding the Ducati bike from 2011 until 2012.
Ciabatti, in collaboration with the 2013 Ducati riders Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso, is working hard to improve the Ducati bike. In their most recent MotoGP appearance at Sepang, the
Ducati riders failed to impress as was expected. Hayden and Dovizioso hardly managed to finish amongst the top ten finishers in the Sepang test.
“We are analyzing all existing data and trying to improve all technical aspects of the bike, including the engine fine-tuning. I think we can also do it with the electronics but it will
take some time,” Ciabatti said.
For over two years, not even a single rider has won a MotoGP round riding a Ducati bike. It was Casey Stoner who won the 2010 Australian Grand Prix riding a Ducati bike in October 2010.
Hayden and Dovizioso can not hope to accomplish much riding the current Ducati bike. However, looking at Ciabatti’s determination to improve the MotoGP bike, 2014 should be a much more competitive
season.
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