Repsol Honda rider Casey Stoner talks hi-tech – MotoGP news
The new comer to the Repsol Honda team, Casey Stoner shared his experiences from behind the curtain.
Stoner in his last season at Ducati made some step down in the term of electronic gadgets in his GP10.
By the end of 2009 Ducati has shifted his designed from ‘screamer’ engines to a much smoother and calm ‘big-bang’ power plants. The smoother power delivery and much more controllable engine revs made Stoner to choose simpler models of electronics which did
less interference in power range.
“At Ducati I went back to an older model of electronics when we got the ‘big bang’ engine, because I had that much more grip on the bottom of the rev range that I didn’t want all the [engine] cuts and this and that to calm the bike down,” Stoner said.
The electronic gadgets used were a usual point of discussion during the early years of Stoner at Ducati. Including the teammates, other riders also thought that using Electronic Traction Control was a key factor in his success.
Stoner still insisted that he has been using electronics as minimum requirement. The Australian race was a scene which showed that that the roaring ‘screamer’ powered bike was tending to get out of hands of Stoner which does not describe the behaviour of
an electronically controlled bike. The decision took by him to choose less hi-tech electronics was not in vain and inversely effective to his success.
“We went back to what was, by the end of last year, an electronics package that was nearly two years old,” revealed Stoner, the winner of three races out of his last six for Ducati.
Casey Stoner had the great chance to move to Repsol Honda team for 2011 MotoGP season, now running on homemade electronic gadgets by HRC engineers instead of Magneti Marelli. Stoner also said that it is difficult to compare both systems as they have been
through a lot of development. This season Honda riders will be having two electronic engineers by each.
“Because electronics are always evolving, you can’t get a good understanding of how they compare to each other,” he said. “For example, we’ve tried a different electronics modification at this second Sepang test, and now the electronics feel different compared
to even the electronics Honda had used in the past.”
Casey Stoner dominated the Sepang II test and stood first on all three days of the test held later last month, breaking the two-minute barrier at the Sepang International Circuit. Teammate Dani Pedrosa was the only other rider to follow the foot-steps of
Stoner concluding on second place.
The final third pre-season test will be mid March at Losail, Qatar.
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