His performance in the Qatar round was fantastic, with Stoner decimating the entire field with a fantastic ride, virtually leading from start to finish, and ultimately only being challenged by Rossi. But is it not a little premature to be piling on the platitude's about his overall performance or championship hopes?
It was only a month ago that the same media was waiting for Casey to throw his Ducati into the gravel, calling him a crasher, and ultimately, Casey proved them correct when he stacked the bike on the final day of testing.
Casey has been winning on and off for a few years now, achieving a win in his first year of the 125's, and another win in his second year. Moving up to the 250's he was thought of as a challenger for the championships against Honda's Dani Pedrosa. But like a lot of fast riders, Casey has a habit of making visits to the gravel, which to this date has been his downfall.
In his first season of MotoGP, on a machine that is nowhere near as brutal as the old 500's, he produced some fantastic rides, finishing second in his third race. However, by the Italian Gran Prix at Mugello, Casey started a trend of either not starting the round (Germany) or retired from the round (Italy, Spain, USA, Japan, Portugal and Spain). DNF's do not win a championship, just ask Rossi in 2006.
To win the championship in 2007, Stoner has to be consistently good, and to beat Rossi overall, he has to be consistently very good. Rossi finished last year in second place, achieving 5 less points than World Champion Nicky Hayden, but Rossi failed to finish three rounds vs Haydens one, and being punted back on the first corner of the first round did not help Rossi either.
Doohan has commented on Stoner being similar to Schwantz, and that "its easier to make a fast person not crash than get a slow person faster". I think the comparison to Schwantz is interesting. Kevin won a single world championship, in 1993, but it was not solely due to Kevin learning to be fast and not crash, as he only won 4 rounds, lower than the number of wins he achieve in 1989 (6 wins, ended up 5th in the championships due to DNF's), but the fact that the major competitor, Wayne Rainey, ended the championships in a wheelchair due to his career ending crash at Misano (at which time he had been leading the championship). Doohan was also still in recovery mode from his leg smashing crash at Assen in 1992.
Casey is facing a plethora of top racers, at the height of their game and in order to beat Rossi, Pedrosa (who has already beaten Stoner in the past) and the others, will require an absolute step change in performance from his previous years.
Ducati, however, have provided Stoner, and the remainder of his team mates, a bike that is capable of blowing the paint off anything in the MotoGP paddock. This is not really any different to other years, with Ducati typically occupying the top of the speed charts for most rounds, with the GP4 from 2004 producing the highest speed recorded by a MotoGP bike, 347.4kmh. The main issue with the Ducati seems to be handling, and consistency of handling, which is ultimately harder to fix than sheer horsepower.
Now the Yamaha of Rossi and Edwards appears to be beautiful handling, but ultimately underpowered. This is most apparent when in a race, and is something that I worried about when I saw the laptimes Rossi/Edwards achieved versus their absolute speed. When alone, such as qualifying, a laptime is a somewhat abstract concept, when smoothness, handling and all the factors combine to lower it to the maximum. Once in a race, things are not always smooth, and when balked, regaining the speed is easier on a powerful machine rather than a underpowered.
Going back to when the 500cc twins (Aprilia and Honda) were entered into championships showed this. The machines were underpowered, but light and could handle the corners like a 250cc racer. In qualifying, in the right hands, they produced some quick times, but in the race their handling/cornerspeed advantage was diminished due to the big 4cylinder machines getting in the way, so when it got to the straight, they had the power to dominate the straights.
In the first race, this is where the Rossi/Yamaha combination is sitting next to the Stoner/Ducati. Rossi passes on the corners where he has superior abilities, and Ducati blasts past on the straight, where the bike has superior abilities.
So what happens when the other manufacturers come back with more power?
Personally, I think I agree with Alex Edge at motorcycledaily.com, with the comments that if the power differential is worked out by the other manufacturers (and I wouldn't discount them) that
...the question is, how will Stoner respond? There seem to be two possible options. One is that the young Australian, with his newfound race-winning confidence, will push his Ducati to its limits, and beyond, in an attempt to return to that coveted top step of the podium. There's a good chance he'll succeed, but the downside of Stoner's riding at his very limit (as he will be forced to do if the competition's machinery becomes more equal to his) is the fact that he's sometimes not quite sure where that limit is...
Now I hope that Stoner gets pushed to his best, and pushes the remainder of the field to their best. But he will be extremely aware that a lot of the advantage he had over Rossi was power, and that Rossi pushed him through 21 of the 22 laps before he relaxed. It wasn't just Stoner who ran away from the entire field, there was also a Seven time world champion.
It's going to be an interesting year.
No comments:
Post a Comment