Phillip Island Pre-Season Test | MotoGP | 2017

Give him a chance, he is still learning the bike. He was only 0.4 down by the end of the last test. From what the team representative said during yesterday's test, they are still moving stuff around (like bars) to try to get him fully comfortable on the bike before having him push. I will be surprised if he isn't within 0.5 seconds of the front by the end of the test.

 

Half a second per lap is 10+ seconds over the race. I hope Ducati has a clause in his contract to adjust his salary based on performance, because he's not looking like a $15M man.

 

What's the prize for winning testing?

 

usually the championship

 

Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure Ducati would take it about now.

 

He is still learning for sure, but I don't think by the time the season starts he'll be fighting at the front consistently (even in ideal weather conditions) or hole-shotting and running away at the front like he did so many times on the M1.

 

It's this sort of delusion which will make the season worthwhile lol.

 

Man,Bradley smith sucking badly. I know its a new bike but dang...

 

Mostly agreed. I just think he will be considerably more competitive on the current Duc than Rossi was on the GP11. That isn't too high of a goal with just 1 podium, no wins and a 7th place in the points in Rossi's first year on the Duc. I would argue the field is probably deeper now than it was then, so beating that 7th place may require better riding in the rain by George.

 

Viñales won PI test last year, didn't see him take home the trophy.

 

Were there more than 3 sessions at Philip Island Last year?
http://www.motogp.com/en/TestResults/MotoGP+Phillip+Island+Test+2016

If not, then it seems Marc Marquez won that test and also the 2016 Championship #justSayin

And MV did take home a pretty fat paycheck increase too

 

Yea, no shit.

Do you have any idea how much of a different bike the Ducati has become since Gigi got his mits on it?

Nobody except Stoner could make that old bike go fast, now they are contenders all the way down to the satellite bikes. Sure, they still have some issues to work out, but the bike in it's last 2-3 iterations is probably the biggest engineering turnaround we've seen in a long time.......

 

Hence my reply to BigBird that I didn't think it would be likely that George would be suffering the Ducati Curse the way that Rossi did, which is how this whole thing got started. So thanks for agreeing!

 

And you are surprised...

 

Click on the combined times.

 

Different days, different conditions. Last session, after 2 days, the future GOAT was better than the rest.

Doesn't matter, future GOAT will win or MV this year. Everyone else is playing for 3rd barring no injury.

 

Hope he holds it together in the races. There's no doubt he's quick, damn quick but he needs to have a solid season of finishes.

 

Holy crap!

Aleix 3rd with a fairly decent time on the Prilla....

 

Soooooooo, where is Casey stoner???????