ROUND 01|Yamaha Finance Australian Round|22 - 24 FEB

Desmodromic valve train has been around decades longer than their MotoGP efforts.

 

You go me there....

 

The announcers misquoted Rea when he said “there’s no replacement for horsepower” after the super pole race.

I imagine he is frustrated because his bike has been neutered by the FIM and is 5 to 6 mph down on the Ducati.

 

It's very unlikely that this result will be the norm, I agree. Hell Melandri had a pretty convincing double last year at PI and then floundered quite a bit afterwards. But for Bautista to come out on a new bike, beat JR by 15 seconds over a race, and then to whip him in a 10 lap sprint to boot certainly says quite a bit.

All this to make no mention that Haslam isn't going to let Rea lead the way without a fight either. He's as fast as he's ever been and coming off of a BSB championship that I'm sure has his confidence high.

 

If Bau had won by three, four seconds? That wouldn't mean anything.......it’s PI, it’s the anomaly.

But he absolutely DESTROYED the field and won by, what? Twelve, thirteen seconds? And only after he literally coasted over the line? He had twenty something seconds in his back pocket before the last turn and he wasn’t even being pushed.

That Rea, the most dominant rider in WSBK in recent history, started in with the “its not fair” campaign almost immediately is very telling indeed.

It’s the first round of the year, and anything can happen but what happened this weekend was mind boggling.

 

I’d like to see how well Bautista does at a scrapper track like Imola, should be interesting

 

If everyone stays on form and Bautista comes back to earth a bit, Assen is going to be amazing!

 

Remember when Aprilia brought those gear driven cams for the RSV4 and were blowing everyone out on the straights. Looked like the V4R had the same speed advantage. Looking at the race start, JR got a better launch to AB, but by the end of the straight, he was a handful lengths behind.

 

I think JR is right in this interview about the bikes. Ducati went out and built a homologation special just for racing, and none of the other manufacturers will follow suit, cause they are run by bean counters. Ducati has the clientele and the passion to do it. Honda can't even be bothered to do a meaningful update to the Fireblade. Name one mfg you think is going to release a $40k race bike to compete.

JR is just going to need to suck it up and deal with it.

 

Kawasaki created a new engine this year with a higher rev range just for racing homologation.

I am not sure on the availability of that model or if it is publicly available everywhere as the ZX-10R. Anyone have the details on that?

 

Yeah, that first year with Biaggi, the Aprilia was untouchable. They outlawed the gear driven cams after that.

 

so what’s so different about phillip island vs the rest of the tracks? everyone keeps saying it’s an anomaly, why exactly?

 

ZX10-RR: https://www.kawasaki.com/products/2019-Ninja-ZX-10RR?cm_re=MPP-_-PRODUCTTRIMLIST-_-VEHICLEDETAILS

 

i think the fact that the rest of the ducati’s were no where to be found is more telling. bautista just rode the shit out of that bike. people keep saying the ducati has the speed advantage and this and that... it only seemed to be an advantage for bautista, why is that? you still need to ride the damn thing.


also, speaking of top speed... BMW brings out an all new bike and it was what, 11kph slower? that’s gotta sting a bit.

 

My understanding is that it is a stock engine at the moment. So it's actually quite impressive from that standpoint.

 

They said the bmw engine was basically the exact same as you’d get from the dealer. No sbk treatment to it. Looked pretty good in race 1 all things considered.

 

Practice and qualifying times were showing roughly 300kph for the new S1000 and 318ish for the V4 with a race top speed of 322kph for the Duc - felt bad for Sykes in race #1 when it was shown on the feed but in race 3 he was nowhere to be seen back in 12th/13th so it wasn't top of mind.

If they throw another 12-15kph at it to get him right where the Kawi and R1's seem to be then according to the announcers, the BMW team data suggest at PI it was worth 0.4/lap or 8 seconds up the road at the finish line over a 20 lap race (plus the ability to pass and hold off passes which of course has a huge effect on lap times and finishing time)

 

Average top speed is one of (if not the?) highest on the calendar, and much more flowing that the majority of tracks. Rewards stability at lean and the start-finish straight is a boon for high HP bikes.

 

Didn’t Bautista and Rea have basically the same top speed through the speed trap?

I thought the graphics during the race showed them both at 313 or 314 kph?

Was the 322 kph done during Superpole?

 

Thanks, so pretty much as I thought. Kawi built a limited edition bike almost no one can get their hands on and they are complaining the Ducati did a better job of it.