He's not wrong. There's only few tracks that could even come close to meeting FIM spec, even after a bunch of money invested. Bikes just don't bring in enough money here to justify the investment to make them safer for bikes though. Stanboli suggested that tracks in Europe may get government funding which maybe what the difference is.
I’m pretty sure I saw a Stihl battery powered leaf blower, just like I bought my wife for Christmas last year, when I was watching them re-install his forks on Friday. I guess no one thought to grab it. The fork / steering stem re-install took a few attempts before it was successful. Some young Italian was double-checking and questioning everything.
What we haven't been told/shown, is how long the bikes sat on the grid, engines running, before they were told to shut everything down. Does anyone have that answer? Saying things aren't bad, because his bike is the only one that overheated, doesn't fly with me. If things weren't going to plan for the start, they should have shut things down right away. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But I haven't seen anywhere that the actual time they sat on the grid, engines running, has been mentioned. Other than some PR people saying it was a "short time". It sure wasn't going to be shown or mentioned on the delayed broadcast.
On the Greg’s Garage pod I believe they said 70 seconds. That was to get Jake Lewis’ bike pushed to back. I don’t know if there was a different delay when power went out and they were sent back to pits.
if i sat on the grid , bike running for 5min expecting the race to start any sec...but sat for 5min until the bike overheated - the whole time without any indication from race control...and im leading the championship - i would also not be happy.
We still haven't heard how long they sat on the initial start grid. And from above, it appears they sat about 70 seconds on the 2nd attempt. But I'd say the damage was already done by this time. These engines are high strung, and the Ducati engine probably the most of all the bikes out there. F1 cars don't like to sit very long either, and there have been cases where they've blown up from a lack of cooling. So, does anyone know how long they sat on the initial grid before being told to shut down?
With the amount of suggestions, and opinions in this thread it's amazing we don't have a moto gp level equivalent series. Anyone that owns or funds a team wants the best outcome for the team to attract and maintain sponsor dollars. At least I am assuming that is the goal of the top teams. That means putting the rider with the best chance to win available on your bike. If you don't think that was Petrucci you're crazy. If you think Duc should have done a development deal with a young rider and Danilo is stealing their ride, make your own team. Make no mistake this is business and should be run like one of you want it to stick around in the years to come. I am not a huge fan of bagger racing but it's getting butts in seats which is good for the sport.
