I think it's one bad season, followed by 2013 on the Ducati. I couldn't find any good images for when I searched for "career-killing turnip truck" so I'll just use this instead...
Ben is 1.4 secs behind Dovi, who is also new to the Ducati, who himself is almost 1.4 down on Pedrosa. It would be easy to see this as the writing on the wall, but I am willing to hold my judgement until he has had a couple good months on the machine. Still, it seems to me that the Ducati is the single biggest career killer in MotoGP these days.
Considering Ben's injury, I'm not bothered by the times he's posting currently. The problem for him is even if he's the fastest Duc rider......he's still screwed.
If Ben is the fasted Duc by the end of the year I see he has a future in the sport. If not then its time to go Race a RSV4 in WSBK.
Would be interesting to see Suzuki come back and beat Ducati the first year...with Spies riding...and as long as I'm dreaming..with Hayden also on a Suzuki ...
Suzuki never showed me anything from back in the 500 days. The only way they won championships was by the rider going well beyond the call and hanging it all out. Roberts won on it but it was ugly. I don't look for them or Kawasaki to come back with anything as good as the Ducati. If Suzuki had given Hopper or McCoy a decent bike either of them would have been at the pointy end. As it was they got a steaming pile of parts. If the Ducati is the career killer the Suzuki is the trailer. The Aprilia CRTs will lap it.
Bautista was doing some pretty good numbers considering, in '11. If they'd stayed in it'd still be a decent bike. New inline 4 will be NEW, but it's not like they have zero experience with inline 4's. I believe (fingers crossed ) that they will be good bikes by the end of '14, kicking Eyetalian butts.
Roberts JR won for Suzuki in 2000. Just saw an old pic on Soup recently that called young Kenny... "[SIZE=-1]A very young KRJR learning the ropes in Europe. He would later become the biggest GP racing enigma since Freddie Spencer.[/SIZE]" http://www.superbikeplanet.com/image/archive/jimola-archive/1/gp100.htm
i think the suzukis will slip in at the bottom of the factory bikes and be running the same pace as the sattelite bikes, they will be better than the ducs, they wont be brilliant,but they wont be flawed