MotoGP: Back Home (Indy Spoiler Thread)

I dont think you understand just how Bureaucratic Italians can be sometimes. The Japanese have a much better system of letting good ideas come to the top.

I would describe my attitude as sceptically* hopeful. Having seen some fairly moribund organizations from the inside myself, I am aware of just how long it can take to turn a company around. It's not the people, it is the ability of the organization to use those people effectively. Only once people have accepted that things are going to be done differently do they start to get things done.

Going off on a tangent, it reminds me a lot of my ex-girlfriend, when she was a teacher. She taught 4 and 5 year olds, taking them as they first entered school full time. She would spend the first 6 weeks of each new school year teaching virtually nothing, just imposing structure and getting the kids used to the idea that at a given time, they would be expected to behave in a specific way: be quiet, listen, work, paint, play, eat. In the following six weeks, the kids would catch up on all of the stuff they had missed out on in the previous period. The kids would leave her class better educated than kids from taught by other teachers, because she had organized the class better and imposed the correct structure.

That's what's going on at Ducati now. Of course, there's still no guarantee of a successful outcome, but at least they are actually trying to fix the real, underlying problem, instead of dicking around with the bike.


* I have taught myself to use American spellings and phrasings, but the two words which, as a Brit, I cannot bring myself to spell incorrectly are sceptic and its derivatives, and aluminium. Sorry, but there are limits to everything!

Get your ex-girlfriend a job at Ducati. She might like the colour red.

I have never been to Japan but I am sure that's true.
Have you ever seen the movie "Brazil" from Terry Gilliam? Sure is a masterpiece, but it did never really breakout in Italy, you know why? Because we were (and are) used to that kind of "grotesque" bureaucracy. Nothing to be amazed of for us...
Anyway, I'm sure things are gonna change in Borgo Panigale. But I think that from now on, it will be Honda time. And for a while. There is nothing at this moment that can stop their commitment for supremacy but Lorenzo's talent.

Very good. Here's hoping for a good teacher for the 5-year olds.
I can't blame my misspellings on anything other than laziness on my part.
OK, once in a while the iPhone.

I'm just patiently waiting for pics of Krop's ex-girlfriend.

With all due respect, Krop, are you related to Gobmaier or something?
The "underlying problem" is that Ducati's bikes suck, and it's going to take a LOT of "dicking around" to fix them. In the entire Audi/VW empire, plus the strays hanging around at Borno Panigale, ONE engineer and ONE machinist using ONE CNC machining center could produce a frame a day given ONE welder to stitch the pieces together. Vary widths and thicknesses for flexibility of frame and swingarm pieces, move the steering head around, move the motor around, and give the horde of riders and test riders a whole truckload of things to gather data from.

Instead, they waste their time and money moving cubicles around in the offices, and for all the different reporting relationships and communication structures, they are the most behind that they have ever been.

My snide side sez that even Spies doesn't know how the Ducatis work, or he would have upshifted once after leaving the pits to engage the traction control. You can't fix stupid.

Ducati have already done a whole shitload of dicking around. Spies inherited 15 boxes of new parts when Rossi departed, which they hadn't tested yet. The problem is not building new parts, it's building THE RIGHT new parts. That requires the entire staff of Ducati Corse be taken out the back of Borgo Panigale and be beaten with sticks until they give in. The punishment beatings are currently being administered, but there are still a few recalcitrant diehards left to go.

Only then will they start producing parts which actually work. Building a frame is a piece of piss. Designing one which works is seriously fucking difficult.

I'll agree with you, Krop, only to the point that ending up with 15 boxes of untested parts at the end of a season is a management problem.
Relying on Spies to do any testing of the leftover pieces is another one.

I have heard from my local Ducatistis that the issues with Audi go beyond the race team, the car guys just don't get bike guys thing. Erik Buell dba EBR may benefit from the disaffection among the (small) crowd that just has to have a racetrack proven offbeat Twin to ride around on.

Regarding using their MotoGP riders for testing, that strikes me as risky. Only Dovi has not suffered serious and career threatening injury in recent years. Heck, CS got sick to his stomach it was so bad...

And Dovi will get his chance to be transported too.

I think everything Krop has stated about what it takes to change a corporate approach is absolutely true. You have to change the seats in the cubes to make significant change up stream. It takes a long time. Then you have to have some successful changes in the product to learn from. Of course there is a short cut. A great leader! But there are not many of those in our small sport. And most of the greats have been Japanese, so that data point doesn't help either. But I am hopeful Ducati will come back stronger then ever.

I am disappointed Krop thinks it will take two more seasons for Ducati to win again, but I can wait. There will be a lot of new stuff going on to hold my interest.

But a big part of their problem is that it's the last 1% of performance that they need to find. Pull the top six racers from CCS, put them on the factory prototypes in round-robin fashion (i.e. three races, each racer rides a different manufacturer's bike in each race), and I bet that the times don't show the turnip-truck effect we see in the GP races (assuming, of course, that the bikes and riders remain in functional condition). Only a very few riders are capable of pushing a GP bike hard enough to find the limit.

i think its the status quo.If they REALLY wanted to change something they would get a rider and a crew chief who had the authority to ask for what they wanted...and get it.They would still take a long time unless the personell involved also really really know what they are doing.At the moomnet you could say there is only one factory actually doing that,and i think that approach is new for them

I think it is a group effort, but like others have posted, we all know the test riders must have the required pace to find results. I think that happens with Ducati. Crazy Joe will find a direction for them, and maybe even Pirro too. They are only a few tenths off the factory boys. They will display progress if there is any to be had. I am hopeful.

Why hasn't Spies or anyone else at Ducati tested the 15 boxes of parts? You mean at the big Ducati regalia test day (with what, 6 riders and bikes) NO ONE tested them? Sounds like a well organised race program to me....

Its not like they havent had a fast rider in the last 6 years

sent from the tag

Those boxes were unopened when Spies arrived at the start of the year. Whether they have been tested since then, I do not know.