posted Jul 7, 2008

"i think ducati are being quite anal about this by not releasing him from his contract. after all he's not exactly set the fastest of paces on it but i suppose they just want to flex their muscles and show him whos boss"

Quite the opposite, Livio Suppo and Melandri are close personal friends going back many years and the situation has gone on for so long because Ducati are really exhausting all possibilities and giving him every chance before pulling the plug. In fact it could be said that Ducati's handling of the situation has been quite honourable.

It was interesting to hear Neil Spalding saying that some of the Ducati woes early season were probably attributable to the Melandri situation also as the whole team was so disappointed for Marco and Stoner suffered from some of the fall out.

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posted Jul 7, 2008

A rock and a hard palce springs to mind, do you ride the fastest bike slowly and finish 12/13/14/15 or ride a slow bike fast and finish 9/10/11/12 etc. Marco needs off the Ducati but a rider of his talent should be on a front running bike.

The Kawasaki ride could be his get of jail free card.If gets good finish's and I mean 6th or 7th it could put him in the shop window for 09.

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posted Jul 8, 2008

I really don't see why Kawasaki bother to race at all, there never on the pace.

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posted Jul 8, 2008

I can't recall too many guys jumping bikes mid-season and making a good fist of it.

At the moment, people see Marco struggling, and the two satellite Dukes also struggling. The only guy that can ride the Duke is Stoner, and he went from falling off a Honda a lot in 2006, to unbeatable in 2007.

Right now, no-one's quite sure if it's Marco or the bike. I reckon Marco's smart option is to sit tight. He will either start to go better on the Duke, or he can change teams at season's end when there are more rides up for grabs. The Kawasaki is not a good ride for him. He'll pick up something better than that.

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posted Jul 8, 2008

I think Marco probably wants to go right now and as Kawasaki seem to be able to provide a bike for him I think he should go. If he moves then the change could be a massive weight off his shoulders and he may perform well just from the relief of not being on a Ducati. It may be that the reason Ducati do not want to release him, is if he does well immediately and gains a top ten finish it will reflect badly on their motorcycle; once again raising speculation that its built around Casey. It probably isn't, but if 3 out of 4 bikes are struggling and then the rider who has been last almost all season suddenly posts an 8th or 9th with a Kawasaki, you can see the issue coming to the fore again.

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posted Jul 9, 2008

To answer why do kawasaki bother racing, its simple. Racing improves the breed. The knowlegde that they gain from motogp filters through to their road bike, win on sunday sell on monday. The new ZX10 has a basic traction control system the was developed in Motogp.

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posted Jul 9, 2008

i think the same he should be allowed to race on anther byke because he has done it in the past(race wins/podiams).
he's not a loser and this is not helping the sports neiher fans

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posted Jul 11, 2008

Kingrainey - re 'win on Sunday, sell on Monday'.....but Kawasaki never come close to winning. If anything their racing programme damages the image of their road bikes (which are pretty good).
Also, I don't understand why anyone would buy a sports bike for it's traction control system. Sports bike are all about fun: smoking tyres, pulling wheelies in every gear; to buy one based on it's safety features is a complete oxymoron! If you want safe then buy a car.

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posted Jul 12, 2008

Traction control in the best development since electric starters and disk breaks and it clearly makes sence on the road. Having riddern a Ducati 1098R and 1098S I can say with good althority that it makes opening the throttle a much pleasent experence, expecialy in the wet or on less than race track smooth surfaces.

With reagrds to to Win on Sunday..... its a well used phrase in the trade. Manufactures dont sell bikes to race bikes they race to sell. kawasaki dont come close to winning however every time they start their MotoGp bike they gain valuable information that filters through to the road bike that we buy.

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posted Jul 21, 2008

If you need traction control to ride a bike, you may as well buy a nice safe family car. If I can't throw out the back end in the wet or as someone else mentioned - wheelie in every gear, then I'LL buy a car. The first thing I did on my new R1 was disconnect the ECU and put in a TRE to work round all the TC and anti-wheelie nonsense. Anybody who buys one of these machines without intending to use them in anger is nothing more than a poseur.

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