Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Images of Casey Stoner wrestling a bucking and weaving Ducati could be a thing of the past after the former MotoGP world champion revealed that his new ‘big bang’ powered Desmosedici GP10 is almost too tame. The Australian was second fastest, behind Valentino Rossi, on both days of testing at Sepang in Malaysia, eventually finishing 0.395sec from Yamahas reigning seven time world champion. Rossis M1 has used ‘big bang’ technology continuously since 2004, while Ducati reverted back to a ’screamer’ design for the first three seasons of 800cc racing – with spectacular results. However, Ducati now believes they have sufficient horsepower to make ‘big bang’ a better choice for 2010 – and Stoner revealed the only difficulties so far are associated with too much traction. Weve found nothing but positives with the new engine, said Stoner. The engine is very smooth, very easy to ride and is giving me a lot of confidence. We expected top speeds to be lower [with the 'big bang'] but in fact they are faster than they were last year in the race. Were very happy. With this engine weve been able to halve the amount of [electronic] anti-spin. Weve taken most of it off, he revealed. Instead of the bike always wanting to buck and weave, with this engine, because its got that much more torque, its trying to drive the bike out [understeer] instead. So were having to change the set-up completely to get the bike to turn better on the exits. Its something we never really had a problem with on the old bike, because it spun so much we always got good turn on the exits. Now were working on the chassis to try and keep the [new] grip while still getting the bike to turn. My arms are actually having trouble hanging on because its getting so much more traction. Stoner, a 20-time MotoGP race winner, already believes the GP10 will be a more all-round package than the previous 800cc Desmosedicis – and would be happy to race it tomorrow. In general I think its going to be a better package for a whole championship, rather than one or two tracks, which is sort of what weve had in the past, he said. We have a much better all-round feeling with…
Read Article @ Crash.Net via Yahoo! UK & Ireland Sport
Read Article @ Crash.Net via Yahoo! UK & Ireland Sport