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Hayden gets two more years at Ducati

 

 

Hayden joined Ducati from Honda at the start of the 2009 season. He initially struggled to acclimatise to the Desmosedici and was only 13th in last year's standings - but he has been much more competitive in the 2010 campaign. Although he has yet to repeat his '09 Indianapolis podium this year, he is sixth in the championship and has been much more evenly-matched with current team-mate Casey Stoner.

 

Ducati sporting boss Filippo Preziosi said the determination Hayden showed as he worked to improve his form really endeared him to the team.

"We are really pleased that Nicky will be staying with us for the next two years," said Preziosi.

 

"It is no secret that he is a rider who never gives up, his whole racing history shows it. As a person his tenacity is an example for us all because he shows us that nothing is impossible if you truly believe.

"His progress since arriving at Ducati has been impressive and I am sure this trend will continue in the future.

 

"Nicky is also a special rider because of his attention to every detail and for him having Valentino as his team-mate means a huge contribution towards the development of an even more competitive motorcycle.

"I think it is these characteristics that have won the hearts of all the Ducatisti and that is the reason why a Ducati is the bike for him right now."

Hayden felt he had made huge progress since first joining Ducati. This weekend at Indianapolis he took his first front row start with the team.

"Last year I felt like I rode for Ducati but now I really feel as if I am a Ducati rider," said the 2006 champion.

 

"The team, sponsors and Ducati fans have really taken me in and supported me a lot and I really hope to pay them back with the results they deserve."

 

The arrival of Rossi at Ducati next year will renew a partnership last seen when the Italian and Hayden were team-mates at Honda in 2003.

"Next year I'll be teamed with some guy named Rossi who knows a little something about bikes!"

Hayden joked.

 

"We're going to have a strong squad - I won't predict results but I have no doubt this team will have some real passion, real worth ethic and a lot of fun.

 

 It is the start of a new era at Ducati and it is an honour for me to be a part of it."

Stoner not looking at Honda form

 

 

Ducati has yet to win a race this year, while Stoner's future Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa scored his third victory of the season at Indianapolis last weekend and dominated ahead of his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso in Friday practice at Misano today.

 

But Stoner, who was only eighth fastest in today's session, said his 2011 team's performance was of no consolation whatsoever amid Ducati's issues.

 

"I have to worry about us at the moment," said Stoner. "I don't give a crap about what anybody else is doing at the moment.

"At the moment, we're struggling with our bike and we need to concentrate. I honestly don't care if the Yamahas are going well, if the Kawasakis were here and they were doing well. At the moment, we're not.

 

"At the moment, we are the slowest bike out there. There are four manufacturers and many times we are the most difficult one.

"So we have to pick up our game, and I know we can do a much better job than what we're doing."

 

The former world champion said he still did not feel the team had found how to extract the potential from the Ducati GP10.

"It's just difficult to find the solution that makes this bike work," said Stoner. "We've been able to get a great setting for a lot of races, but not a fantastic one, so we just need to keep working."

 

Ducati has been persisting with a new fork specification at Misano this weekend, and Stoner reckons the best policy is to continue making bold changes to the bike."At the moment I've got not a lot to gain and not a lot to lose," said the Australian, who is fourth in the championship, 132 points behind leader Jorge Lorenzo, at present."We're just going to keep trying different things and see if we can come up with a solution, because I'm sick of finishing third, being on the podium but on the last step and too far away from the lead, so we have to try something big.

 

"Unfortunately when you try something big, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll arrive at the best setting first time. We have to keep trying a lot of crap settings before we come across a good one."

Pedrosa unstoppable in first practice

 

 

The Honda rider, fresh from his third win of the year at Indianapolis last weekend, was at the front for the majority of the session.

Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) nosed ahead by 0.076s for a spell, but Pedrosa soon reasserted his authority. Although Lorenzo improved his pace several times after that, it was only ever by a few fractions of a second - and in any case Pedrosa moved well out of reach with two minutes to go when he set a 1m34.772s lap.

 

Then as the chequered flag fell, his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso came through to take second from Lorenzo by 0.06s and complete a Honda one-two.

 

Yamaha filled the next four places - Lorenzo leading his factory team-mate Valentino Rossi and Tech 3 pair Colin Edwards and Ben Spies.

It was a tough session for Ducati. Nicky Hayden was outside the top 10 for most of the hour, jumped up to fourth briefly, and ended up seventh, while his team-mate Casey Stoner struggled with the bike and was only eighth.

Gresini Honda's Marco Melandri and Suzuki's Loris Capirossi filled the final top 10 positions, with Hector Barbera in the top five for Aspar Ducati early on but pushed back to 11th in the end.

Rossi 'quite happy' with Misano practice

 

The Italian, who has taken one podium from the four races since his return from a broken leg, was 0.767sec behind fastest man Dani Pedrosa - but only 0.155sec from second placed Andrea Dovizioso and less than a tenth from Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, in third.

"I'm quite happy because we did a good job during today's practice, especially towards the end when we made a big improvement to the setting of the bike and I was able to make some faster lap times," said Rossi, who will join Ducati next season.

"We have some more things to try, some electronics and some tyre settings, but I already feel confident so this has been a good way to start. We're quite far from Pedrosa, who was very impressive today, but we're close to Dovizioso and Lorenzo. 

"Tomorrow we will try to find some tenths and improve our time a bit. 

"My physical condition is okay, I don't have too much pain but this track has two or three hard braking sections to the right and I suffer a bit with my shoulder at those points," he added.

Lorenzo feels the need for speed

The new Spanish circuit contains a long, downhill, back straight, where fellow front row starters Casey Stoner (Ducati, pole) and Dani Pedrosa (Honda, 3rd) were able to reach 324.5km/h and 326.8km/h respectively in qualifying.

Despite qualifying second on the grid, Lorenzo was only able to reach 318.6km/h on the straight, and also feels he's losing out to his main rivals under acceleration.

Acceleration isn't measured by MotoGP organisers, but in terms of top speedLorenzo was faster than only one rider this afternoon - Tech 3 Yamaha's Ben Spies. 

All four M1s were in the bottom five for top speed in qualifying, with only Honda's Marco Simoncelli slower than a Yamaha.

"I'm riding good and every lap I improve my riding style and understand the track, which is not so easy," began Lorenzo, after extending his run of successive front row MotoGP starts to 15.

"The problem is that we lose a lot on the straights and under acceleration. We don't have the same power as the Ducati and Honda, so this is the worst point we have now. 

"But anyway we can't change the bike, so with this bike we must be perfect and ride perfectly to have some more chance of victory or a podium tomorrow."

Lorenzo starts round 13 with a 63 point lead over Pedrosa and has finished on the podium at every round this year.

Two Nifty New Scooters–Why Don’t Americans Like These Things?

At the Paris Motor Show this week, both BMW’s Mini subsidiary and Daimler’s Smart subsidiary showed new electric scooters, or e-scooters as some are calling them. Meanwhile, Honda is expected to introduce one in Japan later this year, and Peugeot plans one for 2011. Scooters sound like a more sensible, cheaper way into the new era of electric vehicles than cars. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the lithium ion battery for a scooter costs just $2000, while an electric car battery can run upwards of $16,000.

Judging from the pictures, the new Mini and Smart e-scooters look way cool–a kind of Jetson Vespa. You plug them into any normal AC outlet for four or so hours, which gives you enough juice to go around 60 miles–plenty of range for the kind of city driving these things are made for. No word so far on expected price.

I have never understood why scooters never caught on in major U.S. cities the way they have in Europe. Certainly a big metropolis like New York would seem as ripe for a scooter invasion as the cities of Europe, where a cluster of them precedes cars at every red light. Maybe more so, since the special indignity of the New York subway system constitutes an even more compelling argument in their favor. Maybe it’s just the greater European tolerance for two-wheel vehicles in general. You see lot more people on bicycles here too, including commuters off to work and housewives doing the daily shopping. I use a dinky little 50cc Peugeot scooter as my basic transportation in Paris–you don’t even need a license to own one– and it gets me around town much faster than any other kind of public or private transportation. A trip that takes me half an hour on the Paris metro takes ten minutes by scooter. It’s also more fun than a barrel of monkeys, as the Beach Boys pointed out some time ago in “Little Honda.” Wet Paris winters do present a challenge, however.

Source: forbes.com