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khp

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Posts posted by khp

  1. During Q2 today the commentators mentioned that Lin Jarvis (head of Yamaha MotoGP) told them that Jorge Lorenzo also was offered a contract, but he was waiting to sign. Jarvis' commented that Lorenzo might be waiting to see what Ducati would offer him.

     

    Edit: Lin Jarvis held a small press-conference to answer questions. He told that Yamaha treats their riders equally, so when Jorge wanted to have a contract ready before the start of the season, they prepared offers to both riders at the same time. He repeatedly refered to the contract as 'their very best offer' to him, indicating a fatter contract than ever before. The offer has an expiry date, so Jorge cannot wait forever to decide. Naturally, Jarvis was not willing to tell the press when the offer expires.

     

    Lin Jarvis 20min Q&A with the press (paywalled, I presume): "There is not one like Rossi"

  2. Well well well.

     

    As the very first rider, Rossi & Yamaha has this morning announced that they are signed a 2 year extension.

    With Lorenzo saying just a couple of days ago that he wanted to sign before the beginning of the season, but that Yamaha didn't want to do that, this must be a bit of a blow.

     

    http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2016/03/19/rossi-yamaha-confirm-2-year-contract-extension/195869

     

    Regardless, Rossi re-signing with Yamaha was almost a given. If Yamaha at any point asked their fans and sponsors, they would be in no doubt that Rossi's name is more worth in marketing and press coverage that probably all of the other MotoGP riders combined.

     

    Rossi just turned 37, so he would be almost 40 years old when the new contract runs out at the end of 2018; I wouldn't be surprised if he then retired to either work more directly with the VR46 Academy, or fool around in Rally cars for a couple of years. Possibly both :P

     

    So, who's gonna be the next signer? Will Lorenzo still sign with Yamaha or will Ducati be tempting him even more?

    What about Marquez, Pedrosa and Iannone?

     

    Who will Yamaha sign alongside Rossi - Maverick Viñales or Andrea Iannone? Rossi stalked Viñales in FP3 for a couple of laps yesterday.

     

    I could see Alex Rins come in through Tech 3 Yamaha with an option to move him to the Factory team after 2 years if he progresses well, but less likely that he would arrive directly to the factory team.

     

    I know where my popcorn is :)

  3. It was in one the videos, not sure which one exactly as I not only watched Twist II - this referee to hip flick, but only dwelt upon knee to knee, but also lots of css videos on YouTube. The one that scene sticks in my mind was presented by a trainer that was either British or Australian.

     

    Sounds like one of Andy Ibbot's movie/clips, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEi0HtalGpU

    Andy founded the UK branch of the CSS and used to be the head coach until he has a stroke about 5 years ago.

  4. Pretty sure the boys (my coaches) run 23 hot on a rear Dunlop.

     

    Yup, that's because of the NTEC construction. The carcass of the Dunlop NTEC's are much stiffer than other tires, which allows them to run the much lower pressure.

     

    But when you change tires manually, they are much harder work than, say, the Pirellis.

     

     

    An interesting question for everyone. What's the most important criteria for you in considering any tire? What do you look for in your tires?

     

    Here are mine.

     

    1. Grip (The more the better)

    2. Consistency (I don't like surprises. Whatever a tire does do it all the time)

    3. Progressive traction loss (I like tires that have a wide band of traction loss rather than ones that you fall off of a cliff of having traction and then suddenly having none)

    4. Feedback (I like a tire that communicates the important stuff to me but does not overload me with unimportant feedback)

    All other priorities are secondary including cost and wear.

     

    In my short test on the new tires I'm certain I have 1, 2 and 4. I have not tested 3 and probably won't for a long time but watching a friend slide around with relative ease on the same tires when the time comes the issue will likely just be me rather than the tires. :)

     

    I don't need a tire that makes the difference between being able to ride a 0:59.x sec or a 1:00.y sec pace, when my best lap ever at that track was a 1:08.86 (set in 2011) and the best lap in 2015 was a 1:10.36. In other words, it's my sense of speed and traction that sets the limit, not the tires.

     

    Feel/feedback, consistency and progressive/controlable traction loss is important to me. Cost/wear is also a consideration, as I have a fairly limited budget. I once picked up a couple of really cheap Diablo Supercorsa SC0 rears. I very quickly realized why they were so cheap: they got shredded even at my pace in a single trackday - so not good value for money.

     

    FWIW, I put on a new set of Diablo Supercorsa SC1/SC2's at the beginning of last season and put 2 full days and 2 half days on them. There's still a couple of days left in them at my current pace.

  5. Matthew Birt writes on motogp.com: "My 21st season in the MotoGP™ World Championship is about to get underway and one of the few things I’m willing to predict is 2016 will be the most unpredictable campaign for a long time."

     

    After the pre-season tests, I fully agree with his comments. Honda seem to be struggling compared to Yamaha, Ducati, and Suzuki. I wonder why...

     

    The 2015 engine was too aggressive and part of the 'fix' to this for Marquez was to change back to the 2014 chassis (he couldn't change the engine) as well as getting modified exhausts and swingarm.

    But it still leaves me wondering: what if they just pulled out the 2014 bikes and used them with the unified software and Michelins? Ducati has the '14, '15 and '16 spec bikes running in parallel. Why not Honda.

     

    I'm loading up on microwave popcorn for the first couple of races :)

  6. My trouble with the KR106/108 is that they are viciously expensive. Just the rear tyre is 100EUR more than the Pirelli Superbike (285EUR vs 185EUR).

     

    The KR's are good for around ~1.0sec in laptime, on a 1m36s lap (when you're at the circuit record/national championship level).

    I need to shave off 10seconds before I have those kind of problems, and I'm strugging just to get back to where I was in '11 :)

  7. Make that two for long corners. The larger they are the more lost I get visually especially at tracks where there's little in reference points.

     

    Me three. Except that it needs to be changing radius turn or a turn where you need to vary your distance to the inside curb. If I just need to follow the inside curb, I'm all good :P

  8. I don't understand racing well enough to say whether Marquez was dog-guarding Lorenzo in Valencia or not, but one thing was sure: Rossi was nowhere near close enough to take the points he needed to become the champion. To me, the 3 incidents between Rossi & Marquez was more of Rossi's doing than the opposite.

    "Rossi is your best pal until you start beating him" (Marco Melandri).

     

    As for MotoGP, I think we're in for another interesting season. There are a couple of reasons for that:

    1) Ducati and Suzuki upping their game. I'm hoping that Ducati can take a couple of wins this year, and Suzuki making some podiums.

    2) Tires and ECU changes. From the tests so far, it sounds like some teams & riders are struggling harder than others. I'll give it the first 6-9 races before the dust has settled.

     

    Title contenders: Lorenzo & Marquez. As much as I would love to have Rossi win that 10th title, I have a hard time seeing it happening. The changes to tires & ECU changes might play into Rossi favour, if the changes could upset the Spanish Duo (but Lorenzo didn't seem phased one bit in Sepang). Dani seems perpeptually unlucky - he'll go into history as the best MotoGP rider who never won a title.

     

    Silly season: Lorenzo & Marquez to stay. Unless Dani has a stellar season, he gets the kick. I'm 50/50 on whether Rossi will retire or not.

    Iannone and/or Viñales hitches a Factory ride with Yamaha/Honda.

    If Iannone gets a Yamaha or Honda Factory ride or Dovi gets kicked, Petrucci might get a Factory Ducati ride.

    Smith gets passed over, stays with Tech 3.

    The Espargaro brothers: Aleix stays with Suzuki. Pol might switch teams, but to another Satellite team.

    Cal might even get the kick, depending on how many riders are coming up from Moto2 (Zarco, Rins, Lowes [goes to Aprillia], others?)

  9. khp. They are the Diablo Superbike slicks. The SC2's both front and rear.

     

    I'm going to have to figure out pressures that work for my style. As well my style will probably have to adapt as well. I'm going to need to pump up the aggression a bit. :)

     

    Great, then we can swap notes. I'll probably be going for SC1/SC2 front/rear.

     

    My experience is that the recommended pressures work really well (23-26psi front, 25-28psi rear; same as the SP's). High psi for warm days, low psi for cold days.

     

    I grabbed the tech advice from Pirelli's website, printed it double-sided on a sheet of paper and laminated it for durability.

    I've attached PDFs that you can print.

     

    Edit: convinced my pdf printer to print both in A4 and US letter formats.

    Pirelli Diablo SuperCorsa - tech advice A4.pdf

    Pirelli Diablo SuperCorsa - US letter.pdf

  10. Since you have warmers, hit them hard from the beginning :D

     

    Exactly! This is what I do. I find that the tyre temp drops from ~70C out of the warmers to around ~55-60C when I return to the pits after a 20-30 minute session.

     

    With warmers, I have delibrately gone out and put my knee on the ground in the first corner, without any kind issues or warnings from the tires at all. This wasn't the first session of the day, though, but we're still talking Scandinavian temps (~20C) :)

     

    As for the coaches, they are in a different situation: they stop and start all the time, which means that they want a tire that heats up quickly, and has a good grip at lower temps. But ask them to hunt down Joe Roberts, and I'll guarantee you that they want slicks :D

     

    rchase: Are those slicks the Superbike, or the Superbike Pro?

  11. So who are we going to see standing at the podium during the year? and how is the final standing going to look like?

     

    To recap, the only rider leaving for MotoGP was the 2014 Moto2 champion Tito Rabat.

     

    Up from Moto3 comes the following: 2015 champ Danny Kent, runner-up Miguel Oliviera, Efren Vasquez.

     

    Luca Marini (Rossi's half brother on his mothers side) also joins, but I have no idea how fast he is. Marini had a 2013 WC in Moto3 and one in Moto2 last year; both times he failed to score points (DNF, 21st).

     

    For reference, only Johann Zarco (8), Alex Rins (2), Sam Lowes (1), Thomas Luthi (1), Jonas Folger (2), and Xavier Simeon (1) won a Moto2 race in 2015 (besides Rabat). The same "usual suspects" also did a clean sweep of the 2nd spot.

     

    Can the 'upstarts' from Moto3 pose a threat and not just grab podiums, but even wins and take a swing for the championship?

     

     

  12. Did they give the reasons why? Now that you have raised the question, I am curious. :)

     

    Nope, they didn't ;) There's a motorcycle show at the end of the month that I'm planning to go to, so with a bit of luck (a lot, actually), Dunlop will be there and I can get a longer answer.

     

    My guess is that since I'm primarily going to ride on the streets, that they want to stick to the OEM size/profile to avoid problems. Unfortunately Steve is no longer visiting the forums, so we can't lean on him.

  13. Good questions guys. I went back and searched around on Pirelli's "hidepages" and finally found their Tyre Guide 2015.

     

    On page 7 is shows the attached graphic. The Diablo Superbike and the Diablo Supercorsa SC are shown in the "professsional" category (contrary to the counter-intuitively named "Superbike Pro" tyre). The text blurb on the Diablo Superbike tyre (page 8) says "Improved SC compound". I seem to remember that the Superbike & Supercorsa SC tyres is using the same compound (but my memory has been wrong before).

     

    Regardless, going to either will be a big up from the SP's, whereas the Superbike Pro's have only slightly more grip but has more longevity (according to Pirelli).

     

    Anyway, I have seen a championship winning rider ride the Diablo Supercorsa SC's at pretty mind-blowing speeds (within 1 second of the lap record).

    post-15296-0-41343000-1455184997_thumb.png

  14. Robert, which brand of slicks are you looking at?

     

    I run the Diablo Supercorsa SC's and last time I checked, they were actually quoted (by Pirelli) to have more grip than the Superbike slicks.

     

    This year, I'm planning to go for the Supercorsa SC v2's in 120/70 & 180/60 for my R6.

    I asked Pirelli in Germany and they recommended the 60 profile over the 55 for the R6 (5.5" rim width).

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