BSB » Q&A: Colin Wright, Airwaves Ducati

G. Irish - I agree wholehertedly, these so called 'engineers' who post in here are probably great at what they do but that's clearly god naff all to do with motorcycle racing. If you consider a rider can change how a bike behoves in a corner radically just by moving his weight a couple of inches to the left, right, front or back of the bike, then what kind of effect is hanging 10kg of ballast going to have on the handling of a bike that's already on a knife-edge between handling well and spitting the rider into the weeds? Added weight in the wrong place causes all sorts of problems, from making the bike harder to handle to causing vibrations and/or chatter which can be potentially dangerous.

Dice - what a ridiculous statement to make and shows a complete lack of understanding of a racing motorcycle !!

Shame that opinion is so biased one way or the other.

If Airways had said that compliance was difficult in a few days, there would be sympathy, but to just shout safety, and unfair! when ducati above all manufacturers manipulate the rules to suit them for so long is frankly a laugh. As Ducati said to the 4's if you dont like it leave. Not a good appoach but at least consistant.

BTW some of us race too if only at club level. So we understand better than most the weight issues and the effect it can have. Adding weight can help, as you can fine tune the weight distribution far more accuratly than using other methods. The rules dont say add 10 KG lump

Arron , i agree it doesn't say "add a lump" however at the level these boys race at it has to be distributed sensibly and attached to places that affect the handling the least ... hence the need to test for a couple of days to find the optimum places to put the ballast.

Really Tim Bo??

So tell me ... if 10kg's all of a sudden makes a race bike unsafe, what if Carbon Fibre had never been invented. All race bikes would be at least 10kg heavier, & we would have no motorcycle racing at all? I think not!

As for my knowledge ... my understanding of a racing motorcycle goes as far as owning a few that I pay people to race on. Read Aarons post about adding weight.

Dice, mate, you don't get it. Yeh, people made bikes before composite materials were invented but they were made from those materials at the inital design stage so could be designed with the materials in mind. The problem is not the extra weight it's where nad how to add it without buggering up the bike's handling and the components' balance. The stresses and stains present in a race bike at the peak of it's performance can be upset by a stone hitting the frame at the wrong angle, never mind addin blaast to various areas. It's a delicate balancing act, if you get it wrong it can cause mecvhanical failure or make the bike unsafe to ride at full race pace. Without testing the bike isn't safe.

Yeah Mark ... & anyone in racing long enuff knows the general rules about where to add the weight, even depending on circuit characteristics. It's not all hit & miss as you make out.
Case in point was last yrs ZX10. Making in heavier than the rules allowed but adding the weight in certain areas actually made the bike faster ... admittedly not fast enuff to compete, but better than it was at minimum weight.

I also feel that if Darrell hasnt tested the bike with weight, knowing full well it might be added at some stage in the season, well that's just poor team management, & they shouldnt blame anyone but themselves if that is the case.

The thing is, a twin can not produce as many power strokes per revolution as a four. simple as that, and good as one make racing is, there has got to be variety, or the breed will never develop, i enjoy watching the strengths and weaknesses of different machinery, the twins coming out of corners better, the fours faster top end (the fours consistently fastest through speedtraps).
unless we are all going to ride around on identical bikes, and watch identical bikes racing, different engines and therefore charachteristics, (both yamaha and honda have got their fingers out to develop bikes quick enough to stay with the G.P ducati) help to bring on development, which ultimately is a good thing

Dice, I hear what you're saying, but, again, they tested that setup and made sure it was safe, exhaustively if I know anything about how teams operate.

Airwaves Ducati's point is they have no time to do that. I don't care how much experience they've got, they cannot be sure what the bike will do with an extra 10kg of weight on it, even if it's put in the theoretically perfect places. There are just too many factors involved. Even for a veteran team, changing things on the bike that dramatically can have major unwanted effects. Those effects can cost lives. No-one wants that.

Mark, if they havnt tested it, then they only have themselves to blame ... they cant cry that theyve only had 4 days notice.
They knew pre-season - when they decided to rejoin BSB after throwing their toys out at the end of last season - that if they were running away, they would get the penalty. They can see the points gap as well as any of us, so if they thought the rule makers would miss it, then theyre naive too. They should have seen this coming & probably did.

This is not about safety, that's just the excuse theyre hiding behind to drum up sympathy & look like the good guys. It's about them being slowed down ... nothing more, nothing less.