Alice keen to absorb Ducati improvements.

At the risk of starting a big rider ability debate, does this mean that the alice and factory bikes have ALL the same technology and settings as soon as they are developed?

I wouldn't guess that the Alice bikes are on par with the factory bikes. Alice is more of a development team so its not meant for them to get podiums or win races. Within the past few years they have been more of a last chance team before a rider gets booted out of MotoGP. I think Alex Barros was the last rider to get a decent result for them.

Ducati needs to do what Yamaha did with Tech3. Totally rebuild the team, give them the same GP8's as the factory team and make it a real competitive team and not a back marker / last chance team for washed up uncompetitive riders.

Elias and Sylvan deserve better then 12th and 16th place.

ducati needs someone stealing points off honda and yamaha. and at the moment, marco can only steal points if he was running against minibikes

I think the technical guys comments confirm that the Alice team have at least got the software upgrades that sorted Caseys machine - after all, unlike mechanical parts once the s/ware is developed there's practically no cost to uploading it to another bike, so why wouldn't they? The Alice team may not have the latest mechanical parts though. This kinda kills the idiotic arguments of some that 'Casey doesn't let the other Ducati riders get the good kit he gets'. As if it's up to him! Apart from the Alice team - as if an Italian factory isn't going to give an Italian (MM) the best chance it can. (cont.)

One point not made yet in this particularly absurd debate is sponsorship dollars. The Italian & Spanish markets are 2 of the biggest bike markets in the world, so huge sponsor dollars come from these countries & thus these sponsors want local heroes to sell their brands to in those countries. This only makes it harder for an Aussie to get into a GP team in the first place - the market down under is negligible. This is nothing new, and Aussies only get rides on merit, unlike a few dubious European racers in years gone by who got rides for their marketability. Ducati like every other team has to take sponsors & market into account, so why would they only give the best bits to the Aussie?

on merit like west ... right

there is not one spanish sponsor in the d'antín team