Archive - Aug 19, 2008

Testing concluded at Brno today, under hot and sunny skies. Only 11 riders took to the track, all of the Hondas except Shinya Nakano having left, feeling they would learn nothing as a result of not having tires they could use. Dani Pedrosa had left very early on Monday, having gone out for just 5 laps. The message from HRC to Michelin was pretty clear, as Nakano, the only Honda, was running on Bridgestones.

Casey Stoner completely destroyed the lap records, running full second under his pole record from last year on some experimental qualifiers from Bridgestone. But more impressive than that was a sequence of 5 laps Stoner set on race tires, 4 of which were in the low 1'56s, with one incredible lap of 1'55.904. Stoner commented afterwards that they had once again found some improvements in setup. The competition can only hope the jump for Ducati is not as large as it was the last time round they tested, after Barcelona. Stoner went on to win the next three races in a row after that test.

Stoner wasn't the only rider to improve. Valentino Rossi tested more new electronics, and improved his times to get into the mid 1'56s. Rossi's team mate Jorge Lorenzo was the best of the Michelin runners, shaving 1.3 seconds off his best time of the weekend.

Full times for Day 2 of testing, courtesy of GPOne.com: 

After Marco Melandri announced that he and Ducati had agreed to drop the second year of his two year contract, after a disastrous year on the GP8, speculation abounded about where Melandri would now end up. The most obvious option seemed to be Gresini Honda: Melandri and Gresini had split on relatively amicable terms, and Melandri had proved in the past that he knew how to ride the Honda - at least, once Honda fixed the dismal satellite RC212V.

But a return to Gresini is not to be. According to MCN's Matthew Birt, Marco Melandri has agreed terms with Kawasaki for 2009. There had been rumors that Melandri would make the switch mid-season, if Ducati decided to drop Melandri early, but after signs of improvement over the past couple of races, Melandri raced for Ducati at Brno, and is now almost certain to finish up the season with the team.

Melandri's main motivation for the switch to Kawasaki is that the Italian would rather stay with a factory team, to ensure he has more input into the development of the bike. His previous experience at Gresini left him occasionally frustrated, forced to wait for developments from the factory to be made available once they'd fixed their own riders' problems.

The switch is something of a gamble. The Kawasaki has been the weakest bike on the grid so far this year, with Kawasaki not looking particularly inclined to spend too much time and money on developing the bike. But the improved parts which Ant West and John Hopkins had at Brno showed that the team was at least making progress. The upside for Melandri is that the Kawasaki doesn't look as hard to get used to as the Ducati does, as Jamie Hacking's creditable outing at Laguna Seca demonstrated.