12:32
admin
2011 hasn’t been a distinguishing season for Ducati on the race tracks. Sure Carlos Checa has taken a couple of sporadic wins in World Superbikes on the works-supported 1198s but singularly telling has been Valentino Rossi going not just winless to date on the MotoGP circuit but also being way off the pace. Now this is something that isn’t all down to engine power, or the lack of but the fact that the Ducati makes more than enough power to compete against the best of the Yamahas and Hondas but it just can’t put down all that power down on to terra firma without being a nuisance for its riders.Ducati knew that it was trying to get the chassis stiffness it needed for its riders to get the best out of the Desmosedici by trying to bring in F1-style technologies wherein its carbon-fibre frame cum airbox design semi-monocoque was a novel approach. However as has been proved in over a century plus of motorcycle design, there have been few big steps in the way the designers and engineers have got to joining the motorcycle’s front to its rear but Ducati is doing something it shunned all along – be inspired by the Japanese!
