Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 19 MAY 12, 2015 P73 three years we got very con- fused, so I think the most impor- tant thing was to stop making confusion and establish the way you're going to move forward, and that's what Gigi has done. This may seem a very basic point, but when you have 50 people who discuss between themselves what to do, and 25 of them want to turn left and 25 want to go right, then you find yourself still stuck in the middle and you didn't move either left or right. So I think that this is what happened before, and last year we got some focus on where we were going, which resulted in our closing the gap to the others as much as we did between the first race and the last, while effectively gathering data for the new bike. In implementing these different solutions they came to a point where the old bike was kind of a limitation. So they've built the new 2015 bike which seems to have a higher limit, and so has helped us close the gap. One previous such confu- sion was with the radical semi-monocoque chassis for the Desmosedici, which Valentino Rossi raced and de- clared to be unrideable, lead- ing to its replacement by the current more conventional design. Yet that same radical chassis design is to be found on the Panigale that you sell to your customers, and has now proved a race winner in the World Superbike cham- pionship. Why did it work in one format and not the other? What do you attribute that to? It can't have been so bad, because we won three of the last six MotoGP races in 2009, which was its debut season. So let's just say that what, for what- ever reason, it was difficult for Yes, could be. Let's say the answer is still unclear, but for sure the tires are pretty different, and the compliance of the Pirel- lis is much higher, as you say. What matters is that the chassis of our customer Superbikes has now been proved to work at the highest level against other more conventional designs. 2015 has seen the intro- duction of a new set of World Superbike rules, and it seems that Ducati is now competitive under them. Are you now satisfied with those rules in terms of the balance between twins and fours, and reducing the cost of be- ing on the grid? Or are there other things you would like to see changed? I think it's okay now. The bikes we are all racing are much more similar than before to the production streetbike, so what happens on the track now reflects properly the real performance of the bikes in the shops. So I think the rules are now correct, and don't need modifying further. Will Ducati ever make a V4 Superbike, or do you think everyone expects a Ducati sportbike to be a V-twin? My answer is the same as for the scooter. If ever we have to make a V4 streetbike again— and I think the Desmosedici RR already proved this—we will know how to make one. But we currently have a very good sportbike using our traditional "WE DON'T WANT TO HAVE A MOTORCYCLE FOR EVERY CUSTOMER, BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT TO OFFER EVERY TYPE OF PRODUCT JUST FOR THE SAKE OF IT. AND THE SAME GOES FOR ALL DIFFERENT PRICE SECTORS." Valentino to find a feeling with the bike, and because it was so dif- ferent from all the others, it's kind of normal that he pushed to get a more conventional chassis. Could the reason why it works in Superbike form be because of the more compli- ant, lighter Pirelli tires used there compared to the much harder, less forgiving Bridge- stones in MotoGP?

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