But the Britten did work, it was very successful in its class (that being dictated more by funds than anything else). John Britten basically did, on a low budget, what Ducati failed to do - i.e. build a well handling racer with a minimal 'chassis' made of carbon fibre.
[h=1]Preziosi has a plan to help Rossi!!! [/h]Is he resigning then... Seriously Ducati need a change in philosphy, their ideas were great when they could spec the tyres, but now the tyres are far from ideal for the Duc, especially this years softer construction. The Carbon frame is an elegant concept, and as has been said the old Carbon is too stiff cliche is bullshit, but untill Ducati have got the fundamentals, such as weight distribution sorted, they best stick to more conventional designs. For the record, the Britten V1000 was never a great handler, it relied on the fact that it had more grunt and less weight than the oposition. Still one of my favourite bikes of all time though. John Britten and his team are heros of mine.
I liked John Britten a lot but ,as you said , in its own class , it would not have competed with the super bikes at the time in the top class never mind the pinnacle of racing. The norton was a run away success at about the same time and that bike would not compete in the top class its like comparing touring car racing to formula one . The Britten was ,and still is , a marvel of engineering but no where near the top class of the time. The fact is that the Ducati moto gp12 is no where near the yamaha or the Honda and when it had the trellis frame it was . No good flogging a dead horse they need to get back to basics where they have a proven record.
Hmmm, but the Britten did compete against the best superbikes of the time - thre's great footage of it not only trouncing the factory ducatis at Daytona but with Pascal Picotte wringing the ducati's neck in the infield, Strudy pulls alongside looks at Picotte and then hoiks a power wheelie and breezes by. The bike was the equal of any superbike of its era. Now the interesting thing that no-one has picked up on in the comparison with the Britten is the front end. I've long maintained that putting a Fior/Hossack front end on the GP12 would provide the difference in feel that Rossi needs. The problem is with the Fior front end is it's too radical for the factories, even Ducati to take a risk with. John Britten could because he was a one man band in effect and by goodness it worked and the Britten did handle incredibly well, just different to conventional handling and feel...If Prezziosi took a risk with the Fior front end, it could usher in a new era for Ducati....
If you want to learn about John Britten and his bikes I can highly recommend this book; John Britten Book | Tim Hanna NEW PB 1877333085 GDN on eBay! It debunks a lot of myths that sprung up from the "Backyard visionary" documentry. The V1000 never handled particularly well and lacked feed back from the front suspension, though this (the feedback) may have been down to the bearings used in the linkages. The Biggestproblem with using the Fior/Hossack design would be the tyres. Fior developed the setup significantly on his 250 and 500gp bike so the load transfer was closer to a conventional fork, and while he had some success, eventually he gave up because he couldn't get tyre made to suit the demands of his design. More recently, I've had corespondence with Laurie Smith Yamaha R1 Aluminum Girder Front Suspension from SuspensionSmith of Australia He has been developing a variant of the Fior/Hossack front end, and while he's had some positve results, when he's had International level racers testing it, again front tyre temp, or lack of has been an issue. So in summary no the current Ducati GP12 doesn't need a Fior/Hossack front end. Would look cool though.
There was an excellent article on the motomatters website as to why they moved away from the trellis frame. Due to the 40 welds the frame had, they could have a variance of 15% in the chassis flex properties, which meant no two frames handled the same and made the bike a bugger to set up. With the carbon frame they could precisely engineer in the flex that they wanted, had they given it the time. But time is the one thing they don't have and even now the bike doesn't really have a frame - alloy subframes front and rear, but not a conventional twin-spar - in that regard it's much like a Kawasaki ZX-12R.
As i Remember, the Britten had the 'flex' built in to the front end and rear swing arm, not the frame.
You ought to know better than that. Armchair punditry, ill-informed comment, bar-room philosophy and general bollocks - that's what I thought we were here for.
Dam, beat me to it. The Hossack front end might offer something and as a long time fan i would like to see somebody try it. This will not be Ducati though as its too far out there to experimant with for a factory team. I remember Vernon Glashier used to campaign one at club level and he said that one of the things it allowed him to do was use the softest tyres available because the front end was so kind to them, it worked that well. Yes i know that club racing at Snett is a little removed from Factory Moto GP efforts but physics is Physics. Give the CRT teams an incentive to experiment with this kind of idea and lets see what works and what wont. As for Carbon being too stiff, what nonsense, but i got beaten to that reply as well. I really must try harder to keep up.
I must have been thinking of one of the multiple variants of the GP11 - they did at one point have alloy subframes on that - but if the GP12 is a conventional deltabox frame then fair enough.
True . But what it has wont flex and everything they have tried that dosent have any flex dosent work . Time will tell though.
Well the alloy swingarm will flex and has never been bolted to the chassis anyway, but to the engine......
Burgess , Rossi , Haden must all have been wrong then as they were the ones wanting rid of the none flexing carbon effort on the Ducati. But as you know better maybe you should put them right.
We were talking about the chassis , or lack of it , The swingarm is hinged to the engine much as it always has been . No denying that the rear is O.K. its the front that wont have ENOUGH feel for top flight racing. I heard that checka dissed it recently saying that it wasnt going to work. but as always time will tell . If Audi can be bothered to wait that is.
