I actually think ducati and alvaro will find a way around it this year, don’t know how but theyre not exactly known for being static when it comes to developing solutions are they.
Has your elderly friend still have or remember the name and location of the buyer? That might at least help narrow down the search even if the then new owner sold it on to someone else, or get you further down the trail as to where it ended up. The fact that it has not been MOT'd for so long would suggest it is either gathering dust somewhere or has been scrapped. Hopefully not the latter. I spent months searching for the ex Lewis-Collins Harris Magnum Suzuki but ended up at a dead end despite some questionable claims of ownership online by one individual and no tangible proof to go with it. Here is the bike in question.
the Ducati was rev capped because it was seen as slightly ‘underhand’ that the road bike only revved to 16,500rpm on top gear (from memory) so they made them run with a rev limit that matched the real output of the engine. incidentally the same happened to Kawasaki, they released a special RR bike with something going on with the rev limiter and got told the bike wasn’t significantly changed enough so they couldn’t have the revs
The 'rules' at the time, allowed for the race bike to rev 1000rpm over the homologated road bike. In the case of the V4RS, Kawasaki and Honda bleated so much, Dorna caved in. Kawasaki was miffed that JR finally got penalised in an effort to break his dominance. In an attempt to circumvent the rules, Kawasaki tried to homologate another bike but that was quite rightly, got knocked back. The point I've not very well articulated is, if you are going to make a rule for one, it has to apply to everyone. JR's dominance got boring and Dorna failed to respond early enough, AB's 2 wins could have gone the same way but Dorna woke up. If TR wins again on the BMW, as I expect, it's the same situation. Yes, I'm a Ducati and Alvaro fan boy and the double standards gets on my proverbials. It may be old fashioned but I believe competition should be a level playing field and rules applied consistently, just like it is in F1. Oh, hang on a minute, wtf Andy
No. They simply have to stop allowing BMW to stick special, non-checked, non-declared parts on his bike and in his engine. Take away their special privileges, remove the weight nonsense, let them fight it out. Alas Bautista is now past his best, and although still one of the best, not good enough to beat Toprak. It’s his to lose.
Interesting read and thoughts… Headline: WSBK, Ducati's Davide Tardozzi attacks BMW head-on: "nobody knows the technical aspects of Toprak Razgatlioglu's bike" link https://www.paddock-gp.com/en/wsbk-...techniques-de-la-moto-de-toprak-razgatlioglu/
Find that very hard to believe. Check out the oxley/bom podcasts. They’ve got one this week about “squiggly lines” (basically the engine mapping and performance output data etc) they can seemingly get what they need to from other bikes off onboard camera footage if they want to these days. And Ducati have never struggled with modern technology.
Kawasaki (allegedly) did for JR exactly what Tardozzi is accusing BMW of doing for TR, it's nothing new. That absolute drive and need to win is the justification and far out ways any sense of guilt they might feel for bending rules to give them an advantage. Reminds me of the fuss when Jenson won his F1 title, all the abuse and underhand tactics that were used by Ferrari et al to rubbish Ross Brawn. Andy
I don’t think there is ever going to be a fair slant on this convo based off the fact we are on a Ducati forum! However I think what BMW are doing is really what Ducati have always done. Oh, and let’s not get into the price cap, that’s another absolute Farce…. I think though there is a bigger issue with WSBK, and that’s the fact that the electronics are silly, way way more advanced even than MotoGP. The best thing they could do, is put a 220hp cap on WSBK and use the spec electronics that BSB standardised across the world, bringing back wildcards and better more manageable budgets.
