What if Bayliss had Raced at Mugello?
A lot of excitement spread around the motorcycling world when it was announced that Troy Bayliss would test the Ducati MotoGP racer at Mugello last month. That excitement seemed understandable when the likeable Australian and newly retired 3 time World Superbike Champion lapped the desmosedici a tick faster than regular tester Vittoriano Guareschi in a time similar to the 13th place finisher in last year’s Mugello GP, ironically the then Honda mounted Nicky Hayden. Now that the 2009 race has come and gone we can dig a little deeper to see how Troy might have faired in a real race.
In his first ride on a MotoGP machine since his victory in the final race of the 2006 season at Valencia and his first ride on the smaller 800cc machine Bayliss was able to post impressive lap times with a best of 1:51.2 just ahead of Official GP test rider Vittoriano Guareschi who recorded a similar fastest time of 1:51.4 during the three days of testing last month.
However a test isn’t a race and we all wondered how fast Bayliss would be in the context of the current crop of MotoGP riders. Of course we will likely never know (Bayliss made it clear his testing was not a prelude to a return to racing) but we can look at the practice times for the Italian MotoGP which was held on Sunday.
Troy’s 1:51.2 seemed pretty good but was a fair bit off the pace by the time the regulars had completed the second free practice session for this year’s race. Casey Stoner was fastest with a time in the low 1:49′s and you had to go as far down as James Toseland in 11th to see a time starting with 1:51! Troy’s time would have put him just a tenth ahead of MotoGP rookie, Niccolo Canepa, conveniently also Ducati mounted in 12th place, not too bad but hardly anything to write home about.
That would have still made him the 2nd fastest Ducati rider, since the other regulars like Hayden and Kallio were further back still. Not too shabby for someone who was having their first ever 800cc ride and who hadn’t been on a MotoGP bike for 2 1/2 years. Then again he did have 3 days to set the time instead of just 2 practice sessions.
In any event by the time the sticky qualifiers were put on, Bayliss’ time would have placed him dead last albeit still only 2/10th behind Hayden.
What does all this mean? Well nothing really. No-one knows how Bayliss would have gone against real competition since a test day is not the same as racing practice. During testing the objective is to work on machine setup by understanding what the motorcycle is doing as it circulates the track. To do this the rider needs to be analyzing what is happening with the bike at all times and since this takes concentration, by definition, this happens at lower speeds than full race pace. The secret to the very best testers is that they can provide this high level of analysis and feedback at a pace which is close enough to full race pace to be useful.
All we know for sure is that Troy Bayliss seems to be able to ride the Ducati MotoGP9 about as well as all other current riders who aren’t called Casey Stoner. Unfortunately that means not quite fast enough at the moment.
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