MotoGP Feature - Bridgestone Puts The Ducati Desmosedici On The Road
13/06/2006
Ducati’s road-going MotoGP bike – launched at last weekend’s Italian GP – got front-page headlines in the motorcycle press around the world. The 200-horsepower grand prix bike with headlights blurs the distinction between the race-track and the road.
So do its tyres, supplied (like the MotoGP machines) by Bridgestone. A new generation, named BT001, is being developed in conjunction with Ducati, specifically for the sensational new motorcycle.
The machine is a very close copy of the 90-degree V4 Desmosedici racer, sharing its unique desmodromic valves and 990cc capacity. It also shares the high-revving race engine’s very over-square bore-and-stroke ratio, making it the most extreme road machine in this regard.
Changes were necessary to make the engine suitable for road use, with longer service intervals, as well as adding a full electrical system, for starter and lights. Changes were kept to a bare minimum, however.
“The aim was to make a machine that felt as much as possible like riding a Grand Prix bike on the road,” said Ducati CEO Federico Minoli. To this end, the bike also has full racing suspension and brakes, a race-copy electronic dashboard, a single seat, and the first road-going carbon-fibre monocoque seat-tail unit.
Plus those unique tyres, which will be made in a special 16-inch size, which means the rear matches the very latest new development made by Bridgestone race tyre engineers.
Minoli acknowledged that the machines would make an ideal track-day plaything for the motorcyclist who has everything. To this end, each bike will be supplied with a second “track” exhaust system, which sacrifices silence in the interests of horsepower – boosting the total to more than 200 bhp.
The road-to-track link is equally strong for the tyres, which are being developed in consultation and close co-ordination with the racing department engineers, although in a separate stream of development. Tyres had already not only been bench-tested at the time of the launch, but also track-tested, said Bridgestone’s motorcycle racing co-ordinator Kezuka Motoharu.
Track testing is vital to test durability and overall performance. But there is another direct link between the requirements of a racing tyre and this new road tyre. It is the lap time.
“This is the challenge for us,” explained Bridgestone racing chief, Hiroshi Yamada.
When racing, if conditions are cold or wet, you would simply switch to a different tyre compound or type to suit. “A road tyre must still be able to work in all different conditions, and must also have some durability,” continued Yamada.
“But the most important thing is the lap time.” This was because all new-bike launches always take place at race-tracks, and because comparisons between tyres, especially for magazine tests, always use lap times as the deciding factor.
This represents another marriage between street and race-track, and another area where Ducati’s new Bridgestone-shod road-going Desmosedici can excel.
The machine, which is to be hand-made in small numbers, will be available from July, 2007. The price is set at €55,000