The Ducati MotoGp team completed a test day at Mugello on Monday with both Rossi and Hayden testing the 2012 bike, already nicknamed the GP21.1 by the journalists. While details are sketchy (obviously), someone’s managed to come up with a photo and it COULD be very revealing.
This photo of test rider Franco Battaini on the bike, shows a suspiciously twin-spar looking frame lurking under the fairing. Could it be? Spies say that, at the very least, the subframe appears to be aluminium rather than carbon fibre. Time will tell. What they are NOT saying is that Rossi’s best time was over a second SLOWER than Stoner’s time at Mugello earlier this year on his 800cc Honda. Still, it is (sort of) early days yet.
This turned up as a link on Facebook this morning. It comes under the heading of “Nice, but why would you want to?”
After axing PBM for its factory effort in WSBK, Kawasaki management have said overnight that they will be taking a much more involved role with the racing effort in 2012. Not quite sure what this means but the subtext is that “We’re going to make sure we don’t get embarrassed by another stuff-up like PBM’s drugs bust”