Ducati technical chief Filippo Preziosi met with the media Monday, the day before the post-season test at Valencia, and explained why Ducati Corse is abandoning its carbon-fiber chassis that used the engine as a stressed member, instead opting for a traditional aluminum perimeter frame for its 1000cc bike.
Preziosi was quite candid in his remarks, indicating the team simply couldn't extract proper performance from the Bridgestone tires with its ill-fated GP11 and GP11.1 carbon-fiber chassis. The new bike seemingly will be built more around the tires than ever.
"The tires Bridgestone have developed have incredible performance, and they last for the entire race distance, but they have very particular characteristics," Preziosi said. "They aren't comparable with any other product for two-wheeled machinery. They require a chassis which is dedicated to exploiting them."
Ducati ripped through its allotment of six engines faster than any other manufacturer this season, and the ever-changing versions of GP11 chassis were just as much of a culprit as any engine gremlins or wear. Preziosi said.
"With a load-bearing engine, you run into problems every time you want to modify the chassis," Preziosi said. "Often you have to seal a new engine just because of this. This is the reasoning behind a more conventional perimeter frame, which could also be built from carbon fiber down the road.
"This frame allows us to make changes without modifying the engine. Because of its current shape, and with the expectation of future development, aluminum was the most logical choice right now."
