Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

The HMC Ducati crew included two new faces when the team arrived for tests at California Speedway on Monday, January 14.

“We are here for support of HMC,” said Ducati Corse Head of Sales and Marketing Paolo Ciabatti. “We, me and Roberto Bonazzi, who is one of our best race engineers (and who will work with Neil Hodgson and GSE Ducati in 2002), (came) to help the team with the engine mapping.”

HMC Ducati’s Pascal Picotte ran some of the fastest lap times at the Dunlop Daytona tire tests in December despite throttle response problems with the team’s 2002 Ducati 998RS, problems traced to the engine’s fuel-injection mapping.

Ciabatti explained that HMC’s bikes came with throttle bodies which are not homologated for use in AMA Superbike and did not work well with AMA-spec race fuel and standard mapping. “In World Superbike, we use 60mm throttle bodies,” said Ciabatti. “This bike has 54mm throttle bodies, which is mandatory in the USA. So we did all of the engine mapping on the dyno at the race shop in Bologna. Now we come here to optimize the engine mapping and help with the testing.”

Ducati technicians installed 54mm throttle bodies on a 2002-spec Ducati 998RS test mule in the race shop in Italy to develop fuel-injection mapping that would work with AMA-legal race fuels and the required throttle bodies. “We’re very happy with the test so far, no problem with the engine,” stated Ciabatti. “On the dyno, we found that we only lose one or two horsepower. That’s good.

“That is the replica of the bike that has won the World Championship last year with Troy Bayliss. Same spec, same engine,” continued Ciabatti. “The only difference is the front fork. Here we have 46mm. On the factory machine we use 42mm. I say 99.9% same as the World Champion bike. We built 20. Most of them went to World Superbike teams. Six went to England for British Superbike, and two came to the States.

“Troy Bayliss, Ben Bostrom and Ruben Xaus ride something different. We have kind of an evolution, which is basically an engine which is developed from the end of the Testastretta engine you see on these bikes. It has a different bore and stroke and something like 10 horsepower more. Huge step.

“Neil Hodgson is on the factory bike from last year, which means that the same bike that Pascal has but with the 42mm forks. We gave him two of the bikes we had in the factory team last year.

“Because of our involvement in the new GP project at Ducati, we really cannot support anything else but our World Superbike team and our GP program. We are not a big company. We are a medium-size company, and we must concentrate our resources on some program. We’d like to do everything, but we can’t.

“So with Mitch (Hansen), he deserved to be helped and, through Ducati North America, we managed to give him special conditional supply and material; bikes, engines and spare parts. He will then take care of the rest of the budget by himself or through his sponsors.

“We can’t say he is a ‘factory team’, because for Ducati ‘factory team’ means that we manage basically the team. In this case, we will not because it is not possible for us, but we give as much help as possible.

“We think the bike is a winning bike because it was proven last year to be a winning bike and I think the specs of the Japanese bikes here are the same as World Superbike. So we have beaten them in World Superbike. There is no reason why we cannot beat them here. We know that this is an ambitious effort for Mitch and we will try to give him as much help as possible during the season.”

Asked if Ducati North America Racing Manager David Roy had left the company, Ciabatti said, “Actually, there is some kind of re-structuring going on at Ducati North America with the new General Manager appointed at the moment. There have been a lot of changes that are just trying to be more efficient. We think we can manage the support of teams directly from Bologna. We are here, and with the technical data we can exchange by e-mail or whatever. So with the need of rationalizing the organization of Ducati North America in general, this position has been canceled for the moment and we will manage all contacts with Mitch Hansen and his team directly from Bologna.”

When asked about the Ducati MotoGP project, Ciabatti said “We will issue an official statement at the end of January. So we will explain exactly what kind of engine it’s going to be because we want to stop speculation. We know that we started it by saying that it was a ‘very special kind of Twin’. So everybody think oval pistons or something else. I cannot tell you at the moment, but I’m sure in two weeks time you’re gonna see our press release explaining the concept that has guided the development of the engine.

“There is not one single bolt of the GP bike is the same of the Superbike. Everybody said that maybe we take several kilos off a Superbike and we’re going to be winning, which is possible today. If you see the time we did in Valencia with Ben (Bostrom) in December. We were less than a fraction of a second off the pole position from Max Biaggi, but we also think that the four-stroke GP will be much faster than the two-stroke GP.

“Possibly if we would have targeted this season, we could’ve taken a Superbike, modified, made it lighter, put carbon-fiber brakes and been competitive at the beginning, but the approach was total different. We started from a white sheet of paper and we designed the bike. We just apply all of the technology we have and also we take as much as possible from our consultants outside the company.

“The bike is gonna be definitely a Ducati. The frame is gonna be a trellis frame. It will be a desmo (desmodromic) engine. It will have the pipes under the tail so that it will look like a Ducati. Because we tried, and we see that the frame is as good as anything else and the desmo we tried out to 18,000 revs it goes. So why no choosing it? The bike is now testing in the wind tunnel. It is very, very aerodynamic. We are very pleased with the results so far. But as I said we wanted to get to be very competitive, so we went in a new direction for Ducati.”

Asked if it is true, as rumored, that NCR Ducati will race in the U.S. Pro Thunder Series in 2002, Ciabatti said, “They are running an aggressive program. Actually, as you may know they are racing with Pierfrancesco Chili in World Superbikes. They are also building a special bike. I don’t know if they will be able to make it. They will build a very light bike with a 1000cc, air-cooled, two-valve engine. The bike will basically be all of titanium because Poggipolini, with the titanium company, is now a partner of NCR. They are trying to make a very, very light bike and compete in Pro Thunder, Sound of Thunder and Battle of the Twins. I don’t know if they will make it for this year. It is 90% yes, and it’s totally developed by them.”