Round 1 - 2011 WSBK Championship, Phillip Island

[jhansen]

Racing returns!

Can't say much more than that. Checa seems like the favorite after some serious speed at the final test. But come on, surly Biaggi has to be a contender. The rest, I'm not sure about.

World Supersport should be a total toss up.

[Andy77]

2am to 6:30am scheduled coverage over here . That gonna hurt

[rich_cooper]

yep will be a late night/early morning for me. Will be intresting to see if the testing times match up to what we will see on sunday in the race.

Not long till Donington

[Andy77]

heh yeah ... Philip Island is always worth the early start

[jhansen]

Any place to find streaming on the web?

[Dani Filth]

it used to be on worldsbk.com ... ... ... will PM if i find something

[frostie]

Looking forward to this season, hopefully this weekends races are as good as last year.

Just after seeing that Leon Camier has been diagnosed with glandular fever

[chunder]

Is a very comon thing for younger men, plenty get that.

SBK site is awful for streaming now, you only get 2 or so minutes of highlights and loads of interviews, really poor.

[Andy77]

Not sure but when the WSBK website closed down live streaming, it still was possible to watch via LA7 live streaming. Only downside though was italian commentary. But it may be possible that it is geo-locked these days

edit: La7 is free to air tv on Atlantic Bird 1 satelite at 12.5W , italian comentary of course.

[jhansen]

Dang, Checa and Foret are throwin it down. Curious to see how race pace will unfold.

[frostie]

Originally Posted by chunder

SBK site is awful for streaming now, you only get 2 or so minutes of highlights and loads of interviews, really poor.

Sure is, I thought when they were making such a big deal about updating the site that we would get a live streaming option. To be honest I'd pay for a service like the one on MotoGP.com. As you say Chunder the quality of the videos on the site is pretty poor.

[Andy77]

Originally Posted by frostie

Sure is, I thought when they were making such a big deal about updating the site that we would get a live streaming option. To be honest I'd pay for a service like the one on MotoGP.com. As you say Chunder the quality of the videos on the site is pretty poor.

Well when they still had the live streaming they sort of re-broadcasted the LA7 feed

[Hazza]

My Pay-TV provider is months behind, and all the WSBK stuff has been moved to a channel I CAN'T GET.

[gossie]

WSBC is not on any TV channel here. BOO HISS.
Not even a mention on late Sunday night.
Perhaps on Ch1 free to air in OZ during the week at some stupid hour?

[jhansen]

I'm wondering if James Toeseland is wishing he stayed home to play piano this year...

[Andy77]

I just thank god that the WSB starts down under. That way Eurosport has no real reason to not show it as it doesn't touch their 25th replay of snooker over the day

[Andy77]

And don't forget to visit the 10 Tenth Chatroom during the races. I`ll try to make it to 10 to 2am cet latest

[frostie]

For anyone interest I have analysed the action so far from Philip Island to see what can be gathered from whats occured so far.

It's been pretty clear that Checa has the fastest outright bike but when I was looking at the numbers it is not his speed that is most surprising, it's his consistency. Over the course of the weekend he has generally been about a quarter of a second faster than everyone else. The Ducati is clearly rock solid at PI and giving all of its riders confidence-look at Guintoli's consistency as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Max can compete with Checa tomorrow. Its pretty clear that he is lacking the pace of the Ducati but his top speed advantage could keep him just in touch.

[Andy77]

Was a nice battle around positions 3 to 6 and brave move by Laverty on Melandri through last corner.

Join 10 Tenth Chatroom for discussion during the races

[gomick]

Good supersport race, glad Yamaha are back - hopefully they have a great season ahead of them & Pirelli work out those tyre issues . They have been dull for years!

So do we expect to dnf's from Checa next time out - he rode well all weekend!

[Dani Filth]

he'll also ride well at Miller and there's his quota for the year

[chunder]

I think Checa might do a little better than that, he is pretty much riding a factor Ducati now, a lot of the team are ex Xerox and the like, same as Liberty, but the bikes are much better.

[cg7aa]

Good start to the new season with some good racing. Looks like Supersport is returning to what it should be. There is a bit of life still left in some old dogs out on track (I'm looking at you Nori).

It's great when you sit down to watch a race and it's over so quickly because you are quite absorbed in it.

[jhansen]

A bit difficult to tell yet. Checa ran good at PI last year as well. But anyways, it was a dominate performance. And I think Biaggi showed how good the Ape will be this year with two seconds. The rest was a mixed bag. I was hoping Josh Waters would show better.

WSS...Dang, Yamaha are back huh?

[frostie]

I was asked to do a bit of work on what happened during the opening round of the championship and after looking at the lap times I thought it would be interesting (at least to me!) to analyse the performance of the leading riders during both races and compare their fortunes in each outing.
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After a superb opening race weekend to the World Superbike season I thought it was appropriate to look into how the races developed by analysing the pace of the leading contenders throughout both races. Carlos Checa may have dominated the race but when you look beyond the race results it is clear that Checa, Max Biaggi and Marco Melandri all were able to adjust their tactics from the race one to race two.

Tyre performance is clearly the limiting factor to world superbike lap times. This is shown quite easily by a cursory look at the fastest laps for each rider in races; generally they all set their fastest time in the opening laps of races. The fact that these times are achieved on full tanks of fuel clearly shows that it is tyre life, not weight, which determines lap times on these machines. When the tyre starts to degrade, the grip level falls and the rider loses confidence in the performance capability of his machine.

In the first race at Philip Island it is interesting that in the opening half of the race Checa can keep his pace much more consistent in comparison to Biaggi. During the first half of the race in Australia Checa has consistent speed throughout the first nine flying laps. His pace barely deviates until the tenth lap where the tyre degradation starts to affect his performance and his pace decreases.

When this is contrasted to Biaggi’s lap times the Italian’s times are much more inconsistent. This is due to numerous factors, notably that he was moving through the pack to take second position. But even so it is surprising that the normally consistent Biaggi loses so much time to Checa in the opening half of the race. It is only in the second half of the race that Biaggi finds any level of consistency, and by this time it is clearly too late.

The difference between the performances of both drivers is quite startling and it is quite clear how much more confident Checa was in the opening laps, he was straight down to business, whereas Biaggi struggled to deal with his bike, and the opposition, during this period. With Checa opening a commanding lead in this race he had little to do in the second half of the race and he adjusts his speed accordingly to do little more than match Biaggi until the chequered flag.

In the second race of the day both riders show vastly different lap time profiles relative to their opening races. Both riders completed race two faster than in the opening race of the day but it is surprising that they did so with what, at first glance appears to be a much more inconsistent race pace. When you look at the lap times in more detail however and it becomes clear that both riders did this to allow their tyre time to cool slightly and to increase tyre life; it is a similar approach to a long distance runner slowing their pace slightly to let the body relax before making their next push.

In the opening race Checa completed a string of 1m32s laps early in the race but once his pace started to deteriorate, around his 12th flying lap, he could no longer lap under 1m33.5s and completed the next nine laps at a greatly reduced pace in the 1m33.5-1m34.5s seconds bracket. In the second race, having clearly adjusted his race tactics Checa completed less laps in the 1m32s range, ten in race one compared to seven in the second race, but his tactics allowed the Spaniard to complete considerably more laps in the 1m33-33.5s bracket, eight tours versus two in the opeing race. As a result of changing his tactical approach Checa managed to conserve the life of his tyres to such an extent that he could complete more fast laps relative to his effort in the opening race.

This trend continued for the rest of the race with Checa able to perform better as the race progressed in comparison to his earlier effort. As a result the Ducati rider finished the race over one second faster than his time in the opening race of the day. It will be interesting to see if a pattern such as this develops throughout the season with riders and teams focusing their pace on maintaining tyre life rather than out and out pace.

Biaggi’s efforts in race two mirrored Checa’s. The Italian completed as many 1m32s laps in the second race, but at a reduced average pace then in his opening race of the day. This allowed the reigning world champion to maintain tyre performance during the rest of the race and to complete eight laps below 1m33.5s, compared to just two such laps in the opening race. From that point on Biaggi had decent tyre life and could complete his other seven laps at an average pace of over two tenths of a second per lap faster than in the opening race of the day.

Both leading riders, and race two podium finisher Marco Melandri, were able to complete a much higher number of fast laps in the second race having gained a greater level of understanding in how the tyres reacted during the race. All three riders were hugely successful in cutting down on the amount of slow laps that they completed in the second race, as shown by the table below.

From the table it is clear that Melandri and Biaggi in particular were able to limit the amount of laps slower than 1m33.5s. As a result both completed the second race considerably faster than the opening race en route to their podium finishes.

Tactics have long been crucial to success on the race track but it is surprising that in an era of control tyres that there can be such a dramatic change in lap times due to the tactics employed by racers. It will be worth keeping an eye on whether this approach pays dividends over the course of the season.