MotoGP: Ducati 'fears Honda most'.

[Rory Phoulorie]

Tuesday, 15th January 2008

Ducati Corse CEO Claudio Domenicali says that Honda is the manufacturer he fears most ahead of the 2008 MotoGP season.



Honda won the final 990cc world championship with Nicky Hayden in 2006 and - due to its huge technical resources - was only expected to get stronger with the change to 800cc motorcycles for 2007.

After all, the last major technical change in the premier-class, from 500cc two-strokes to 990cc four-strokes in 2002, saw Honda (with help from a certain Valentino Rossi) win 14 of the 16 races.

But such predictions were turned completely on their head when Ducati, the smallest of the MotoGP factories, dominated the 2007 season - its new star Casey Stoner winning 10 of the 18 rounds, while team-mate Loris Capirossi added a further victory for the Desmosedici GP8 at Motegi.

By contrast, Honda won just two races with its new RC212V - although that still turned out to be enough to secure second in the world championship for Dani Pedrosa, after Rossi's M1 broke down at Valencia, and the Honda arguably improved more than any other machine over the course of the season.

"The bike that worried us most initially was Honda, because they have a technical capacity which does not require [explanation]," the official MotoGP website reports Domenicali as saying. "Usually when there are rule changes, like in 2002, that's a team that have always got the project right. So perhaps Honda is the one that was not up to expectations [in 2007].

"As for the bike I fear most in 2008? Honda again, because I think that they can make a mistake once but it's difficult for them to make the same mistake twice," Domenicali warned.

Despite their impressive form at the tail end of 2007, the factory Repsol Honda Team of Hayden and Pedrosa will use an all-new RC212V in 2008.

Of the other MotoGP manufacturers, Rossi and Yamaha won four races last season, Suzuki took a single triumph, while Kawasaki claimed a best finish of second.

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