After the three-day test at Sepang, everyone was more or less happy with their new bikes and Casey Stoner left Malaysia on the top of the charts with a best lap of 1’59.
607, despite problems with chatter, however the reigning World Champion had something to say regarding the last minute and unexpected decision by the FIM, MSMA and Dorna last December to increase the weight of the bikes.
In a Q&A interview released by Repsol Honda, the Australian was specifically asked if he felt the 4kg difference between the bike used at Sepang and that used at Valencia and answered: Yes, and it is rather frustrating.
We already had the bike developed and then they decided to change the regulations, so we had to add 4kg to the weight of our bike.
This is a disadvantage for us, because the bike was already developed with a specific weight in mind, and now we have to add more.
This affects the bike.
It isn’t something that you notice much in your general riding, but unfortunately you do feel it quite a bit mid-corner.
We have to try to adapt a little more and overcome this, but it is disappointing that the decision was made so late on.
According to the Italian media, Stoner was actually much more critical about the weight increase, “This world doesn’t have clear rules.
They talk about cost saving measures and at Christmas the Federation increased the minimum weight from 153 kg to 157 kg to benefit someone.
Now we have to re-think about re-balancing the bike and this will surely cost money that even the privateers will have to pay.
It doesn’t make sense.
”Who is Stoner refering to when he talks about benefiting someone? Is it the CRT teams who use slightly heavier production based engines (who can’t worry someone like Stoner nor Honda) than the prototypes, or is it as someone insinuated, another jab at Ducati and Rossi?