Crash.net, Wednesday, 12th March 2008
'Various theories are floating round the paddock to explain the gap between Stoner and the rest...'
It's what everyone's asking in the paddock. The Desmosedici GP8 has more power and better streamlining than anything else, and great tyres. So why can only Casey Stoner make it look respectable? His team-mate Marco Melandri is used to championship pressure (he was 250cc king in 2002) and has previously won five MotoGP races.
In the Alice Ducati satellite squad, team principal Luis d'Antin wanted better results than Alex Barros and Alex Hofmann provided in 2007, and replaced them with the 24-year-old Spaniard Toni Elias - famous for pinching a MotoGP race from Rossi at Estoril in 2006 - and the Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli, 25, who already has a year's experience of MotoGP under his wheels.
The Losail results: Elias was 14th in qualifying, Melandri 16th and Guintoli 17th. They were only marginally better in the race: Melandri 11th, Elias 14th, Guintoli 15th.
Various theories are floating round the paddock to explain the gap between Stoner and the rest. They include: Melandri's got his head all mixed up and is now at the state where he's asking for everything to be changed (a formula that leads to chaos); the Ducati is actually very hard to ride and only a madcap genius like Stoner can handle it (not believable); or, if you prefer, the bike's been developed totally around Stoner's preferences (but even so, with that much power and those Bridgestones, the others shouldn't be that far back).
So, no obvious solution. But the situation isn't helping Ducati's brand image, and one assumes that the sponsors involved can't be happy. There must be lots of strained conversations going on.
Nx sitaip sterilizuot gonkes? Man baisiai grazu, kai po tiesiosios pries posuki islenda netiketas maziukas stoppie. Juk rezisieriai su pasigardziavimu kartoja tokius momentus, o mes issisiepe ziurom ir plojam. 
](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
, nebus racinginis motas is bmw 