After Ducati recently burst the bubble on his five years of desmo-powered prominence, James Toseland has signed for the Ten Kate Honda squad. He may actually find that his enforced move to a four-cylinder bike, especially one with a wing on the side and with winning the dominant helix in its corporate DNA, has come at a very opportune time.
James, his ex-team-mate Regis Laconi and all the Ducati runners were frequently sliced up by the Samurai cycles from Japan in 2005, all of which had the same engine size as the Dukes, but two more cylinders to go rev-hunting with.
Everyone in the Ducati Corse effort can cite other reasons why their '05 was so abysmally inconsistent compared with previous years but, having gone over that ground all season, we can now move onto what looks like happening in '06.
With Vermeulen off to MotoGP, one of the '05 championship's few genuine title challengers has flown the coop. Good news for the likes of Ducati's '06 signings, Troy Bayliss and Lorenzo Lanzi.
No-one denies that this line-up has class, a mix of old and new, a feelgood factor in Lanzi's Italian nationality - and former champion Bayliss. Or, as some have dubbed him, the saviour of Ducati.
What the '06 line-up does not have, as Regis and James found out in '05, are any advantages left from the glory days of even just a couple of years ago.
The long-standing capacity advantage is two years gone. The tyre supremacy Ducati shared with Honda and no one else - forcibly finished. The ability to put down their big torque and jump out of corners ahead of the best fours - no longer useful when riders frequently indicate that tyres spin earlier and go off sooner.
What Bayliss makes of the often-fickle 999, given his memories of the more predictable 998 factory bike (arguably the best Superbike ever made) is yet to be seen. What he makes of the change from MotoGP Michelins to mass-produced, conservatively specified SBK Pirellis will probably never be uttered in public. But without doubt his choice of Pirellis will be the same as everyone else's choice of Pirellis, at every track.
I have often exhorted that Ducati can never be written off, and even with Bayliss's long term prospects for recovery from a horrid forearm injury still unknown, I continue that mantra now. In fact, it would not shock me if both Bayliss and Lanzi are title contenders right to the final races, and either may even crown himself champion. But, unlike some optimistic mutterings from within Ducati, it's far from a certainty that even one of them will finish top three. The only definite is that it's going to be enthralling watching the old master and the great white-green-and-red hope go for the jugulars of the fours.
Elitism
Here's a simple question. Has the spec Pirelli tyre rule of the last two years made the races any closer? Statistically, it hasn't seemed to that often. Corser, then Vermeulen, were generally the top two this year. Even in '04, when the factory Ducatis duelled it out, it was something like '03, with Hodgson and Xaus on Michelins.
In other regards, SBK '05 been closer. Well, not necessarily much closer, just fairer. We'll come back to the semantics of that in a second.
In Pirelli year one it was too much of a Ducati-fest to really make any conclusions. This year, things have happened at a greater pace more often, and on more types of machine, but only for the top riders; even if there have been more different winners and podium finishers, scoring the odd ones here and there.
What we can also see from the points table is that racing for the championship is still between the few riders in the elite group. So it's not really been closer in real terms, no matter how much fairer it is at the start of every race weekend.
Top riders and teams will always make the difference on race day, in any class of racing - just ask Valentino.
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