By the end of 2024, we had left the French Valentine Debise, 4th in the world championship World SBK Supersports, taking stock of a positive year et outline the contours of the coming season, so after the first round of 2025 in Australia it is time to take stock of the new adventure of the Albigeois riding a Ducati Panigale V2.
A very experienced driver, VD53 has never minced his words, so his debriefings are always very interesting for all French-speaking track drivers, and this one is no exception...
Okay then FP1, premier, OK, closest Super poles the same day, tu
not'can't redo your chrono (1'32.724 vs 1'32.364) and you qualify 5th. Why? ?
Valentine Debise : “Because for the first time since we were in Australia, the track temperature was very hot. And like I said, we discovered hot temperatures. We tried to tinker around to make it work, but we didn't do the right things, and the bike just didn't work, it was too nervous. And so I just couldn't ride.
Yes, well, 5th, 0,414 seconds behind the man who dominated the tests, it wasn't a disaster either, especially given your objectives this winter... This year, the forces seem very balanced and we'll come back to that later, but let's go back to the first race. Was the track temperature high?
» First race, same thing, track temperature even warmer. I changed my setup strategy a little, but knowing that you're going on a race, you never want to do something drastic, knowing that it worked pretty well anyway. Well, I'm always more conservative than going crazy, and it didn't work. It worked, but afterwards, watching the race, looking at the times, it didn't work, but hey, I finished 4 seconds behind the first.
So, well, that's also what you have to take into account, is that afterwards, when you see the number of mistakes I made, the number of times I almost fell, once you don't see me on TV but I'm on the ground, I thought my race was over and in fact the front brake hung up and I didn't fall, but there are plenty of times where I almost killed myself. So if you take away those mistakes, I would finish a second, a second and a half behind the leader, so in the end it's not that bad. But since it's close, well the result is actually bad.
It's not bad: 8th, you said yourself that you hoped to be in the top 10...
“Yes, but once you set the first time in FP1, you know that it's a top 10, obviously, because at some point you're not going to go to Australia to be in the top 10. But there, suddenly, there was still a way to be in front, but given the lack of knowledge of the bike and everything, well, it didn't work out, you know.
Okay. Well, still, an 8th place, 1/1000 of a second behind 7th, there are worse things. We arrive at Race 2, where we were still extremely disappointed. You're in the leading group, I think you're in 5th, halfway through the race the others dive for the tire change, you take the lead for a lap, you change tires and you come out in front. What was the difference compared to the day before?
“Well, what happened was that the temperatures were like in practice and like in FP1. So, I put the FP1 settings back on, which were working well, to the click, and straight away, it worked. You can see that at the beginning I was in the leading group, everyone was a little nervous so I was playing it slow, and at one point two of them got away, and by the time I overtook Schroetter there was a 5 or 6 tenths gap. In one lap I made up 6/10 on the guys in front, so I had the speed, I was comfortable, and I thought that I might have a way to get away in the second part of the race. Or at least try. So yeah, I had the right speed, I was happy, and that's it.
And there you have it, at the end of the straight, the first time I think after returning to the track, a certain missile named
Jaume Masia arrives and hits you from behind while braking. Why does he hit you: did you brake earlier?
“No, no, it's just that there was a headwind and we know that when there's a headwind with our little bikes, it quickly creates big gaps between the guy with one vacuum and the guy with four. I think he was coming, and he had four, so he must have arrived 25 km/h faster than usual and than me who was first. So obviously your braking points are different. I brake at the normal point and he braked like me, except that he arrives 25 km/h faster. And what's more, when you're in front, when you brake you have wind, whereas when you're behind someone and you brake, you have less wind on your body. So the bike slows down even less, and so when he took the brakes, he didn't understand anything. And his reaction wasn't good because he could have lifted the bike and ridden over the kerb, but he still tried to get in, so it was a bit stupid. But there you go, I mean, mistakes happen. Last year I hit Mahias, even though I think it wasn't my fault. Then, he hit me: at some point it's motorcycle racing. There's nothing to say to anyone: we ride close, especially this year, so these things happen."
Bottom line, you get knocked to the ground and get up with a broken ankle...
“Yeah, broken ankle, a small fracture.”
How are you today?
“It's okay, I can walk and everything, even if the doctors don't really want me to, but I can walk well. I didn't take any painkillers, so everything's fine.”
So you think you'll be in Portimao fit to drive?
“Yes, well, honestly, even if I have to drive tomorrow, I'll do it. After that, the problem is that I have to pass the doctor's exam. We'll see.”
What kind of mindset are you leaving Australia with? Do you see the bad or the good side of things?
“Well, after that, there are quite a few things internally that I can't really discuss, but that I don't like. But in any case, I'm still happy and proud of the work I did this winter, because once again, if I had been a standard rider, waiting on my sofa and not doing much, nothing would have happened and I would have been 15th. So, by spending millions of euros this winter and doing the tests myself and everything, I managed to arrive with a bike that could compete at the front. So I'm happy in that sense, and I learned quite a few things. After that, it's frustrating in the sense that I think there's a way to do a lot better if we do things a little differently. There you go.”
So what we noticed anyway, and especially in the second race, is that all the bikes were competitive this year. Even the new Yamaha, which hasn't done much testing. All the bikes seem to be more or less equally competitive. We saw that in Superbike, it was a question of consumption from this year, they limit fuel consumption, fuel flow. In Supersport, how do they play on the different brands?
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