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...
Valentin, since the last interview and the first tests in Jerez, we saw that you had a bike equivalent to the team's to train a little. How did it go before arriving in Australia, and what was your approach?
Valentine Debise : » What happened is that I only tried the team bike once in Jerez, at the beginning of November.. And after that, they didn't organize a test, or they couldn't, I don't really know, and so I, like every year anyway, rushed pretty quickly to get a bike via Ducati Bayonne and Ducati France. It was a big job to assemble it identical to what the team uses, because there are a lot of parts to assemble, etc., and since I didn't know the bike, it took a little time. But I was ready and I was able to ride the day after Christmas, the 26th, I was able to ride in Valencia and do the tests. And fortunately, because I already had some problems with the bike following a faulty electrical harness that I had bought new in England. So after, seeing the difficulties I had on the bike at the beginning and seeing that the team didn't necessarily want to do the training, suddenly I organized myself to do my own tests, and instead of doing the usual riding, there were really tests properly speaking, with an engineer that I took with me, the 2D for the bike to have good data, and a lot of equipment to be able to do the tests, suspension tests, caster angle tests, connecting rod tests, knowing that on these New Generation bikes we can change a lot more parameters. So on the one hand it wasn't my job to do that, but on the other hand it was really interesting to look a little more at the technique, and try to make the bike work so that it suited me.
The settings you ended up with, did they match those of the bike you tested in Valencia or did you go in another direction?
"What I did was that the team sent me a suspension set that was set identically to what I had finished the tests with in Jerez, so that I could already leave with that and find the same stations with my bike and theirs. And right away, they were the same, so that was already positive because it meant that the work I could do was going to help me for the race bike. And after that, I still tried to insist to understand if it was me who was the problem or if it was the bike. I think there was a way to go between the two in any case, because the Ducati, well, you have to ride it slightly differently, especially in the neutral phases: you have to shorten them because the bike doesn't like to be in neutral, you know. In fact, it always wants you to give it action. So that took me a while to understand, and then I took the time to change the settings quite a bit. In the end, I changed a lot of things, but I did it really little by little, because whether it was me or Sébastien who came with me, we didn't know the bike. So we got into it little by little, we tried, we did the counter-tests and everything, so it took time, but in the end, I don't remember the number of days but I did 2000 km in total during the winter and I spent €10 on tires (laughs). So it was a bit stupid all the money I spent during the winter, it had never happened to me, but anyway, that's how it was, and in the end I arrived with a bike that I liked, and I managed to do decent times. On the other hand, I had the original engine so I know that I was losing in terms of engine, and so that's why even if it was a little better than my original R000 of the year, I didn't really know where I stood, to know if I was going to perform or not. So the judge of peace was going to be in Australia, you know.
During the pre-season test in Australia, you finished with the 3rd time overall. It was still surprising, seen from the outside…
“Well yes, because even I, frankly, I said to myself 'If I manage to get into the top 10 in one of the 2 races, I'll be happy'. And in the end, from the first few laps, I did 3 laps and I was 2 seconds off my times from last year with the Yamaha. Right away, I felt good and I was able to apply speed. And my strategy was clear: I had started with a bike that I liked, but I had not started with the last bike that I had done, because I had still changed some big things, especially on the caster angle and the length of the connecting rod. And so, I redid a lot of tests that I had already done on my bike, to confirm that it was going in the same direction and that the sensations were the same. And so, at the beginning we just concentrated on redoing the tests without necessarily being able to adjust the bike for the circuit. And actually everything was working well, so every time we changed something, I was progressing, I was progressing, and so after the tests, I already had a good idea of the bike I needed for the first session of the race weekend, and actually all along we were pretty much spot on.
Obviously, because when you arrive in FP1, bingo, straight away best time!
“In FP1, what I did was I made a synthesis of a bike that I liked, with a caster angle that I liked. So a bike, let's say a bit hybrid compared to all the tests that I had been able to do, and there we got it right and it worked well. I did the times alone, so there was not much to say: quite happy to have found a good balance on this track!”
You're talking about caster angle. We know that Australia is a very particular track, very fluid, where there are no small tight turns. Do you think we'll have to modify this angle for the future or not?
“Yeah, anyway I've already pointed out some faults on the bike, or at least things that we can't necessarily fix for the moment, especially when we have hot temperatures. We'll talk about it later but when we have hot temperatures, there's something that doesn't work, and I haven't figured out what yet. Because during all the tests in Australia, it was minus 500° as usual (laughs) and we didn't have hot temperatures. And one of the other problems that I've identified is when you put the soft tires on, the bike still tends to turn badly. So that means that it has a little too much grip on the rear tire, and suddenly it doesn't turn and so I can't get any speed through the corners. So those are the 2 points that we will have to focus on in the near future, knowing that at Phillip Island we only had access to the hardest tire in the range, so we were bothered by that. I also think that the disadvantage I had this winter when I put on soft tires and it didn't work very well, but there with the hard tire I think I had a little advantage over the others.
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? ?
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