2020 Season Predictions

Ducati has one hope left, monsieur Zarco, will he start pulling rabbits out from the hat?

Segfault said:

Ducati has one hope left, monsieur Zarco, will he start pulling rabbits out from the hat?

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Zarco was a nine-day-wonder while in Tech 3. I take on any Yamaha rider on a Ducati with a extra large grain of salt. Lorenzo managed to success but had to make an enormous effort. And we know Lorenzo is one the most obstinate guys in the paddock.

Ducati wanted either Vinales or Fabio, but in my opinion, none of them would adapt, and both riders knew it, so that it is not by accident they stayed where they are now. Signing with one of them would be a desperate move done by Ducati. The Italian house need to thank Yamaha by not allowing them commit another dumb mistake.

Next time Domenicali has to remember what to do: keep your patrimony with special care.

They believed Dubiozo - the eternal vice, the Barrichelo of motos - and spitted on the face of a 3 time world champion. Damn... nobody wins 3 championships by chance.

Well, I would at least try to convince Stoner to be back only for one year. He would have a full year to train, test the bike on all tracks, and try to solve his health issue.

C'mon boy, I know you read this forum (lol)... let's try it, just one year. You fished a lot already, stop that .... a bit! Your condition has worsened because you are so depressed, you born to win, to be champion, to race! Your brain needs racing, adrenaline!

Give that taste to the world, Stoner vs Marquez, the battle of the century!

gui22a said:

Well, I would at least try to convince Stoner to be back only for one year. He would have a full year to train, test the bike on all tracks, and try to solve his health issue.

C'mon boy, I know you read this forum (lol)... let's try it, just one year. You fished a lot already, stop that .... a bit! Your condition has worsened because you are so depressed, you born to win, to be champion, to race! Your brain needs racing, adrenaline!

Give that taste to the world, Stoner vs Marquez, the battle of the century!

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If you had listen to Stoner interview on rusty garage, you would know what you are saying is not going to happened. Outside of Stoners health issues, speculating from that interview. If he were to do anything motogp it wont be ducati. It would most likely be Honda.

Hucati can hire Rossi. I heard somewhere he is looking for a ride. He will be winning on it in 90 seconds.

Hollywood said:

I think Ducati really wanted Maverick, now they may be in a bad position. how long does Dovi have left? Petrucci doesnt seem like he is going to do anything. Jack has shown sparks of potential, and likely deserves a factory ride. though no one else seems able to compete on the Ducati. might they go after Marquez, seriously?

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Agree. Unless Ducati pull a tech-rabbit out of a hat it looks to be another disappointing year for the Italians.
I reckon they know that and wonder what their long game is, or more to the point, if they have one.

evo9 said:

If you had listen to Stoner interview on rusty garage, you would know what you are saying is not going to happened. Outside of Stoners health issues, speculating from that interview. If he were to do anything motogp it wont be ducati. It would most likely be Honda.

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LOL... your love for Honda outweight your talent. Although this is not difficult since your only talent is to love a bike brand.

If you follow Casey a bit, you would know that in all of his social medias he uploaded pics and avatars using the Ducati suit, but never with Honda's. The memories he wanted to be recalled is the title with Ducati, the one that catapulted his fame.

Interesting to note, despite all the doomsaying by the Gang Of Four, this forum is (in their absence) flourishing. More activity here than on Kropo's site, minus, the constant flame wars and for the most part, very little of the personal attacks and incessant back biting.

I've been on the net for 30 years, it started with Usenet back then, forums were not invented yet. I've noticed there is a certain threshold, when average intelligence of members exceeds it then bad cookies do not feel at home any more and tend to leave. Another thing is smart moderation, more intelligent the members are less they like if their posts are deleted or edited by moderators. I have seen more than one time by deleting a single post moderators effectively have deleted the member, (s)he will stop posting. On Gentoo forums they have special subforum for such offtopic posts, mods move these there and the dignity of poster is saved and the technical part of forum remains clean.

Marquez to win the title comfortably again.

Here’s my issue with Vinales taking a real fight to Marquez over a season. In 2016 Yamaha riders finished comfortably 2nd and 3rd behind Marquez but the riders were unable to match Marquez’s consistency. But a Yamaha finished in the top 2 in 12/18 weekends, top 3 15/18 weekends and crashed out of a podium position in all but one of their non podium weekends. The other Honda riders were on the podium 8 times between 3 of them. 2017 saw 3 Yamahas finish in the top 6, Honda 2 and Ducati 1. On the podium 12/18 races. Catalanya and Jerez were bad rounds for them, the asphalt was blamed as was the electronics and the hp deficit at Austria was a clear problem. 2018 again saw 3 Yamahas finish in the top 6, Honda had 1, Ducati 1 and Suzuki 1. On the podium 12/18 races. 2019 had 3 Yamahas in the top 7. 13/19 races they had a bike on the podium and if not for Vinales going all or nothing in Australia it would’ve been 14/19. Vinales was also the only guy capable of stretching away from Marquez all season.

Since the introduction of Michelin and control electronics every rider bar Marquez has been consistently in consistent. So while the 12/18 or 13-14/19 might not sound that impressive it’s on par or better than Ducati or Honda without Marquez. Dovi has been the closest thing to consistent but has faltered far too much when the track didn’t suit him or the bike. The same is true IMO of the Yamaha riders but the bike is more consistent that their riders. Different Yamaha riders are often competitive on different tracks while those on the same bike aren’t. The same isn’t true for Ducati, if Dovi has a .... weekend so does everyone else on a Ducati generally. For Honda if Marquez has a .... weekend Honda may as well have just stayed home. So while Yamaha have a top speed deficit, their bike is still the easiest and most well sorted package on the grid IMO. It doesn’t mean they can’t make improvements and get a stronger bike but unless their bike is head and shoulders above every other bike on the grid their riders haven’t shown the consistency to take a title fight to Marquez with the form he has been in since 2016. But what the media and some fans have done IMO is blame the bike for rider short comings. For instance Dovi is excellent at preserving his tyre life, other Ducati riders such as Miller, Petrucci and Lorenzo have destroyed their tyres trying to run the same pace as Dovi on the same bike. The bike isn’t blamed for destroying the tyres, the riders are. The total opposite of what happens at Yamaha. Marquez’s most underrated ability IMO is getting life out of his tyres, he has shown it consistently over his career. Rossi runs out of tyres at the end of the race and fall back, it’s the bikes fault, Vinales has his best laps at the end of the race and Quartararo has shown an ability to also not fall away at the end of most of races despite it being his rookie season. Still it’s Yamahas fault Rossi falls back and their bike sucks. This is just an example of what has happened when judging Yamahas bike, their riders show inconsistency while their bike shows similar or better consistency to Ducati and Honda but their bike is still the reason why they haven’t won a title recently. Some are even saying that Rossi will do better at Petronas because then he will have a better bike like Fabio.

Ducati still can’t make their bike turn effectively. Honda has been a bit of a basket case since 2015, results outside of Marquez’s have gotten worse but the reports if true are saying that all their riders are asking for the same things. If Honda can solve the front end issues that plagued them last year after fixing their acceleration and top speed issues that have been hindering their bike since 2015 then Marquez can and will run away with another few titles without anyone else getting a sniff.

Even with Lorenzo as test rider and Yamaha clearly making (the right IMO) moves to put an end to Marquez’s title run I don’t believe Vinales or Rossi will have the consistency or the ability to ride around problems or less than ideal conditions for them and their bike. That leaves Fabio, I think he is tremendously talented and the air apparent to lead Yamahas next title charge but we haven’t seen anything that shows us that he can do what needs to be done to beat Marquez over a season yet. He had some great results but still showed some inconsistency that may or may not be a result of it being his rookie year.

I think now that Lorenzo is working on the Yamaha, Fabio is in with a shout of having as good a year as last year, or better. I really think that will work well for Yamaha


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Have to agree with everything p4p1 said. But there is more. Yamaha development is derossified now, it may or may not have serious impact on their future success. And there is new rear tire, we don't know how this is going to affect the pecking order.