Joined Oct 2011
248 Posts | 112+
Adelaide
Joined Mar 2016
2K Posts | 2K+
FNQ
Joined Mar 2016
2K Posts | 2K+
FNQ
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Toutes nos félicitations Monsieur Fabio. Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Dayammmm....! Gutted for Bagnaia, despite the fact I was rooting for Fabio. I expect the loss will only motivate him more for 22. With Marquez (hopefully) fully recovered, Bags and Fabio fighting for podiums we should be looking at a banner season. Pol seems to be coping with the Honda better than any other recent riders not named Marquez.
Dayammmm....! Gutted for Bagnaia, despite the fact I was rooting for Fabio. I expect the loss will only motivate him more for 22. With Marquez (hopefully) fully recovered, Bags and Fabio fighting for podiums we should be looking at a banner season. Pol seems to be coping with the Honda better than any other recent riders not named Marquez.
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Very worthy title win by FQ, and all congratulations to him.
I suspect he and Bagnaia will mainly be competing for the second and third places on the podium next season though, I foresee MM being healthy/fit enough for a season or two anyway, and a very strong effort from Honda who will likely be concentrating more on motogp than has been the case in recent seasons.
Joined Apr 2015
6K Posts | 5K+
NJ
Marc is back. His pointing at his right arm when he crossed the finish line said it all. He knows better than us armchair experts do.
Congrats to Fabio for not letting this get away from him. Well deserved, but next year's going to be much different, he's going to have a hell of a title defense to mount.
Congrats to Fabio for not letting this get away from him. Well deserved, but next year's going to be much different, he's going to have a hell of a title defense to mount.
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
I can't help speculating at how much better Marquez's ride would have been, minus that over-the-bars flying he did in quali. He clearly slammed that shoulder on the wind-screen. At the press meet following quali, he said that incident truly put a big dent in his confidence.
Oh, and I forgot, Bastinini was really something on that two-year-old bike. Haven't followed all the silly season developments. Will the kid get a newer bike next year?
Just watched, that was quite something. Congratulations to Fabio, well fought. I was rooting for Fabio but feel bad for Bagnaia. In retrospect, he could have let up after that fast lap but he didn’t know that. So it goes.
I hear people saying now that MM is back, he will take over again at the top. I’m not so sure. I’ll be looking forward to a changing of the guard. Both Fabio and Pecco have what it takes to do the job.. But there’s not a lot of room for error.
Sorry for Miller, damn. But at least he did it to himself.
I hear people saying now that MM is back, he will take over again at the top. I’m not so sure. I’ll be looking forward to a changing of the guard. Both Fabio and Pecco have what it takes to do the job.. But there’s not a lot of room for error.
Sorry for Miller, damn. But at least he did it to himself.
Joined Feb 2020
979 Posts | 1K+
Bendigo Vic
That is a possibility. I hope Honda do work a bit harder.
Pecco and Fab have impressed me alot this year. Pecco particularly, in the latter part of the season.
The competition has gotten stronger for MM.
His body is weaker.
I still see him as the best but there is very strong competition that is younger and getting stronger. He certainly isn't going to have it all his own way.
Joined May 2009
6K Posts | 4K+
Shovel's Club
How dare Fabio win the title on Vales day. Shame on you! The custard stain ..... will never let you live this down. Well done Fabio. Well done.
Marc said post race, "today is not my day, its fabios." First that was a very classy thing to say. Secondly that was a wonderful .... you to Rossi.
Marc said post race, "today is not my day, its fabios." First that was a very classy thing to say. Secondly that was a wonderful .... you to Rossi.
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Even if Marquez gets back to full battle-readiness... there will be the ongoing issue with HRC's tone-deaf attitude to rider feedback, and Honda's longstanding formula of corporate bowing to the whims of their engineering people and refusing to acknowledge the need to make a more rider-friendly bike, which in light of how competitive Fabs and Pecco have become, is something Marquez can ill-afford to not demand. He's not the kid he was 8 years ago, and superhuman as he's been, there's just so long he can go on riding around the bike's idiosyncracies. The conservative Yamaha people move at a glacial pace when it comes to upgrades and Fabio's M1 will probably just have the usual subtle upgrades next year. But KTM, Aprilia and most especially Ducati R&D are pouring it on, and continue to improve in leaps and bounds.
Not so sure about MM returning to former dominance. In fact I suspect it will taper off. For sure Pecco and Fabio are looking forward to racing him next year.
I’ve thought for the last couple of years Honda has been coasting and letting MM do the work. This year has proven that that strategy has reached its limits. Honda is retreating from F1 and it is only the pride of the company as being originally a motorcycle company that keeps them in the game. I suspect (admittedly based on no real knowledge or research) that 4 wheeled vehicles have got to outpace motorcycles in dollar sales volume for the company at this point by a significant margin. We’ll see next year how much they improve the MotoGP program and what kind of effort they make towards doing so.
Firing Puig and getting somebody else would seem to be good start. I don’t really know how good a team manager he is but he has always seemed to be a little ..... He’s a Spaniard though and that carries some weight in a Dorna dominated scenario. I always respected him as a journeyman rider though, particularly after that crash at Le Mans and the effort he made to come back.
Joined Jun 2008
1K Posts | 365+
USA
The Honda is the worst bike on the grid. You should listen to what Pol said post race conference. Should HRC bring out a good package for 2022, order will resume. He not saying it straight out but, I think Marc is also using this year to study his opponents. He let that slipped out during COTA.
That’s the thing.
All signs are that Honda is going to make a big effort for next year with all the top brass turning up at a recent race, and the new bike looked good the first time MM tested it. MM shouldn’t be anywhere near a talent like Bagnaia on a bike that has the current Honda covered most places on any given circuit, yet has given Pecco everything he could handle in a couple of recent races, to the extent that he didn’t handle it in the most recent race.
This was also a right handed circuit as has been alluded to, and he has mainly done well on left handed circuits since the humeral fracture, including both his previous wins. I doubt his shoulder(s) will hold up for a Doohan like run, but I can see him being physically good enough for a season or 2, particularly with a full off season of physical training; he wasn’t even passed fit to ride a motogp bike by his doctors until the season started this year iirc.
Likewise. I would have liked to see Fabio get the podium but credit to Bastianini.
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Joined Nov 2015
242 Posts | 144+
Australia
Congrats to Fabio, what a roller coaster of events its been that has led him to take the 2021 crown. From his worst MotoGp qualifying to taking the title must have had the heart pumping!
Bags certainly put in an amazing effort. Just when I thought being forged in the fire of Marc Marquez's pressure was going to once again make him stronger, he throws it down the road by himself. Amazing how fine the line is between taking the win or putting it in the bin.
Cracker of a ride by Marquez. His recovery certainly hasn't been quick but it's definitely been progressive. Will he ever be the same Marquez we witnessed before the broken arm, no I don't think so. Will he be good enough to take another title?, certainly looks more and more possible at this rate.
Bags certainly put in an amazing effort. Just when I thought being forged in the fire of Marc Marquez's pressure was going to once again make him stronger, he throws it down the road by himself. Amazing how fine the line is between taking the win or putting it in the bin.
Cracker of a ride by Marquez. His recovery certainly hasn't been quick but it's definitely been progressive. Will he ever be the same Marquez we witnessed before the broken arm, no I don't think so. Will he be good enough to take another title?, certainly looks more and more possible at this rate.
Joined Feb 2020
979 Posts | 1K+
Bendigo Vic
I dont disagree Ktm and Ducati are working very hard and pretty effectively too.
In Duke's case they have Pecco who is very impressive imo.
With respect to Honda listening to their engineers in preference to their riders, I don't disagree, there appears to have been a history of that.
However they have won more than anyone else, so a touch of arrogance, whilst not a positive attribute necessarily, is perhaps understandable.
I remain unconvinced Marquez is the best development rider either.
He is the fastest, ballsiest, most fearless rider I have seen in motoGP that can ride around some serious machine shortcomings.
Development? Not so much imo.
There is a limit to riding around shortcomings however and you could argue his injuries have lowered that limit.
Honda does need to improve the bike.
Others are indicating they are now working harder to achieve that aim.
I hope they are.
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
I do believe I understand where it comes from. It's the whole Shogun feudal mentality. The wealthiest warlords who could convey the greatest status, were always the ones who attracted the deadliest and most talented samurai clans, allowing them to dominate all the lesser warlords. It wasn't that the Shogun made the best swords or smartest battle strategies, they just paid more money to hire the best employees.
I still maintain, that the whole rider-development thing is greatly (not entirely) exaggerated in the minds of us fans. I would love to be able to do an interview with a few riders to see what they say about this.