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2023 Austrian GP

Well…….. so be it.

In retrospect, was it really irresponsible riding? Aggressive, yes.

In the first case, yes he cut inside Fabio but it’s not his fault Fabio had nowhere to go, thanks to Mav, as has been pointed out. Maybe he was faster than Fabs?

In the second case, did he actually touch Marini? Looked to me like he was faster than Marini, who got spooked due to the close quarters.

I don’t really have a horse in the race or an axe to grind and I know Martin is acquiring a rep. Just not sure it is warranted here.
 
Faz said:
Watch Mav from the start, he caused all the havoc. He went from 2nd on the grid to 7th by the 1st corner, still not up to speed before sweeping across just as Martin squeezed under Fabio. Fab tried to adjust but there was no where to go as Mav was just pedaling across him.
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Barbedwirebikerr said:
Agree.

Mav was on a different trajectory at a slower speed than every other rider at the time. This one is all on Maverick for my opinion.
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I still like Mav and would like him to do well. However, he makes it hard to continue to be a fan and dare I say probably makes it hard to be his employer.

Starting at Yamaha he began a self sabotaging streak that seems to have continued unabated. I think he simply could not stand being on the team with Fabio, what with Fabio winning more than he was.

Now he is playing perennial runner up to Espargaro. I will bet the woe is me streak will get worse. Mav is not mentally strong and he has had a lot of time to fix this. It ain’t gonna get fixed.
 
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Bern1 said:
I still like Mav and would like him to do well. However, he makes it hard to continue to be a fan and dare I say probably makes it hard to be his employer.

Starting at Yamaha he began a self sabotaging streak that seems to have continued unabated. I think he simply could not stand being on the team with Fabio, what with Fabio winning more than he was.

Now he is playing perennial runner up to Espargaro. I will bet the woe is me streak will get worse. Mav is not mentally strong and he has had a lot of time to fix this. It ain’t gonna get fixed.
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His self sabotaging started long ago in the 125 days when he kicked the .... out of his bike quit his team and joined Paris Hilton. Mavrick has been his own worst enemy his entire career.
 
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It must be maddening that your parents name you Maverick, groom you to be world champion and then you don’t deliver.

At least he apparently scored with Paris Hilton!
 
MichaelBolton said:
Another disasterclass by the stewards. Martín must have some blackmail info on them, he always seems to escape punishment. All the crashing made the race unexciting.

Also so much for my prediction of Maverick winning this race, I forgot how awful his starts are, but he had incredible pace in this sprint.
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Agree based on what we saw, it would be good to see some other angles
 
mikesbytes said:
Aspiring to be a world champion like M Marquez
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Has a lot of work to do then. Needs to get a popular leading rider to hate him and use his fans to unsuccessfully apply negative pressure to him first.
Needs to shrug that off and then proceed to out ride the entire field and consistently push the front end of a motorcycle well past it's limits and stay on board.
Should have been doing that since his first season too.
 
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I only saw one replay of Fabio's incident with Savadori but was it worthy of a long lap penalty when Martin's move on Marini was not?

Good news when a rider qualifies on the front two rows. Bad news is when they make it through the first couple of turns and find themselves behind Jack Miller. By the time they can get by the riders in front are already 1.5 seconds in the clear. I was bummed Binder couldn't stay with Bags but glad to see Binder get a podium.
 
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PRS717 said:
I only saw one replay of Fabio's incident with Savadori but was it worthy of a long lap penalty when Martin's move on Marini was not?

Good news when a rider qualifies on the front two rows. Bad news is when they make it through the first couple of turns and find themselves behind Jack Miller. By the time they can get by the riders in front are already 1.5 seconds in the clear. I was bummed Binder couldn't stay with Bags but glad to see Binder get a podium.
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I thought Martin needed a penalty for knocking Marini off too, however Marini said it was a racing incident
 
Bern1 said:
In retrospect, was it really irresponsible riding? Aggressive, yes.

In the first case, yes he cut inside Fabio but it’s not his fault Fabio had nowhere to go, thanks to Mav, as has been pointed out. Maybe he was faster than Fabs?
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Hofmann and Bradl pretty clearly assigned blame to Jorge and I agree with them. The replays showed that Jorge released the brakes to dive bomb into one. Most likely wouldn't have made the corner if there hadn't been four riders to lean on.
 
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The thing is I only want these penalties because they seem to penalize some riders and not others. If it was up to me they wouldn't give out any penalties and let them handle it themselves like Rossi and Biaggi did back in the day.
 
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JFM01 said:
The gap between Brad and Jack is getting worrisome.
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Jack seems to be totally lost on the current tyres. he has always had a problem getting his tyres to last, but can't even seem to sustain his pace for more than a few laps of the sprint race currently.

I am not finding the current racing with the current bikes under the current regulations much of a spectacle. For probably the first time ever I couldn't even be bothered watching to the end of this race.. Like Bern1 I am not sure I will renew my subscription. Perhaps hypocritically I didn't mind Stoner and MM dominating but at least could feel I was watching something extraordinary/riding beyond mundane human limits.
 
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Peerless ride by Pecco. He controlled from the front, and continued pulling away thanks to Ducati's superior tire management. Binder did well in 2nd place to hold off the Ducati onslaught behind him. I thought A Marquez was going to bring it home in third. His lines were clean, and it looked like he was managing his tires well, but both Bezzechi and Marini were able to come through. Mav, well what can you say. Another weekend where he failed to convert, after showing frontrunning pace and a front row grid position. Congrats to Marc Marquez for scoring his first Sunday points of 2023.

I'm not generally not one to complain about the stewarding, but I'm not sure how they've lost so much control at the Red Bull Ring that riders just sort of do their own thing on Lap 1 in Turn 1. Some riders try to make the apex and avoid running wide. Some guys just go around the outside and they don't bother with the apex at all. Other riders, as Martin did this weekend, dive bomb up the inside, expecting everyone else to run a couple meters wide. It's a mess, and while I think Martin's penalty was too light, I can also understand why he might have expected to have room. This situation is not unique to Austria, but the magnitude of the problem seems greater.

I complain often this season but I'll to it again briefly. One WC in 8th, 6 WC's in 12th, and 1 WC in the gravel trap for the 6th time this season. This isn't the natural technical progression of motorsport. This is a coup, albeit one that Honda and Yamaha ratified.
 
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Most uneventful race of the year. Seems like barring injury, Bagnaia will be a repeat champion, hasn't put a foot wrong in the entire weekend. On less obvious things:

-Mav with a repeat of yesterday's race, woeful start combined with rising pace but not enough at the end.
-Jorge Martín did well to overcome the bad starting position + LLP. Could've ended third without the latter, but then again I think he got off lightly with a single LLP.
-Fabio fluctuating, but the new aero proves to be not enough.
-The Honda might still be slow, but at least it didn't try to kill riders not named Mir. Let's see if they can build a good base from here.
-Was Zarco distracted with the contract negotiations? Very Miller-esque race, to not speak of Miller himself. Keep that seat warm for Marc, Jack.
-What happened to Oliveira? Also the other RNF Aprilia didn't finish the race for some reason.

A race to forget for the viewer.
 
mylexicon said:
Peerless ride by Pecco. He controlled from the front, and continued pulling away thanks to Ducati's superior tire management. Binder did well in 2nd place to hold off the Ducati onslaught behind him. I thought A Marquez was going to bring it home in third. His lines were clean, and it looked like he was managing his tires well, but both Bezzechi and Marini were able to come through. Mav, well what can you say. Another weekend where he failed to convert, after showing frontrunning pace and a front row grid position. Congrats to Marc Marquez for scoring his first Sunday points of 2023.

I'm not generally not one to complain about the stewarding, but I'm not sure how they've lost so much control at the Red Bull Ring that riders just sort of do their own thing on Lap 1 in Turn 1. Some riders try to make the apex and avoid running wide. Some guys just go around the outside and they don't bother with the apex at all. Other riders, as Martin did this weekend, dive bomb up the inside, expecting everyone else to run a couple meters wide. It's a mess, and while I think Martin's penalty was too light, I can also understand why he might have expected to have room. This situation is not unique to Austria, but the magnitude of the problem seems greater.

I complain often this season but I'll to it again briefly. One WC in 8th, 6 WC's in 12th, and 1 WC in the gravel trap for the 6th time this season. This isn't the natural technical progression of motorsport. This is a coup, albeit one that Honda and Yamaha ratified.
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Agree about Bagnaia, he seems to have dialed out the mistakes from earlier in his career and rides flawlessly now. I don't believe the 8 Ducati riders are the best 8 on the grid, but they all have good equipment and none of them can touch him currently, even apart from crashing which he pretty much doesn't do himself anymore.

As someone who didn't see Sheene, KRSR or Spencer in their pomp but has followed the sport since Gardner's day it seems strangely passionless now with only one way to ride the bikes, and any exploration of the limit perilous to attempt. Bagnaia is obviously faster than everyone else currently though.
 
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