2024 MotoGP Round 11: Motorrad Grand Prix von Österreich - Red Bull Ring

JPSLotus said:

Marc said just the other day you have to ride the bike to what it does as opposed to the rider determining more of what the bike does. That's why Pecco is doing so well, he figured out how to ride Gigi's creation the way it has to be ridden as opposed to how he might want to actually ride it.

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It was never the case that the rider rode as he pleased. Bikes, cars, horses, all have their characteristics you can't bend.

This is merely a different breed of bikes, and the way you ride is different. Marc has still not figured out how to ride the Ducati to its limit, without tipping over. Bagnaia has. So in 2024 he is better than Marc, even in Marc has won more races and championships.

AnnoyingTwit said:

A question I have about Sunday - do people think that Pecco had time in hand? Could he have gone faster if he needed to? Was he just managing the race?

His pass on Martin looked quite easy to me.

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Pecco always manages from the front. If he is able to get there, he never pushes to disappear Lorenzo style. He just builds up a decent lead, and waits to be pointed to his spot in Parc Ferme.

While it's incredible how these things accelerate at the start I don't think there's any way a rider can make a difference there. KTM figured something out at the start of last season which now everyone has figured out.
They're all planted to the ground when they get going.
The action is just a far cry from where it once was.
Yesterday's race was so depressing it reminded me of 2017-2020 F1.

Yes, that's what it looked like to me. [Pecco having a bit in hand and managing the race] As I mentioned upthread, before the race Pecco looked so calm and confident, and after the race he looked calm and relaxed. There was that one wobble however. Which had me thinking.

There needs to be confidence to manage a race with only 1.6s or so gap. That's not that much, and one serious going wide could reduce that to zero. It seems to me that Bagnaia was supremely confident.

He is the reigning double world champion. He is leading the current championship. He has won seven GPs this season, and four back-to-back before Silverstone.
Why wouldn't he be very confident?

Sennas_Caress said:

It was never the case that the rider rode as he pleased. Bikes, cars, horses, all have their characteristics you can't bend.

This is merely a different breed of bikes, and the way you ride is different. Marc has still not figured out how to ride the Ducati to its limit, without tipping over. Bagnaia has. So in 2024 he is better than Marc, even in Marc has won more races and championships.



Pecco always manages from the front. If he is able to get there, he never pushes to disappear Lorenzo style. He just builds up a decent lead, and waits to be pointed to his spot in Parc Ferme.

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Back in the ‘70s the bikes were more similar than dissimilar - so Lawson for instance could be competitive on multiple bikes. As manufacturers build increasingly idiosyncratic bikes fans IMHO tend to create these myths about riders who are super adaptable to different constructions, but in truth, I’ve always held that the riders like Stoner and Marquez don’t “adapt” so much as they ride certain machines in spite of their incompatible designs. Pecco has been a Ducati guy since he left Moto 2. After all the years with HRC, I suspect Marquez will never fully unlearn all the techniques that became instinctual for beating the Honda into submission.

Sennas_Caress said:

He is the reigning double world champion. He is leading the current championship. He has won seven GPs this season, and four back-to-back before Silverstone.
Why wouldn't he be very confident?

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I would expect that confidence would vary depending on his points advantage in the championship (none, at that time), and his feeling as to where here is in terms of competitiveness against his rivals, particularly Martin, in the upcoming race. He'd been through both practice, qualifying, and the sprint race at that time. I feel that the amount of confidence he seemed to exude was more than just what would be expected based on previous race results and his position in the championship at that time. To me it looked as if he more or less knew he had this race.

I have to say I was impressed with Bagnaia this weekend. He was in a different league, doing 29.5's well into the GP. I don't think Marc would have done better than 3rd or 4th even without the startline drama.

Sennas_Caress said:

It was never the case that the rider rode as he pleased. Bikes, cars, horses, all have their characteristics you can't bend.

This is merely a different breed of bikes, and the way you ride is different. Marc has still not figured out how to ride the Ducati to its limit, without tipping over. Bagnaia has. So in 2024 he is better than Marc, even in Marc has won more races and championships.

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It's less that the rider rode as he pleased, and more that he had more tools in his own skillset to rely on to make the bike go faster. I mean look at Casey, he was the prime example of taking a bike and beating it into submission. No one else could have won the title on the GP7 but Casey. He rode around every problem, which is what I am getting at.

Is Bagnaia really better than Marc currently?

I would say no. His results are better no doubt, but the only way to know if he is really better is to have them both on the same machines, which we will be getting for the next 2 seasons. That is the real test.The GP23 is not fast enough to keep up with the GP24's at this point in my opinion unless something out of the ordinary occurs...and that doesn't seem very likely at the moment.

#22 said:

I have to say I was impressed with Bagnaia this weekend. He was in a different league, doing 29.5's well into the GP. I don't think Marc would have done better than 3rd or 4th even without the startline drama.

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Bagnaia is invincible, using output compression now.
Is this supposed to blow away competition?

Keshav said:

Back in the ‘70s the bikes were more similar than dissimilar - so Lawson for instance could be competitive on multiple bikes. As manufacturers build increasingly idiosyncratic bikes fans IMHO tend to create these myths about riders who are super adaptable to different constructions, but in truth, I’ve always held that the riders like Stoner and Marquez don’t “adapt” so much as they ride certain machines in spite of their incompatible designs. Pecco has been a Ducati guy since he left Moto 2. After all the years with HRC, I suspect Marquez will never fully unlearn all the techniques that became instinctual for beating the Honda into submission.

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They/Gigi actually engineered a bike with the specific purpose of negating the intrinsic human ability MM had to ride in a way no one else could. And they did it with aero, and hence won’t get much in the way of cheers from me at least.

Few will disagree that Bagnaia looks to be the master of the current paradigm, he has grown up with the bike and it has been developed around him, but of course his talent has played a major role.

Like JPS I haven’t given up on a last hurrah from MM yet, and don’t think he would be beating MM if they swapped bikes, even if he is better than current MM imo he couldn’t overcome the superiority of the GP24 as a bike.

He looks very likely to have 3 premier class titles by the end of the season, which historically has been the mark of greatness in the sport, and will be for him. I might have to stop watching the sport, no problem with him winning by being the best, but I can’t stand Rossi turning up post race, on the track this last tome. time.

I believe MM may still have the pace for a year or two, but he will have to get back to the relentless consistency of some of his former years to have a chance to beat Bagnaia, who seems to have rather mastered the relentless consistency thing himself. Hopefully from the MM fan point of view he has got the ball luck and crashing out of his system this year, and won’t over ride on an equal bike.

We only have to wait half a year to see the battle lines being drawn, all things equal, including machinery.

Some predictions how 2025 might unfold in Ducati garage.
Bagnaia has hailed to have strong personality, I do not see it. I see strong ego. I see him driven by this ego of his into hotheaded decisions. Looking back at his MotoGP years I'd say there are up to 8 cases when he let his ego get better of him with unfavorable consequences.
This makes me think first 3-4 races will be important for him. If Marc finishes in front of him a few times and then he sees Marc's smiling face in the pits he may crack. Talking about mind games, Marc has uncanny ability to say nothing yet to leave the other party with feeling he is a dog barking at a moving train – that would be Marc. This can devastate a guy like Bagnaia. (It drove Rossi nuts.)
Just my thoughts this morning. Maybe Bagnaia starts winning and Marc will never catch up.

I also think that MM93 still has it. But, I think Bagnaia has it as well. We'll see next year.

AnnoyingTwit said:

I also think that MM93 still has it. But, I think Bagnaia has it as well. We'll see next year.

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I am already looking forward to 2025, so many changes coming, will be interesting indeed.

DavidSim said:

I am already looking forward to 2025, so many changes coming, will be interesting indeed.

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I hope Honda will field a Goldwing as their factory entry.

If you’re gonna suck and suck hard, might as well make a spectacle out of it.

michaelm said:

I believe MM may still have the pace for a year or two, but he will have to get back to the relentless consistency of some of his former years to have a chance to beat Bagnaia, who seems to have rather mastered the relentless consistency thing himself. Hopefully from the MM fan point of view he has got the ball luck and crashing out of his system this year, and won’t over ride on an equal bike.

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I'm hoping too, that Marc is using this yr as his learning yr. He won't win the title, but he can sure learn how to get the best out of a Ducati.

Segfault said:

Some predictions how 2025 might unfold in Ducati garage.
Bagnaia has hailed to have strong personality, I do not see it. I see strong ego. I see him driven by this ego of his into hotheaded decisions. Looking back at his MotoGP years I'd say there are up to 8 cases when he let his ego get better of him with unfavorable consequences.
This makes me think first 3-4 races will be important for him. If Marc finishes in front of him a few times and then he sees Marc's smiling face in the pits he may crack. Talking about mind games, Marc has uncanny ability to say nothing yet to leave the other party with feeling he is a dog barking at a moving train – that would be Marc. This can devastate a guy like Bagnaia. (It drove Rossi nuts.)
Just my thoughts this morning. Maybe Bagnaia starts winning and Marc will never catch up.

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I think it's without question that peak Marc is better than peak Pecco. The question is, how close to his peak can Marc get? I wonder if any outside pressure from the VR46 clan may interfere negatively with Bagania too.

AnnoyingTwit said:

I also think that MM93 still has it. But, I think Bagnaia has it as well. We'll see next year.

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I would say I cannot wait. But I was hella excited for the Lorenzo/Marquez showdown at Repsol Honda, and I still haven't gotten over how that ended.

Interesting article here.

https://www.motorsport.com/motogp/n...a-motogp-battle-without-start-drama/10645750/

I decided to add another level to it, and look at Marquez' laptimes when he was fater than Baganaia, and compare them to Bezzechi, the next GP23.

From lap 20-25 Marc did a 1:30.4 up to a 1:30.9. Over those same 5 laps Bezzechi did a 1:31.2 up to a 1:31.6, so he was consistently 7/10ths (on average) slower.

#22 said:

I would say I cannot wait. But I was hella excited for the Lorenzo/Marquez showdown at Repsol Honda, and I still haven't gotten over how that ended.

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If Lorenzo and Domenicali talked it out like adults instead of being petulant children, he’d have retired as a 6x world champ, if not more.

Stop, just stop

michaelm said:

I believe MM may still have the pace for a year or two, but he will have to get back to the relentless consistency of some of his former years to have a chance to beat Bagnaia, who seems to have rather mastered the relentless consistency thing himself. Hopefully from the MM fan point of view he has got the ball luck and crashing out of his system this year, and won’t over ride on an equal bike.

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I cannot see this scenario playing out now any more than it ever has before.

Segfault said:

Some predictions how 2025 might unfold in Ducati garage.
Bagnaia has hailed to have strong personality, I do not see it. I see strong ego. I see him driven by this ego of his into hotheaded decisions. Looking back at his MotoGP years I'd say there are up to 8 cases when he let his ego get better of him with unfavorable consequences.
This makes me think first 3-4 races will be important for him. If Marc finishes in front of him a few times and then he sees Marc's smiling face in the pits he may crack. Talking about mind games, Marc has uncanny ability to say nothing yet to leave the other party with feeling he is a dog barking at a moving train – that would be Marc. This can devastate a guy like Bagnaia. (It drove Rossi nuts.)
Just my thoughts this morning. Maybe Bagnaia starts winning and Marc will never catch up.

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Personality, ego , hotheaded decisions…. You’re talking about MM right? The MM who gave up wins and possible titles to teach FQ a lesson that backfired on him…..