2024 Season warmup - Let's go!

gui22a said:

Sure. It makes sense. Only two WC in motogp for a guy like him is surely very few. But the guy has all that problem with lactose intolerance and whatever more. I just think he's a very lazy and unambitious guy. I have this impression about him.

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MdubSTYLIE said:

I mean no disrespect when I say that. I am complimenting his ability by saying he should have won more. His first year after a team switch was his best because it came with less pressure. Becoming a champion is easier than repeating a championship. Once you have proven you can win it becomes expected. Thats a lot of pressure to deal with. Riding a bike came easy to him racing not so much. He seems so much happier now that he is retired and I am happy for him.

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MdubSTYLIE said:

I mean no disrespect when I say that. I am complimenting his ability by saying he should have won more. His first year after a team switch was his best because it came with less pressure. Becoming a champion is easier than repeating a championship. Once you have proven you can win it becomes expected. Thats a lot of pressure to deal with. Riding a bike came easy to him racing not so much. He seems so much happier now that he is retired and I am happy for him.

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Keshav said:

I think there’s no doubt that he could have won more. That said, he has stated, unequivocably, that he quit, because he wasn’t enjoying it. Stoner, like Spencer, was a purist. He absolutely detested the politics of MotoGP, that, and also, what he perceived as the dereliction of duty by those charged with improving safety issues. Stoner unlike Rossi, was in it strictly for the competition, and didn’t give a crap for all the social media nonsense, and the ego boost from having hundreds of thousands of sycophantic fans. He was a racer, not a showman. A very down to earth guy. He had had a goal since being a little kid, to race for Repsol Honda. He achieved that goal and won two championships. After which, he was disillusioned and wasn’t enjoying himself. So it basically became pointless for him to continue to race. He always gave as good as he got. When he wasn’t getting what he needed, he got the .... out. To me that speaks of integrity. He was not seduced by celebrity or wealth. Very few reach that level of achievement, without becoming sucked into all that slavish adulation.

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Keshav said:

I think there’s no doubt that he could have won more. That said, he has stated, unequivocably, that he quit, because he wasn’t enjoying it. Stoner, like Spencer, was a purist. He absolutely detested the politics of MotoGP, that, and also, what he perceived as the dereliction of duty by those charged with improving safety issues. Stoner unlike Rossi, was in it strictly for the competition, and didn’t give a crap for all the social media nonsense, and the ego boost from having hundreds of thousands of sycophantic fans. He was a racer, not a showman. A very down to earth guy. He had had a goal since being a little kid, to race for Repsol Honda. He achieved that goal and won two championships. After which, he was disillusioned and wasn’t enjoying himself. So it basically became pointless for him to continue to race. He always gave as good as he got. When he wasn’t getting what he needed, he got the .... out. To me that speaks of integrity. He was not seduced by celebrity or wealth. Very few reach that level of achievement, without becoming sucked into all that slavish adulation.

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MdubSTYLIE said:

I mean no disrespect when I say that. I am complimenting his ability by saying he should have won more. His first year after a team switch was his best because it came with less pressure. Becoming a champion is easier than repeating a championship. Once you have proven you can win it becomes expected. Thats a lot of pressure to deal with. Riding a bike came easy to him racing not so much. He seems so much happier now that he is retired and I am happy for him.

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#22 said:

Yep, it's why, in hindsight, I'm glad to have not made a career out of racing because I'm still doing it 30yrs after I started, and still enjoying it.

I was reading David Coulthards biography and he said the second he stepped out of an F1 car the last time, he had absolutely no desire to race ever again.

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gui22a said:

Yeah I read his words. But that doesn't change much since himself admit he's struggling a bit to get to the grips with the Ducati. I'm gonna stick with my previous prediction for him this year. Some wins, nothing more than that. Any rider besides Stoner will take some time to adapt to a whole new bike. Many fans were thinking he would immediately destroy the field once riding the Ducati.


Sure. It makes sense. Only two WC in motogp for a guy like him is surely very few. But the guy has all that problem with lactose intolerance and whatever more. I just think he's a very lazy and unambitious guy. I have this impression about him.

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michaelm said:

He should have 3 titles, he had the bike to win the 2012 title even after all the handicapping by Dorna. I don't know what else you expected of him though, unless you are suggesting he should have gone to Honda earlier. It became clear in retrospect that in his Ducati years probably including the title year he outperformed the bike, as Preziosi said in regard to the 2007 title "that was Casey". As I recall Rossi himself and Burgess were astonished at what he could do on that pig of a 2010 Ducati, on examining his telemetry discerning that his basic method of getting the thing through corners was to take it to the verge of crashing on every corner.

Otherwise Stoner was never going to last till his mid 30s in the premier class, his riding style was too extreme both in terms of the risk of injury and the effort/focus it required of him. Being pilloried for doing his job ie beating Rossi would get to you as well I imagine as it did to most preceding Rossi competitors. I always thought MM was a great rider if somewhat reckless, but the way he stood up to everything Rossi and the Valeban served up to him, in fact pretty much thrived on it, is what really made me a fan, Casey may have had similar talent but nothing like MM's drive and determination.

Stoner's ability to hop on a new bike and find the fastest way around a track in 2 or 3 laps was otherwordly though.

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gui22a said:

Derelection of duty... sycophantic fans...slavish adulation... holy .....

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Keshav said:

Interesting theory. But historically, Honda has always been chauvinistically engineer-oriented. I'm sure I've related this before, but the classic example of this was when Erv Kanemoto frustrated by Honda's insistence on outdated frame technology, went behind HRC's back and bought frames from a British firm, paying for them out of his and Freddie's pockets. When the bike suddenly became competitive - and Honda found out, they, despite Spencer's domination over the remainder of the season, HRC management were furious.

I remember when everybody opined that the 2007 "Pedrocycle" was built around Dani, but I always believed that HRC would have built that bike regardless and employed Puig to find a right-sized talent to suit the bike. A lot has been said about how HRC has been hobbled by generic electronics, but that was equally true for Suzuki, Yamaha and KTM - all of whom have won a ton of races and/or championships, with lesser riders during these many fallow years with Marquez.

Japanese companies as large as HRC are famous for air-tight guaranteed lifetime employment at all levels. Very hard to get fired from one of those firms, which doesn't always promote out-of-the-box thinking.

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gui22a said:

Well, today maybe we had the first evidence that Stoner is the most talented rider ever in MotoGP history. After 7 years away from Ducati and 5 years out of action he jumped on a totally different Ducati from the one he had driven and immediately spotted the 1st place, in 2017, if I remember well. On the other side, Marquez is having some difficult with the Ducati, finding it strange to his style, naturally, and will need to work more to adapt to a rear-oriented Ducati compared to front-oriented Honda. I don't need to say much. That's it.

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gui22a said:

Sure. It makes sense. Only two WC in motogp for a guy like him is surely very few. But the guy has all that problem with lactose intolerance and whatever more. I just think he's a very lazy and unambitious guy. I have this impression about him.

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p4p1 said:

Stoner took part in the 3 day shakedown test before the official test began. He hadn't been out of action completely since he retired either, had done some testing etc for Honda as well as the race at Suzuka. Doesn't take away the fact that he probably was the most naturally talented rider that has ever thrown a leg over a bike. His ability to be immediately on the pace is second to none. Though I am not sure how he would go jumping on the bikes with a heap of aero now.

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