2024 silly season!

Barbedwirebikerr said:

I wonder if Ezpelata is calm?

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Ya never know. Publicly he had a sleepless night, but for all we know, he might be happy to get rid of some manufacturers and save a little dough.

If MM does end up on a Ducati it will be interesting to see how he goes.
Obviously better than on the Honda and should be near the front, given how his brother has improved on it.
Not sure we will see him out front and dominating though. The ride height, aero downforce and over heating front tyre have collectively removed one of his greatest strengths with respect to other riders imo. The ability to stuff the machine into the corner past what the front tyre can handle and stay on board.
I just don't see even him being able to achieve that so much now. Front tyre traction now seems much more of a precipice that once over it is much harder to climb back from.
We will see if he has a better ability of judging where that precipice is than most. Not sure if he is actually that much better at that, as he was at climbing back from it, when it was more possible to do so.

What

mylexicon said:

Ya never know. Publicly he had a sleepless night, but for all we know, he might be happy to get rid of some manufacturers and save a little dough.

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Do the likes of HRC command from Dorna coffers to compete? Anyone got a roundabout figure?

mylexicon said:

Ya never know. Publicly he had a sleepless night, but for all we know, he might be happy to get rid of some manufacturers and save a little dough.

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I think that Dorna only pays money to Satellite teams

Barbedwirebikerr said:

What

Do the likes of HRC command from Dorna coffers to compete? Anyone got a roundabout figure?

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I think Pernat said it's $8 million per manufacturer and $5 million for the satellite teams. The satellite teams basically turn over their commercial rights payments to the manufacturers who are capped at $2.5 million per bike per season.

But Dorna negotiates individually now so the numbers are probably not flat anymore. Honda and Yamaha are the most successful manufacturers so you'd figure their payments are on the higher end of the spectrum.

MGP Practice results



Dani is still a beast.

MichaelBolton said:

MGP Practice results

View attachment 14359

Dani is still a beast.

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DP is testing out a new carbonfiber chassis which seems to be working very well.

warthog1 said:

If MM does end up on a Ducati it will be interesting to see how he goes.
Obviously better than on the Honda and should be near the front, given how his brother has improved on it.
Not sure we will see him out front and dominating though. The ride height, aero downforce and over heating front tyre have collectively removed one of his greatest strengths with respect to other riders imo. The ability to stuff the machine into the corner past what the front tyre can handle and stay on board.
I just don't see even him being able to achieve that so much now. Front tyre traction now seems much more of a precipice that once over it is much harder to climb back from.
We will see if he has a better ability of judging where that precipice is than most. Not sure if he is actually that much better at that, as he was at climbing back from it, when it was more possible to do so.

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We will see of course, I do share this view. Things change and successful attributes can become less so. When Kenny Roberts showed up to demonstrate dirt tracking in GP it became a thing. And then it gradually went away.

I just realized I posted this in the wrong thread

MichaelBolton said:

If Marc returns to dominance the next season, Fabio won't be the most desired free agent for 2025. His hopes hinges on Aleix retiring and leaving a factory Aprilia seat free

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I'd love to see Marc contend for wins on a weekly basis again and I'm sure he'll be much more competitive on the Ducati.
I'd be shocked if he reaches past levels of dominance again though .
He's one of the oldest riders in the field (which still seems pretty crazy to me), has put a ton of wear on his body and won't be on a current-spec bike either.

At Fabio's age, I'd like to see him stick with Yamaha and try to solve the issues together.

JFM01 said:

At Fabio's age, I'd like to see him stick with Yamaha and try to solve the issues together.

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I have more faith in Honda turning things around than Yamaha. It's sad but it is the way it looks to me.

MichaelBolton said:

I have more faith in Honda turning things around than Yamaha. It's sad but it is the way it looks to me.

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I think yamaha for two reasons. One I think honda is farther off the mark the yamaha. Two is that bike has been bad and getting worse for a long time. I don't think they even know what direction to go at honda. Yamaha has also turned their program around quickly once in the past.

MdubSTYLIE said:

I think yamaha for two reasons. One I think honda is farther off the mark the yamaha. Two is that bike has been bad and getting worse for a long time. I don't think they even know what direction to go at honda. Yamaha has also turned their program around quickly once in the past.

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Poaching key staff from other companies usually pays dividends, get that cheque book out !!!

JFM01 said:

I'd love to see Marc contend for wins on a weekly basis again and I'm sure he'll be much more competitive on the Ducati.
I'd be shocked if he reaches past levels of dominance again though .
He's one of the oldest riders in the field (which still seems pretty crazy to me), has put a ton of wear on his body and won't be on a current-spec bike either.

At Fabio's age, I'd like to see him stick with Yamaha and try to solve the issues together.

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We have seen that the previous years Ducati can win races and M Marquez can bring a lot of sponsorship to a team which should mean more and better engineers etc, so the Gresini rumours are quite feasible. How M Marquez gets out of his existing contract is an interesting question

Bern1 said:

We will see of course, I do share this view. Things change and successful attributes can become less so. When Kenny Roberts showed up to demonstrate dirt tracking in GP it became a thing. And then it gradually went away.

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It did go away but it was there for 15 or more years. Basically that whole period of American domination was tyre sliding action. Maybe not all of them did a heap of flat track but they could all slide the bike. I loved it.

For sure, I loved it too. What’s not to like? I think the sign the end was near was Gardner just whacking the throttle open on the Honda. That was chutzpah! Even Lawson mentioned that he was surprised Gardner would try to ride it like that!

Every era has its style and most successful approach. Those who can best adapt to that set of conditions will prevail….for a while. Even quite a long time. Those who cannot adapt to changing sets of circumstances will fade away.

Maybe, Honda taking a year off wouldn't be so bad. They would be able to do unlimited testing.

Keshav said:

Maybe, Honda taking a year off wouldn't be so bad. They would be able to do unlimited testing.

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Would using the races as testing be out done by unlimited testing? Perhaps?

Bern1 said:

For sure, I loved it too. What’s not to like? I think the sign the end was near was Gardner just whacking the throttle open on the Honda. That was chutzpah! Even Lawson mentioned that he was surprised Gardner would try to ride it like that!

Every era has its style and most successful approach. Those who can best adapt to that set of conditions will prevail….for a while. Even quite a long time. Those who cannot adapt to changing sets of circumstances will fade away.

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Perhaps every era does have it's style and most successful approach.
However Marquez appears to me the only person capable of stuffing it into a corner repetitively and holding it up so he came out the other side.
No he didn't always come out the other side but I don't recall anybody else consistently painting black lines with the front tyre.
The analogy with the rear end tyre sliding style doesn't really work for that reason. It ain't like everybody was sliding the front end to that extreme. It was just one.
It took ride height devices and aero tyre loading to remove that advantage. It would appear to me there was a large element of the motivation behind those technical developments was to do just that.
It has been very successful.

With respect to "Gardner just whacking the throttle open" on the Honda. I think not.
Yeah Lawson was a better rider but just whacking open the throttle = instant highside. He did win a WC, yeah there were better riders like Doohan, Lawson, Rainey, Schwantz but hey he suits on any of us.
Here is a race in his first series on the NSR. Check out the slides on the right hander at the end of the straight

He did high side out in the second race there though.

Not really sure what you meant with the "whack open the throttle" comment Bern.
Sorry if that post comes across as argumentative. Just don't recall, it or see how you could wind open the throttle suddenly on corner exit anyway. Not that I have a clue of what they were like to ride.
Better to watch than the current bikes anyway.