2024 silly season!

I can't see how they WON'T go to Yamaha. I mean Rossi is their ambassador for goodness sakes. It doesnt look good that the ambassador for your brand uses a rival brand for his GP team.

#22 said:

I can't see how they WON'T go to Yamaha. I mean Rossi is their ambassador for goodness sakes. It doesnt look good that the ambassador for your brand uses a rival brand for his GP team.

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Best believe they will be on factory bikes. I wonder if this has anything to do with why Bez turned down Pramac. The ranch-father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

Barbedwirebikerr said:

This is the most preposterous I have read, but will share anyway.

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This is ....... absurd, LOL.

No way Ducati would accept this. Yes Gresini has the final say but they would certainly hurt their relationship with Ducati forever.

MdubSTYLIE said:

Best believe they will be on factory bikes. I wonder if this has anything to do with why Bez turned down Pramac. The ranch-father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

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Interesting point.

#22 said:

I can't see how they WON'T go to Yamaha. I mean Rossi is their ambassador for goodness sakes. It doesnt look good that the ambassador for your brand uses a rival brand for his GP team.

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Will probably boil down to finance

I know everybody here seems to be obsessed with MM to Ducati. Of course it would be interesting to see the results of such a move. Not sure it would be that great for MM, but it will keep the interest up.

Bastiannini and Morbidelli do not seem to have bounced back from the big injuries. In Franky’s case it’s already been a couple of years. I can’t see why anybody would want him on their bike. Rare are the athletes who can come back from major issues. A Doohan they don’t seem to be. No matter which bike.

Bern1 said:

I know everybody here seems to be obsessed with MM to Ducati. Of course it would be interesting to see the results of such a move. Not sure it would be that great for MM, but it will keep the interest up.

Bastiannini and Morbidelli do not seem to have bounced back from the big injuries. In Franky’s case it’s already been a couple of years. I can’t see why anybody would want him on their bike. Rare are the athletes who can come back from major issues. A Doohan they don’t seem to be. No matter which bike.

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I'm worried about Rins as well, he's has got plenty of injuries and bounced back well but the latest one is no joke. And his Yamaha contract only runs for one year, it's a risky move.

MdubSTYLIE said:

Yea the idea sounds stupid but Gresini can do whatever Gresini wants. They buy the bikes from Ducati. Ducati has zero control over what Gresini does unlike Pramac.

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Yeah but unless Gresini want to ride Honda bikes in 2025, they won’t upset the factory.

#22 said:

I'm hearing that 2 things are holding up the potential Gresini move:


2. Finalising the agreement to depart Honda. Supposedly this is what meeting with HRC execs in Japan is about. From what has been said, if Marc sincerely says "I don't want to ride this bike anymore" then they will agree to an amicable parting of ways.

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I’m hearing that the contract may be tough to break but can’t imagine someone like MM not having some kind of performance clause, which by know I would think are standard in motorsport, especially for these big stars. So, from his language, I think he’s either staying at Honda or truly wants to help them and leave the relationship as healthy as possible…

Noaero said:

Yeah but unless Gresini want to ride Honda bikes in 2025, they won’t upset the factory.

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With Marc on board they could probably get factory support from any of the other manufactures.

Noaero said:

Yeah but unless Gresini want to ride Honda bikes in 2025, they won’t upset the factory.

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The only thing would be if Dorna is involved, as they were with Valentino going to Yamaha the first time, probably with him going to Ducati, and reputedly with Stoner going to LCR at the start of his premier class career when they wanted an Australian rider in the field.

That is the only explanation that could make sense to me for the otherwise preposterous proposition of a one year rental of MM, it would save face for Honda to some degree I guess, and if he returned and won further titles with Honda I guess he would still be predominantly a Honda icon in retirement.

Certainly if Ducati aren’t grateful to Dorna they should be, pretty much everything has favoured them in motogp for years now, particularly the concessions allowing them to develop their bike after which there was substantial freezing of development, and the control ECU iirc being from the manufacturer they were already employing . Nakamoto pretty much foresaw the problems removing the bespoke software would cause HRC and threatened to withdraw which I do recall correctly. Regulations haven’t exactly worked against Ducati in WSBK either. I am not sure MM taking secrets back to Honda would be a particular concern, riders swap between the marques all the time, and he, great as he is at actually riding, if anything has been shown to be not all that great at development and feedback to engineers etc. if he gets a 1 year old satellite bike purely to ride then he wouldn’t get recent factory secrets anyway.

I don’t know whether Dorna care, they might be happy with only European bikes on the grid for all I know, but Suzuki have left and there doesn’t look to me to be much in it for Honda and Yamaha in the premier class currently apart from humiliation. I imagine they wouldn’t want to leave on a lower note than Suzuki managed, and won’t leave in the short term for reasons of face, but that is about it. I guess they will likely hang around for a new start with the new formula, although they are returning to F1. The current focus on ride height devices and aero etc which is irrelevant to their road bikes as Lex and others have said must be hard to sell to the corporate guys. I am sure they are not going to spend a fortune on building a new engine for the dying days of this formula which is probably what they need for the current formula sans their bespoke software, another aspect which might fit with an MM rental.

Keshav said:

I'll take that bet! Look at the history of rider teams on Repsol bikes over the years. Always been one superstar-talented rider constantly on the podium (ones known largely for being able to ride around the deficiencies of the bike) and a secondary rider rarely making a serious dent in the championship. HRC is famous for trying to "create" a rider to "compliment" the bikes idiosyncrasies. The next Freddie Spencer, Mick D, Casey Stoner, Marc Marquez, may not be waiting in the wings. Everybody is holding their breath that Acosta might be it. If so, let's hope he ends up on one of the Italian bikes.

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Bern1 said:

I know everybody here seems to be obsessed with MM to Ducati. Of course it would be interesting to see the results of such a move. Not sure it would be that great for MM, but it will keep the interest up.

Bastiannini and Morbidelli do not seem to have bounced back from the big injuries. In Franky’s case it’s already been a couple of years. I can’t see why anybody would want him on their bike. Rare are the athletes who can come back from major issues. A Doohan they don’t seem to be. No matter which bike.

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It can be difficult for the teams to know what will happen with riders who come back from injury, will they perform as per prior injury or loose their edge?

Most riders want to be world champion, in Rin's case if he stays with LCR he has zero chance of becoming world champion

MichaelBolton said:

I'm worried about Rins as well, he's has got plenty of injuries and bounced back well but the latest one is no joke. And his Yamaha contract only runs for one year, it's a risky move.

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Rin's needs to take risks if he wants to be world champion

michaelm said:

Regulations haven’t exactly worked against Ducati in WSBK either

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Off topic - Ducati built a road bike with WSBK regulations in mind. I don't think the way rev limits in WSBK is defined is fair between manufacturers...

michaelm said:

I don’t know whether Dorna care, they might be happy with only European bikes on the grid for all I know

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Wouldn't like to see that. I recall a time when it was all Japanese bikes and Cagiva came in, the Japanese helped Cagiva (in particular Yamaha) as they didn't want a championship that was just Japanese bikes. Hopefully they will find a way to keep Honda and Yamaha in MotoGP

MdubSTYLIE said:

Fighting for two podiums in two years isn't a disaster? I strongly disagree. I am not ready to say they found something at Misano after one race on a new track with a rarely used tire. Marc has stated after the test "nothing has changed." I believe him. This race was a one off good race based completely on rider skill. If they as you state found something at Misano than so did Yamaha. Mir and Marc each had one good day and one crash. That is not a good weekend and shows the bike is the same bag of .....



Marc is still the dominate rider on a terrible bike. This was the first weekend anyone on a honda was in the same ballpark as him. He is still constantly riding this bike well above its possibilities. Maybe he has lost something but on an equal bike to the other riders he would still walk away from the rest of the field by miles. He is still undeniably the best rider on the grid.

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I changed my mind. Looking at today's result, the bike is a complete disaster, lol, you are right.

gui22a said:

I changed my mind. Looking at today's result, the bike is a complete disaster, lol, you are right.

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I knew you would come around.

mikesbytes said:

Off topic - Ducati built a road bike with WSBK regulations in mind. I don't think the way rev limits in WSBK is defined is fair between manufacturers...

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Sure, Honda did it for a couple of years once, but mainly because they considered the regulations to favor Ducati's engine configuration.

Having watched WSBK for several decades if not so much now (although I did like watching Razgatlioglu in his pomp) the regulations haven't exactly generally worked against Ducati over that time, so much so that it has often been dubbed the Ducati Cup, not that I minded when Troy Bayliss was the one riding the Ducati.

Rumors coming from Ricard Jové (who gets some things right and others wrong) is that in the wake of a possible Márquez departure, there have been contacts from Honda inquiring about the contract situation of... Maverick Viñales and Aprilia's team manager Massimo Rivola. I think the claim is a wild one to be true and also I don't know why either of them would leave for Honda, other than the economical package.

Either way, the domino pieces are falling already: Key Honda technical director exits as major reshuffle begins

If I were Honda I would offer the HRC seat to Oliveira, he's more talented and "instinctive" than Mav IMO, who needs to have everything right to go fast and takes his time to adapt, plus he has proven himself on troublesome machinery already.

Max Biaggi is desperately hoping Marc leaves Honda to jump on a competitive bike. Seems like he's badly wishing Marc to slash all of Rossi's records, lol. The guy never overcame the rivalry.

MotoGP, Biaggi: "La storia tra Marquez e la Honda è arrivata al capolinea"

gui22a said:

Max Biaggi is desperately hoping Marc leaves Honda to jump on a competitive bike. Seems like he's badly wishing Marc to slash all of Rossi's records, lol. The guy never overcame the rivalry.

MotoGP, Biaggi: "La storia tra Marquez e la Honda è arrivata al capolinea"

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Says the guy who has been contending the current Honda bike isn't that bad.

michaelm said:

Says the guy who has been contending the current Honda bike isn't that bad.

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You mean me or Max? LoL

gui22a said:

You mean me or Max? LoL

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Each to their own was my point. It seems fairly likely you don’t want MM to surpass Valentino’s records. It is pretty much a done deal that he won’t match or surpass Rossi for premier class winsin any case btw, he needs 30 odd more wins and I really can’t see him racing for several more years to do so after all his injuries. Credit to Valentino for avoiding injury for all those years in his pomp.

Why shouldn’t Max be a fan of MM’s , who is quite definitely in the very top echelon of GP riders ever and a thrilling rider to watch. I personally found Casey Stoner, of whom Alex Criville for one seemed to be a fan perhaps partly related to being a Honda guy, even better to watch. Most of us have our favourites.and are biased one way or another..