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More bike pics, meh.....where are the ....... Kangaroos
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More bike pics, meh.....where are the ....... Kangaroos
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Aprilia doesn't give a .....
They are there for marketing purposes and will never put in the requisite finances needed to make the jump to what I consider "tier 1" of GP (HRC, Yamaha, Ducati).
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Disagree - Strongly. If Stoner could win the championship on vastly inferior Ducati that year, he could have easily beat Rossi on the bike that was much much much easier to ride.
How would Lorenzo have gone from F2 to Honda in 2007? No seats were open that year.
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Good post.
I take exception to this part though.
Lorenzo beat Rossi handily in 2013, but after Rossi switched to Galbusera, (an ageing!) Rossi beat Lorenzo 2-1 in the next few championships.
On the Yamaha, I think Lorenzo is generally stronger when the bike and tyres are close to an ideal operating window, but Rossi is faster everywhere else.
I definitely see your viewpoint, but I would submit that there is no 'better' or 'worse' bike in a vacuum. If you ask me which bike is best, I'll answer: which bike is best for whom? JL may beat Dovi if they're both riding a Yamaha or Honda, but might get pummeled by Dovi if they're both riding Ducatis. Then again, Dovi on the Ducati likely beats Dovi on the Yamaha. However, JL on the Yamaha beats JL on the Ducati. Which bike is better? For Dovi, the Ducati. For JL, the Yamaha.
As I've always argued, there is no 'best' bike. Motorsport is about the package: what is the best (i) rider (ii) bike (iii) tyre and (iv) team package? I think the Yamaha on Michelins requires a different style (i.e. the more '250' style) than the Ducati on Bridgestones. Rossi and Lorenzo are excellent at that 250 style, whereas CS was generally outperformed by DP on the 250s.
Stoner did not go much faster than, say, Dani Pedrosa on the Repsol Honda in 2011 and 2012. In fact, Pedrosa was ahead of him in points in 2011 before SIC took him out in Le Mans. Similarly, in 2012, Lorenzo was leading CS in the points when CS broke his ankle at Indy.
The bike/rider/tyre/team interface is a strange one that we still do not fully understand. Some riders (like CS and VR) appear to be very adaptable (Stoner particularly on premier class bikes with big horsepower, and Rossi on a variety of small and big bikes, with the exception of the Ducati). I think MM falls in that class too.
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This is very true, take John Hopkins for example for a season he was genuine podium material in MotoGP, these days he's mid pack in British Superbikes.
This is what makes racing so interesting. Lorenzo has always easily beaten AD - in 250cc, in MotoGP...until now. Now, on the Ducati, Lorenzo is getting outdone easily.
Hopkins is an interesting example. His body has been badly, badly battered and I think that has blunted his edge. See, for example, this link:
https://www.asphaltandrubber.com/racing/john-ulrich-john-hopkins-injury-contract/
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Brother, who are these "truly great riders"? Viñalez was labeled the newest member of the "alien club". One small tweak to tires/chassis and his alien status was revoked. Lorenzo, another alien, different 'motorcycle' two wheels, black tires, and he can't win to save his life. Rossi, the "GOAT" surely a "great rider", yet, one solitary win this year, on tires made for him, on his bike designed around his development cues. Marquez, the elite of the bunch, which I agree is the best of the field, yet according to you was hampered by the most engineered, resourced, factory bike on the grid. Well ...., if the elite riders can be so easily effected by imperfect bikes, where does this put 'Ducati' Dovi in the pantheon of elites? If the bike isn't perfect Marc struggled according to you, it's been the same excuse for Viñalez, Rossi, and Pedrosa EXCEPT Dovi, his bike is an advantage!
This myth that Honda is/was horrible to ride is ........ in terms of who they are competing against--relativity, Honda doesn't compete in a vacuum! That's the part you and others seem to miss, it's relative. Pov, you blamed Honda for Marc struggling in 2015, parts of 16 and the start of 2017, saying repeatedly that "Honda dropped the ball" and even suggested Marc's patience might be strained to the point of him looking to other manufacturers. That's hilarious btw, because where would he go which is better than Honda? No way is he going to Yamaha while Rossi is there, .... Uccio would veto that in a fat heart beat. So that leaves Ducati, that bastion of producing world champions into midpackers. Marc is way too happy-go-luck and his handlers far to shrewd and savvy for that ever to happen. Marc hasn't ever had a teammate to disrupt the team dynamic! He's never had a teammate that is a threat. You may recall, his side of the garage vetoed Stoner in a quick munute. They ran away from Stoner, certainly this would have given us a sense of just how awful is RCV was, right? You and others have zero gauge to measure Marc against. No wonder some of you think Marc would spank Dovi at Ducati, it's based on him spanking nobody on equal bikes.
So let me get your assertion straight, thee most elite rider on the grid couldn't ride around the imperfections of Honda and had to wait for them to get their .... together ("sort out") for him to be an elite alien again? That's what you've been saying. So then, had Honda not sorted the RCV, Marc--the alien wouldn't have won the championship. In other words, if Honda doesn’t pull a rabbit out of a hat and improve the first iteration of the early season RCV then Marc would have been in trouble, that's what you've said. There was a possibility Honda could have got it wrong btw, but it's also a competition of resources, and Honda always win that. Dovi won Motegi, surely the Honda didn’t change between Motegi and Philip Island, right? So no improved Honda and Marc would have struggled to be in this position. That's your assertion!
So let's borrow your logic to apply to Dovi, where does this put Dovi in the pantheon of "truly great riders" then? You refuse to elevate Dovi to elite status (you're not the only one btw). Dovi isn't elite according to conventional "wisdom" because magically the window of advantages made the Ducati the weapon of choice against Honda and Yamaha whist the Japanese struggled? Honda/Yamaha's performance is allowed to ebb and flow, but Ducati are immune? We need to send this memo to Lorenzo then. He doesn't know he is riding an easy bike to win.
Let's examine this myth that the Honda is a horrible machine even further, a bike which needed emergency life support and immediate rehabilitation for Marquez to compete again. I don’t doubt the Honda had a few issues, which bikes don't, particularly riders complaining about power delivery. However, just how severe was this problem, it would seem you and others think like Krops, that it hogtied poor Marc. You, we, have NO idea the magnitude of the issue, was it tiny or highly detrimental? Maybe because Cuntslow went around crying about it constantly that you figured the Honda was ..... When has Cuntslow ceased to complain? He whines at every opportunity. Pedrosa and Cuntslow are the only relevant voices in terms of comparison to Marc's performance. Marquez does NOT have a credible teammate where we can judge his performance! Yet you're convinced Honda engineered a pig RCV, relative to whom? Pedrosa? Cuntslow? These two are hardly the standards to base an opinion that the machine they share is ..... Pedrosa's struggle is generally accepted to be a function of Michelin. And Cuntslow is a 2nd tier rider. Meanwhile, Yamaha have Rossi to gauge Viñalez, that's reasonable. And Dovi? Oh yeah, a "truly great rider" as a teammate in Lorenzo.
So you believe Marquez was hampered by the Honda relative to nobody, yet cannot imagine Dovi has elevated his game when you have a "truly great rider" as is Lorenzo as a gauge! Marquez has never had a "truly great rider" as a teammate. We have no idea how Marquez would match up against a teammate like Stoner, Lorenzo, Vinalez, Rossi. Isn't it possible that Dovi has elevated his game and taken a 'generally accepted fickle bike' and won 5 races against a "truly great teammate", 5 races against "elite riders"? The reluctance here of elevating Dovi to elite status is laughable and quite fascinating. The standard of elite is not applied consistently. If anything, Dovi is the only one of the elites on a machine that kills careers and makes quitters out of tge likes of Rossi and Cuntslow. The logic and paradigm we all gauge the elites ceases to apply to Dovi! Viñalez wins one race on the Yamaha (alien bike), and he's an alien. I remember the headlines on Motomatters, Crash, Autosport, there's a new alien in town after 2 wins for Viñalez. Contrast, Dovi wins 6 races, and the Austria wins hardly count because it was "penciled in", the other wins don't count because some weather conditions, and the other wins don't count because....horsepower and aero advantages. In your own words buddy, "I find that way of thinking to be way off base."
If you live in a glass house don't throw rocks.
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There is no greater ....... in AMA racing than John Ulrich. Whatever he says, automatically discount it as chickenshit.
If you live in a glass house don't throw rocks.
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Amigo - First and foremost - my hypothetical is based on 2007, at which time, the received wisdom, as it were, was that in fact the Yamaha was overall - the most stable platform.
Second, said wisdom informs us that the Ducati was an insane handful to ride, and the historical evidence has shown over the years, how badly everyone up til Dovi, has failed spectacularly on the Ducati. Both Rossi and Lorenzo who've only been able in the last 10 years, to produce results on the Yamaha, sank like a stone results-wise on the Duc. Whereas, Stoner has shown over the course of his career, that he is tremendously adaptable to different brands and classes of bikes, the likes of which cannot be said of Lorenzo.
I strongly disagree about Rossi being adaptable. (See the Ducati years). A number of other "lesser" riders like Capi, achieved much better results than Rossi on the Ducatis.
It's not a question (and I don't mean to be pedantic) of faster, but quicker in terms of laptimes. Moreover, Stoner (his chronic fatigue period not included) was much more consistently on the podium than Pedrosa ever was.
Agree re: MM. I'm sure he'd do well on the Duc; likely better than Stoner because he's a much more robust rider.
Jum if you wanna know where the 2016 RCV was against the m1 and the Desmo. The satellite riders are always an easy way to see where a bike is IMO. Rabat is a waste obviously but Miller is more talented and does ok, not as good as Zarco and Folger and is often fighting with and around the 2016 Ducatis. Maq rode around plenty of problems last year maintaining a championship lead while Honda improved the bike he was on and then with some of the problems lessened he romped to an easy title. Same thing has happened this year Honda took a while to get their engine sorted, during that time he still won races, still got on the podium often enough and was still always in the fight for the title. As the bikes improved he has been almost unstoppable and hasn't been off the podium since after Mugello where the Hondas obvious engine problems made it hard for all the Hondas. Dovi has done a great job, Stoner would've done better though and the fact that Petrucci has had good results often when Dovi does is telling IMO. You're acting like the 2015 bike wasn't an issue when no race greater shows its struggles than Valencia when Honda was getting smashed out of the corners and Honda riders were having to make up nearly all their time on the brakes. Most of Dovis podiums and wins have been when it is wet or when there is a long straight or a few straights and he can take advantage of the Ducs strengths.
Yes Marquez has the best factory behind him but he has absolutely adapted his style during his time in the GP. From the point and shoot Honda in '13-'14 to the bikes in '15-'16 where they had to make up for drive on the brakes to the current Honda which he's holding corner speed on that would make Jorge proud. The guy wins not just coz he's aggressive but because he is able to adapt to situations that others currently on the grid can't.
Whether Dovi is an alien or not is yet to be seen. 1 great season does not make you an alien, Pedrosa has probably lost that tag now. Lorenzo is looking more and more human every race that he doesn't do well in. Rossi started looking like a human once he lost his tyre advantage. Stoner continued looking like a god no matter what happened and the same can be said for Marquez. Ducati has been consistently improving with Gigi's plan, they're still clearly using aero to make up for chassis faults which I think in the long run is probably hurting them for results right now. So yes the Ducati isn't perfect but its strength at certain tracks have allowed Dovi and others to be competitive just as it is currently for all manufacturers.
Edit to add: I don't think Dovi has improved his game. I think the Ducati has consistently improved and if not for being taken out by other riders he would've been at the very least pushing for a top 3 finish for the last couple of years. Dudes an excellent rider and doesn't often get beaten by teammates. I also believe on equal machinery he probably beats Rossi from 2011 onwards.
Yes Marquez has the best factory behind him but he has absolutely adapted his style during his time in the GP. From the point and shoot Honda in '13-'14 to the bikes in '15-'16 where they had to make up for drive on the brakes to the current Honda which he's holding corner speed on that would make Jorge proud. The guy wins not just coz he's aggressive but because he is able to adapt to situations that others currently on the grid can't.
Whether Dovi is an alien or not is yet to be seen. 1 great season does not make you an alien, Pedrosa has probably lost that tag now. Lorenzo is looking more and more human every race that he doesn't do well in. Rossi started looking like a human once he lost his tyre advantage. Stoner continued looking like a god no matter what happened and the same can be said for Marquez. Ducati has been consistently improving with Gigi's plan, they're still clearly using aero to make up for chassis faults which I think in the long run is probably hurting them for results right now. So yes the Ducati isn't perfect but its strength at certain tracks have allowed Dovi and others to be competitive just as it is currently for all manufacturers.
Edit to add: I don't think Dovi has improved his game. I think the Ducati has consistently improved and if not for being taken out by other riders he would've been at the very least pushing for a top 3 finish for the last couple of years. Dudes an excellent rider and doesn't often get beaten by teammates. I also believe on equal machinery he probably beats Rossi from 2011 onwards.
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I think he is more adaptable than Lorenzo, but he doesn't hold a candle to Stoner and Marquez. It's been well documented especially on this forum that once Rossi lost his tyre advantages he was suddenly no longer ultra adaptable or a great development rider.
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I think it's safe to say the RCV and GP17 are both .... bikes.
How about that?
These are not worldbeater bikes. I find it really amazing that just 3 years ago MM had a worldbeater and the following year the bike turned into a pumpkin turd overnight because HRC misjudged the overall power grunt due to the Malaysian heat covering up the power delivery issues.
Thing is I still don't quite get what HRC changed with the bike, or if it's a case of finding some baseline setting that just happens to make MM happy enough to ride more comfortably than he was riding before. I'm starting to think it is more the latter as he talked about finding baseline settings in the summer tests that were conducive to what he needed. Yes the Michelin's haven't been conducive to the midget, but that's life as a GP rider, you don't get everything perfectly to your liking much as you want it to be perfectly to your liking. It's how you perform when they aren't perfectly to your liking that really determines alien status or lack thereof over a very large sample size.
I think that's why I am such a big proponent of enjoying MM while we have him riding because the kid is so ....... good to watch that in light of our loss of Nicky Hayden this year, we need to value talent like MM which is the equivalent of catching lightning in a bottle. I've definitely diminished some of which Dovizioso has done as a result of this, but part of it has been because I really want to see MM be successful with his assault on VR's records. It's going to be a difficult task to accomplish, but it's definitely within the realm of possibility that he could overhaul the record books in a way we can't fully process right now. I think the last piece to MM is to develop that killer relentlessness in the mold of Mick Doohan with more patience (or Jason Voorhees since we're coming up on Halloween
) because if he develops that, he is going to simply break the entire field mentally. I think Dovi may go down as the last serious challenger to Marc and as the guy who pushed Marc to the point that it solidified that last bit of development that he lacked.I still think Vinales can push Marquez if he has the equipment under him. He needs a better bike that the one Marquez has but I think where he stumbles in a season long championship is in wet and mixed conditions races. I'd love to watch Marquez beat all of Rossi's records but I do hope he gets challenged. IMO all Marquez has already shown why he's better than Rossi ever was by beating a better field with more parity much more consistently. If he was to get #5 next year those 5 would carry more weight than Rossi's 7.I think it's safe to say the RCV and GP17 are both .... bikes.
How about that?
These are not worldbeater bikes. I find it really amazing that just 3 years ago MM had a worldbeater and the following year the bike turned into a pumpkin turd overnight because HRC misjudged the overall power grunt due to the Malaysian heat covering up the power delivery issues.
Thing is I still don't quite get what HRC changed with the bike, or if it's a case of finding some baseline setting that just happens to make MM happy enough to ride more comfortably than he was riding before. I'm starting to think it is more the latter as he talked about finding baseline settings in the summer tests that were conducive to what he needed. Yes the Michelin's haven't been conducive to the midget, but that's life as a GP rider, you don't get everything perfectly to your liking much as you want it to be perfectly to your liking. It's how you perform when they aren't perfectly to your liking that really determines alien status or lack thereof over a very large sample size.
I think that's why I am such a big proponent of enjoying MM while we have him riding because the kid is so ....... good to watch that in light of our loss of Nicky Hayden this year, we need to value talent like MM which is the equivalent of catching lightning in a bottle. I've definitely diminished some of which Dovizioso has done as a result of this, but part of it has been because I really want to see MM be successful with his assault on VR's records. It's going to be a difficult task to accomplish, but it's definitely within the realm of possibility that he could overhaul the record books in a way we can't fully process right now. I think the last piece to MM is to develop that killer relentlessness in the mold of Mick Doohan with more patience (or Jason Voorhees since we're coming up on Halloween
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It's going to be interesting to see how the Yamaha gets sorted out over the winter, or if it even does get sorted out over the winter. I don't know what to think about their woes, and whether they can get out of the current situation right now.
I do agree that Marquez getting challenged is better for the sport and for the viewers for that matter. I don't want to say that his titles would carry more or less weight than Rossi's though. It's difficult to assess since keep in mind Rossi did win titles in the 500cc, 990cc, and 800cc eras. That alone is a magnificent accomplishment. He almost managed to do it in the 1000cc era as well which would have put him into an altogether special category.
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I think it's safe to say the RCV and GP17 are both .... bikes.
How about that?
These are not worldbeater bikes. I find it really amazing that just 3 years ago MM had a worldbeater and the following year the bike turned into a pumpkin turd overnight because HRC misjudged the overall power grunt due to the Malaysian heat covering up the power delivery issues.
Thing is I still don't quite get what HRC changed with the bike, or if it's a case of finding some baseline setting that just happens to make MM happy enough to ride more comfortably than he was riding before. I'm starting to think it is more the latter as he talked about finding baseline settings in the summer tests that were conducive to what he needed. Yes the Michelin's haven't been conducive to the midget, but that's life as a GP rider, you don't get everything perfectly to your liking much as you want it to be perfectly to your liking. It's how you perform when they aren't perfectly to your liking that really determines alien status or lack thereof over a very large sample size.
I think that's why I am such a big proponent of enjoying MM while we have him riding because the kid is so ....... good to watch that in light of our loss of Nicky Hayden this year, we need to value talent like MM which is the equivalent of catching lightning in a bottle. I've definitely diminished some of which Dovizioso has done as a result of this, but part of it has been because I really want to see MM be successful with his assault on VR's records. It's going to be a difficult task to accomplish, but it's definitely within the realm of possibility that he could overhaul the record books in a way we can't fully process right now. I think the last piece to MM is to develop that killer relentlessness in the mold of Mick Doohan with more patience (or Jason Voorhees since we're coming up on Halloween
Geez - I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it ....
- but I have to say it bares mentioning that the only guys since 2006 able to win a championship on the RCV - were ones with the god-given ability to ride loose and crazy - much of the time riding on the line between inspired and crashing.
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Geez - I don't know if I'd go so far as to call the ....
I may be being slightly dramatic.
But I don't think the RCV has been a consistently great bike by any means outside of 2011-2014.
Great point about the ability of those riding and winning on it though because that had a lot to do with the success too.
I would think it slightly funny if Yamaha deciding to keep Rossi over Vinales resulted in them having a similar situation with the bike as Honda have had recently.
I think too much weight is given that Rossi was able to win on three different configurations when really of the guys we consider true top talent he has been the only one who has been given the opportunity. It's not ridiculous to say that without Doohans crash he may not have won the 500cc simply for not having Burgess' experience and technical know how of having worked with Honda for such a long time. That doesn't take away from him winning championships I'm just simply saying that he's the only guy who has been there at the right time, with the right amount of advantages, luck(getting JB was IMO huge for his career but out of his control) and talent to be able to remain competitive across 4 different rule sets. I do believe that Jum is right though that Michelin have helped him remain competitive. We all saw what happened towards the end of 2015 and if on the Bridgestones still he may when everyone else is firing(MM,DP,AD,MV,JL) only be a capable of 6th or below just like in 2015 when those on similar equipment were up and running he was only capable of 4th.
