Simply put, Vinales clearly has a ton of talent but obviously is not a development rider and can't setup his bike for his life - I find it amazing that Rossi is obviously the development rider at this point. I think if Lorenzo was somehow his teammate there, he would be having a ton of success. His early 2017 form can't just be a complete fluke.
I have to say, I have really started to come hate Dovi as of late for a multitude of reasons. The biggest one being highlighted in the second half of your post, the fact that in pretty much his entire career since he started in around 2008, that was the ONE and ONLY time in his life that he has ever consistently pushed for and contended for GP wins - he wasn't even really that close to the championship in the end either after he choked to an almost satirical degree in Australia. And just that little over half a year of success really seems to have got to his head - and I'm not talking just about his on track performance.
While I admit I was also one of the many who were incorrect at this point last year at believing that Dovi was not a contender, isn't this also the same guy who got absolutely decimated by Dani Pedrosa while he was at Repsol Honda for years? The same guy who took years to actually have any real success at Ducati? The same guy who was riding a freaking satellite Yamaha right before that? And yet suddenly, from half a season of success at the top, he has managed to get big enough an ego to act like he is essential to the success of Ducati (which ironically only got good once Lorenzo came around)?
It just really pisses me off to see someone with such a short time at the top create all of this drama between himself and Lorenzo - that the bike isn't being developed the right way because Lorenzo is pushing development the wrong way and that Lorenzo is pretty much a ...... teammate and blah blah blah.
Well, when it comes to beating his teammate, he is obiously going to have an easier time of it next year. Have fun with Danilo ....... Petrucci, an overambitious rider who only even got into GP because a brokeass CRT team picked him up from World Superstock, who literally just burns all his rubber as soon as possible and hope he gains enough track position for it not to matter. He won't be able to develop the bike for .... like Lorenzo has (even tho you moaned about it going in the wrong direction). If beating his teammate and scoring what for him is a mega-contract is all that matters for Dovi, then he can have fun next year pushing for maybe 2 or 3 wins and making a ton of money to be a noncontender again for the rest of his life. I know a lot of people are blaming Domenicalli for this whole debacle with Jorge, but I can't help but feel that Dovi has had that same Fernando Alonso effect in the past couple of months where he is tearing an entire team apart in pursuit of only his own selfish interests.
Ducati thought after last year that they finally had a championship contender. And unfortunately they let him go.
/endrant
Anyways, as much as I criticize Ducati for letting Lorenzo go so early in the season and rushing instead to sign World Superstock Legend Danilo Petrucci, I was highly critical of Lorenzo after his clear debacle in Jerez and said that he was clearly pushing way too hard just to fight for the podium.
That being said, one fuel tank later and he is a consecutive race winner for Duc. I don't think I've cheered on one rider so hard in the past 10 years as I have in the past two for Jorge. It is also amazing to see that he has the pace at this track, after many wrote him off last week for being at a Ducati/Lorenzoesque track.
Keep it up buddy, and actually give Marquez a challenge for the title this year!
