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Discussion About MotoGp Riders Riding Style

M

mh_kingcobra

Joined Mar 2012
189 Posts | 0+
Tehran, Iran
Hi Everybody


 


I remembered this wonderful topic in cycle world about WSBK Riders riding styles published last year by Nick<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial, Tahoma, Verdana;font-size:12px; Lesnatsch:


http://www.cycleworld.com/2012/08/05/world-superbike-style-check/


 


I really like to research and study different techniques and styles professional riders use so this article helped me a lot on this. According to this article I was wondering:


If we imagine riding styles as a spectrum and put Max Biaggi's "Southern European Minimoto Style" in one end and Casey Stoner's "Dirt Racing style" in another end of this spectrum: (I put Biaggi and Stoner because I didn't know anyone better that could describe these two different styles),


 


Question #1: How can we define Motogp Riders Style according to this topic?


Question #2: Where can we put the riders listed below in the spectrum we imagined earlier in the post?


 


1) Valentino Rossi


2) Jorge Lorenzo


3) Marc Marquez


4) Dani Pedrosa


5) Nicky Hayden


6) Cal Crutchlow


7) Andrea Dovizioso


 


Please Inform me if I'm mistaking.


 


Best Regards


 


MH
 
-10 = ultra smooth , 10= rides like his rear wheel is out of wood


Rossi : best on the brakes bar none (not even barros) , especially in duelling.brake late and carry a lot of speed to the apex.sort rest out with the throttle(watch one of the last overtakes on biaggi in welkom on the dvd you'll get.did that in 04 all the time) .almostt upright compared to other>> 0


Lorenzo: brake early and use very llittle slide on exit but insane midcorner speed. Not a lot of hang off but more than what biaggi did. -10.


Marquez : haven't seen him live so hard to comment. Extreme hangoff, makes elias look like schwantz , funny way of exiting corners . Don't know if he does it all the time but often uses 2 bursts of throttle to stand up and fire out. 8?


Dani : probably right between lolo and 93. Uses quite a bit of hang off and other tricks to steer the bike more easy. Probably cause hes so light
 
Thanks a lot dear friend, putting -10 and 10 on each side of the imaginary spectrum really helps it, so thanks again. :D, well according to your scores valentino gets a 0 poiont and he is right in the middle and Pedrosa gets a -1 (between marquez and jorge). So according to styles there is not much difference between Valentino and Dani's style. Dont get me wrong on this but the outcome of this scoring method shows that all the difference between Dani as a honda rider and Vale as a yamaha rider is the influence of the bikes charectar of Honda and Yamaha, maybe if Dani rode with the yamaha he would have been more smoother and he would get a -5.


One question remains:

How much did Valentino's style changed when he switched from Honda to Yamaha? I asked this question because I think Valentino never really changes himself when the bike changes and his performance in Ducati is a kind of proof of this.
 
Difficult to answer. I remember reading about how pleased Rossi was with the yamahas strong points like agility and braking. Certainly did he exploitthat but not sure whether in 02-03 he did the same when he actually had to fight.


Dani is a bit different from vale in that he isn't super late on the brakes if needed. He gets that time back by accelerating hard and early by standing it up with the rear spinning from the apex. Quite a bit like stoner actually, only he'd slide and stand it up from before the apex a lot of times


Anyways I'm probably quite off with my descriptions on what and how these guys do it.


Arrabiata and barry to the stage please
 
I remember before the motegi round last year on bbc there was this interview about riding styles and casey said pedrosa has his own style, just like you say in braking and entering corners, he is more gentle then valentino and his initial braking is smooth more like like lorenzo, but when exiting from the corner he lets the rear spin like casey and he stands the bike up. So I dont know, would he be more smooth on corner exits and braked later on corner entry if he had the M1 or

Is this the way he rides the motogp monsters and like valentino the style never changes when the bike changes?
 
thats the most interesting part to me.


i've always argued that a guy like casey for example should be awesome on a yamaha, but then again i argued that rossi could do quite well on the duc cause i thought his strengths could balance some of the desmos shortcomings (running wide, folding front).


 


think it depends on the rider and whether he'd rather play to the bikes or his personal strenghts?
 
Good point made here, I once had this idea that the reason Rossi was not successfull was the fact that rossi was more trying to change the bikes charectar rather than adjusting his style to suit the duc, while as casey said to ride a bike like the ducati, you more need to adjust your style to fit the bike. So if the riders style is close to the ends of the spectrum they have to ride the bike which is suitable with their style, but for guys like pedrosa and valentino which are in the middle of the spectrum all they need to do is to open their mind and adjust their style to the bikes charectar. In other words rossi could have been successfull with the ducati according to the spectrum if he changed his attitude towards the ducati's charectar.
 
agreed, as much as i .... over casey there is no reason for me not to believe that a younger rossi maybe would not necessarily have done much better but at least be more able to adapt to new styles.


i'd pay good money to see dani on the duc though, being the closest to stoner in style and having the same strong points as the duc he could probably the best of the current grid to bring some success back to bologna. tbh i'm mostly interested in what speed he could get in mugello with a decent tail wind though ;)


 


i think the level is so high anyways that these guys just do whatever they can to go fast. we'd discuss how lorenzo can't slide and supposedly can't control the throttle, but i'm sure that if needed he could change his style. if i'm not terribly mistaken his 1000cc lines are no where near as round on the exit as they used to be. when i watch the 800cc stuff its only the sound that gives away that hes not on his aprilia.


 


don't forget probably all these guys grew up racing and riding all sorts of motorcycles. theres plenty of footage out there of young jorge and dani sliding their little crossers around, and although there isn't a bar that displays how much they open the throttle i'm pretty confident that it wasn't tc ;)
 
Agreed 100%, these guys are the most talented bike racers in the world, so it is not about their capability to change their style, it is more their state of mind, their level of focus to ride the bike to its absolute limit and their willingness to adabt to different bike charecters that makes the difference.
 
If I were to put them in a spectrum with Biaggi at one end and Stoner at the other it would be hard to figure out the middle because those guys would have the most conventional styles.  There would be a large gap to Stoner's style as it so unothodox and he's the only one that can make it work for him.


 


So...my attempt.


 


Biaggi..Lorenzo..Rossi.Pedrosa.Dovisio.......Marquez.............Crutlow.Hayden................................................................................Stoner


 


Keep in mind I'm not calling the guys closest to Stoner aliens, it's just their styles are not as smooth as Lorenzo for example.  So my scale above after debate, riders could be moved around accordingly.  Interestling enough, Marquez is the hardest to figure out where to put because his riding style is evolving the more he rides a MotoGP bike.


 


 


Fire away, where should they go?
 
I believe the issues that marred Biaggi are the same for Rossi now.  The belief was that Biaggi spent too many years in the 250 class and developed a tendency to overuse the front, where in the 500 era using the rear was the established way to go fast through a corner.  


 


The way I perceived Rossi in his early years is the same way people perceive Stoner.  He was able to ride anything and acclimate himself to bikes quickly.  Edwards was astonished how fast Rossi was when stepped on the RC51 for the Suzuka 8 Hrs with his own (Edwards') settings .  I recall also how Rossi would get very loose with the RC211V, and use a point and shoot style while riding it. 


 


But with so many years spent on the Yamaha, it's become ingrained in him and that's the way he's riding a bike now.  He's set in his ways now unfortunately
 
There are only two winning styles of riding, imo.


 


1. Lorenzo's technical butterhammer, which was also used by Steady Eddie and Wayne Rainey, as well as the early legends. Wheels in line, but able to gather up slides instinctively, without losing time or crashing.


 


2. Stoner's taming-a-thunderstorm style, which is a progressive style, started in Grand Prix racing by King Kenny, and developed by riders like Spencer, Schwantz, Doohan (in his early career), and used to considerable success by Hayden, McCoy, etc. Marquez also relies on a relatively sloppy interpretation of this style.


 


Everyone else is trying to emulate these styles with differing rates of success. Some are too tentative. Some are too sloppy.


 


Rossi is The Doctor, and the nickname tells everything you need to know. He didn't win with a stylistic skill set, instead his abilities were used to play, battle, and embarrass the competition. Rossi won b/c he had a preternatural understanding of racing motorcycles and the psychology of competition. He used his talents and fame to secure the best possible equipment, which he and Burgess engineered perfectly, and which Rossi used to further accentuate his talent and increase his fame. Rossi basically created an industry that revolved around him, and that sets him apart from the rest of grand prix riders, though some say Ago did the same thing in his day.
 
Good insight.


 


Maybe because I'm slow, but I'm not getting an evaluation of Rossi's riding style from you.  My interpretation of what your saying is he didn't win with a stylistic riding style, which I perceive as meaning "ordinary".


 


Am I correct in that assessment?
 
mylexicon
3525751370031259

Marquez also relies on a relatively sloppy interpretation of this style.
Click to expand...
That's it. Will be interesting to see if he can get acquire Stoneresque precision to go with that Stoneresque loosness.
 
HEISMAN
3525781370032686

Good insight.


 


Maybe because I'm slow, but I'm not getting an evaluation of Rossi's riding style from you.  My interpretation of what your saying is he didn't win with a stylistic riding style, which I perceive as meaning "ordinary".


 


Am I correct in that assessment?
Click to expand...


 


I wouldn't say ordinary, but I would say that his style has little to do with his ability to win. His riding style is his sun/moon leathers, and his whacky helmets, and his one-leg wheelies, and stand-up violin celebrations, and his leg dangling, and any other superfluous motion that makes riding a motorcycle look dramatic and cool.


 


The only part of his riding that really mattered when he was winning, imo, was that he could outbrake anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Is that really a style?
 
mylexicon
3526021370040360

I wouldn't say ordinary, but I would say that his style had little or nothing to do with his ability to win. His riding style was his sun/moon leathers, and his whacky helmets, and his one-leg wheelies, and stand-up violin celebrations, and his leg dangling, and any other superfluous motion that made riding a motorcycle look dramatic and cool.


 


The only part of his riding that really mattered, imo, was that he could outbreak anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Is that really a style?
Click to expand...


 


lol This.
 
It's easy to forget that when the 990s first happened, Rossi on the RC211V was often so much quicker than the rest he was just playing with them. Well I think he was anyway. He had such confidence in his own ability he would wait and then outbrake the other guys whenever he felt like it.


 


Remember all those last laps where he would just smoke the rear and start doing wheelies. And cross the finish line sidesaddle. That was his style.
 
mylexicon
3525751370031259

There are only two winning styles of riding, imo.


 


1. Lorenzo's technical butterhammer, which was also used by Steady Eddie and Wayne Rainey, as well as the early legends. Wheels in line, but able to gather up slides instinctively, without losing time or crashing.


 


2. Stoner's taming-a-thunderstorm style, which is a progressive style, started in Grand Prix racing by King Kenny, and developed by riders like Spencer, Schwantz, Doohan (in his early career), and used to considerable success by Hayden, McCoy, etc. Marquez also relies on a relatively sloppy interpretation of this style.


 


Everyone else is trying to emulate these styles with differing rates of success. Some are too tentative. Some are too sloppy.


 


Rossi is The Doctor, and the nickname tells everything you need to know. He didn't win with a stylistic skill set, instead his abilities were used to play, battle, and embarrass the competition. Rossi won b/c he had a preternatural understanding of racing motorcycles and the psychology of competition. He used his talents and fame to secure the best possible equipment, which he and Burgess engineered perfectly, and which Rossi used to further accentuate his talent and increase his fame. Rossi basically created an industry that revolved around him, and that sets him apart from the rest of grand prix riders, though some say Ago did the same thing in his day.
Click to expand...


That is a seriously bloody good post Lex.
 
mylexicon
3526021370040360

and stand-up violin celebrations, 
Click to expand...


 


To understand Vale's cadenza on that particular day you need to rewind, press play, and appreciate the entire movement. An incredible build up, great rhythm throughout conducting the pace of Barros and Roberts Jnr, until he upped the tempo and orchestrated a solo prestissimo climax. To my mind the greatest Rossi ride ever. Perfection, an impeccable performance by a virtuoso and one of the most masterly wet weather rides in the history of the sport.


 


It's a pity he's seemingly so out of harmony with the trio of tuning forks these days and that the Rossi overture has descended more into the realm of 'farsa'. This season should perhaps be the final curtain call.
 

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