Estoril 2012: RACE

michaelm · May 8, 2012

basspete said:
I'm talking about the style of a rider, if Rossi, Scud, Cal or indeed a hell of a lot of riders out there see a gap they go for it, I'm not saying he's going to do it next week.

OK I will just say Super Speed King Stoner is untouchable, nobody has ever beaten him in a race or ever will.

Happy now?

I am sure rossi would have had a go, over most of his career he was quite prepared to go for the win regardless of the championship situation, one of his most admirable traits.

Jorge is under immense pressure, as I am sure is Jarvis, as the decision to back him has not been followed by title wins as yet, whether or not this would have been different with rossi in the vanguard. I can understand that he is reluctant to risk a dnf in the third race of the year, against stoner who has demonstrated twice now that he can ride a mistake free season, a race he started with the championship lead and ended a mere 1 point in arrears btw. Depending on how things progress I think he will be prepared to be more aggressive later in the season, as he was later in the last season, eventually crashing trying to match stoner losing part of a finger if you recall. He was also if anything too brave in his first premier class season, to which riding more conservatively has perhaps been a reaction.

Cal is great, but as he himself said in regard to his decision to go with a different tyre choice at jerez he doesn't have the same pressure on him to deliver a championship as the (thus far ) top three.

Gaz · May 8, 2012

basspete said:
I'm talking about the style of a rider, if Rossi, Scud, Cal or indeed a hell of a lot of riders out there see a gap they go for it, I'm not saying he's going to do it next week.

OK I will just say Super Speed King Stoner is untouchable, nobody has ever beaten him in a race or ever will.

Happy now?

Pete, as an Aussie my opinion is probably about as worthy as a wombat turd on your toes but here goes.

I totally agree that Rossi, Simoncelli, Elias, and numerous others woudl definitely have made a sterner attempt than did Lorenzo and I will say outright that his comments in the press conference did seem somewhat 'interesting'.

But in saying that I also feel that he was thinking of the championship and it is not the smartest move to be doing banzai moves this early in the season for those in contention and in saying that I cannot recall Rossi ever making a 'banzai' type pass until later in the season. So for me, he was thinking championship which I found to be quite a mature approach, although the body language he used did seem to betray that somewhat.

In saying that it will be interesting to watch how the season unfolds as to how Lorenzo (or Pedrosa for that matter) react if/when teh situation arises again .............. do they go for it, or not?

A a slight aside however I do also wonder if Lorenzo has somewhat painted himself into a slight corner given that after Jerez he commented with regards to Dovisioso and the 'perceived' danger of a move that was attempted. For Lorenzo who has complained a number of times to then pull a move of teh nature that woudl have been required woudl have only opened himself up to further criticisms and comments regards to hypocrisy. Genuinely I have no idea if this would be in his head (and personally I do doubt it) but it is and was there.

mt1960 · May 8, 2012

mylexicon said:
...In the future, we hear that Dorna are working to reduce satellite lease to 1M euros, and attract new manufacturers, which would essentially kill off the CRT concept, and any big-picture planning between Dorna and the FIM. Yet, Dorna are simulataneously negotaiting for the lowest rev limit possible to make production engines more competitive. I think the low rev limit is actually an attempt to convert GP from fuel-limited to rev-limited competition, but production engines aren't much leverage, if Dorna are simultaneously working to get rid of the CRTs.

If someone isn't confused, I have to wonder how closely they are paying attention.

I tend to pay attention and the only time I have been confused recently is reading your post

(most respectfully meant, not a dig)...

I don't recall seeing an about-face from Dorna. This is all in line with their desire to make racing more affordable. The €1M cap on leased bikes doesn't automatically obviate the use of CRTs - the difference being that you own or lease a CRT, you can't own a factory satellite. The lease cost for an ART is less than €1M but when you factor in all the support, etc it hits the €1M mark.

As to 'working towards' - it's a done deal. The agreement is in. Factory satellite lease bikes will be capped at €1M from 2013.

Currently there are five ways to go GP racing. Factory lease, prototype build, CRT lease/buy, CRT 'parts bin', CRT build, . The figures are correspondingly reduced the less factory involvement there is.

We know who is doing the first. There is no-one doing the second. If we look at Aspar, they have taken the third 'easy' option - CRT lease/buy. Gresini, they have taken the fourth option. Ioda have taken the fifth.

Aspar paid the €1M for a turnkey ART race-bike with full factory support. Given their long and fruitful history with Aprilia, it is easy to see why they went that way - the Aprilia ART team are the old 250GP team. They know these guys.

Gresini have bought a years worth of chassis and development from FTR for under €150k, a years worth of engines and development from TenKate for €500k. At the end of the season, they own everything.

Ioda have developed their own chassis, are running a lightly-tuned superbike RSV engine they source direct from Aprilia. They own everything and are doing all the development, with some help. Their direction is to develop their chassis, they are less interested in outright results at this stage, no doubt they want to end up selling chassis - either to other GP teams or as race-replicas.

This is actually pretty close to how it used to be in GP racing. Ioda are the Aprilia Cube analog, but without the awful Cosworth engine

When the factories stopped selling engines and restricted the modifications allowed, it all went to .....

After the 'Jerez' meeting between the MSMA, the teams and Dorna, it seems like they have finally reached an accord. They have agreed on a DRASTIC series of changes. Not all of which have been made public, but apparently all will be finalised come the end of June.

What we know right now:

2013 there will be a reduction in cost for factory lease, a single-bike rule, a rise in weight, a drop in revs and a drop in the number of engines to 5, Factory lease capped at €1M and the purchase cost for a CRT bike from a factory will be capped at €750k.

2014 there will be more restrictions leading to, in 2015, a homogenised series where they are all on the same bikes, same rules.

If, during the next three years, someone like Ioda or Gresini develops a production-engine-based bike that can compete on speed and usability with the factories, it won't make sense for HRC or Yamaha or Ducati to spend billions on developing a prototype engine to be competing with their production engines. This will force a shift in direction.

I don't think Ezpeleta wants CRTs, but they are an interim step to getting GP racing back to where it is attainable for someone other than a motorcycle factory. Saying that it "would essentially kill off the CRT concept" is a good thing! That's what they want.

There was a very interesting article on exactly this subject, talking to Tech 3's Herve Poncheral:

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/s...th-factories-over-rule-changes/_/R-EPI-135745

In it IRTA chief Mike Trimby made a telling point:

"If a factory can do it for a cheaper price then so can CRT and the more people that do it then the price might come down."

For all the whinging about the CRT bikes, I see it as an exciting time. Who cares that they are 5 secs slower? What I am excited about is that there are a bunch of new teams. Next year there will be more. The year after that they will be having to turn people down. From the utter desperation of 2010 when we had some races with only 13 starters and less than ten finishers, that has to be a positive thing. Even if we can't quite fathom how it's all going to hang together, it looks like IRTA, MSMA, FIM and Dorna are on the same page.

mt1960 · May 8, 2012

chopperman said:
It's not who i root for that causes the pain. It makes no difference at all. Are you not sickened by the Wayne Rainey comment? guess it passed most by due to the stoner love content in the same post. Rossi boppers had a laugh in poking fun, Stoner neo boppers are a nasty spiteful bread of very inept individuals.

I am not sure where I fit in, then. I found the Rainey statements extremely distasteful, but I have been a Stoner supporter since following him around the British 125 champs in about 2000. Then I also have followed and enjoyed Rossi's career - particularly since 2007 when he finally started to get some decent opposition. It made for some spectacular racing.

If I have one area of bopper-dom it is in my almost pathological hatred of everything Honda... I am finding it more and more difficult to sustain this as the years go on and my favourite marques drop away... Suzuki has gone, Aprilia made little headway and BMW are a joke.

So, there you go - a closet hypocrite...

mt1960 · May 8, 2012

michaelm said:
I am sure rossi would have had a go, over most of his career he was quite prepared to go for the win regardless of the championship situation, one of his most admirable traits.

The fact that he so rarely crashed shows that when he pulled those manoeuvres, he was within his limits or thought he had a pretty good chance of pulling it off. So perhaps his willingness to have a go wasn't so much of a risk as people think.

If a rider such as Lorenzo or Pedrosa says they can't get past and settle for position, I tend to believe them. They have both been responsible for some hair-raising passes in the past. Perhaps they are being cautious - both have seen championships slip away due to early crashes and injury. It wasn't so long ago I saw Lorenzo shaking the end of his finger out of his glove... that affected his results somewhat. Just before that Dani spent a long time in a sling courtesy of someone else's bone-headed passing manoeuvre and blew any chance at a decent season.

It's very easy to sit in our chairs and pontificate about the relative bollock size of various riders... in my experience there are not many more people in the world as accustomed and prepared for high-speed trauma than a GP rider.

Expecting them to meet our arbitrary standards is pointless. They are brave beyond the ken of us mere mortals. Their pain has also made them wise, beyond that of internet pundits.

Gaz · May 9, 2012

chopperman said:
It's not who i root for that causes the pain. It makes no difference at all. Are you not sickened by the Wayne Rainey comment? guess it passed most by due to the stoner love content in the same post. Rossi boppers had a laugh in poking fun, Stoner neo boppers are a nasty spiteful bread of very inept individuals.

Rog, hope you don't take this the wrong way but FFS HTFU.

The Rainey comment was by Scotty, not like it was made by a person or contributor whom has the respect of people, be that genuine or begrudging respect, and as such I dare say that for many it went through to the keeper and was ignored. Scotty is as well though of as the likes of CSCVAW and many others from all sides of the fence so really his comment about one of the true legends got what it deserved ................. nothing.

As or the rest, well we will have to agree yet disagree as certainly there has been distasteful comments made of recent by some apparent Stoner fans, but there were also a number of comments made from Rossi fans back when Stoner was falling, when Lorenzo was crashing etc (note I am not aliging these to the race fans who like Rossi either such as yourself, Talpa etc) .

Personal attacks against a racer are (IMO here) outside the boundaries of what makes reasonable discussion and should be best ignored.

And again mate, this is no attack on yourself so hope you do not take it that way.

basspete · May 9, 2012

Gaz said:
Pete, as an Aussie my opinion is probably about as worthy as a wombat turd on your toes but here goes.

I totally agree that Rossi, Simoncelli, Elias, and numerous others woudl definitely have made a sterner attempt than did Lorenzo and I will say outright that his comments in the press conference did seem somewhat 'interesting'.

But in saying that I also feel that he was thinking of the championship and it is not the smartest move to be doing banzai moves this early in the season for those in contention and in saying that I cannot recall Rossi ever making a 'banzai' type pass until later in the season. So for me, he was thinking championship which I found to be quite a mature approach, although the body language he used did seem to betray that somewhat.

In saying that it will be interesting to watch how the season unfolds as to how Lorenzo (or Pedrosa for that matter) react if/when teh situation arises again .............. do they go for it, or not?

A a slight aside however I do also wonder if Lorenzo has somewhat painted himself into a slight corner given that after Jerez he commented with regards to Dovisioso and the 'perceived' danger of a move that was attempted. For Lorenzo who has complained a number of times to then pull a move of teh nature that woudl have been required woudl have only opened himself up to further criticisms and comments regards to hypocrisy. Genuinely I have no idea if this would be in his head (and personally I do doubt it) but it is and was there.

Fair comment Gaz, and hey don't tell anybody, but I don't really hate Aussies, ok I don't like Stoner, and Paul Hogan was no laughing matter, but it's banter,

And everyone kens how much I love my half Scots brother Barry McSheene

BarryMachine · May 9, 2012

basspete said:
Holy .... I said Jorge needs to attack, and find a ..... in Stoners armour. Is that too hard to understand?

How bout I just write "Stoner is awesome" as thats all you want to read.

If you can't understand the words I wrote thats your problem, I'm here to talk motorcycle racing, not teach basic English comprehension.

Wholly crap Pete!! don't you get it! Lorenzo was not close enough to attack, he was the closest ..... thats all.

Keshav · May 9, 2012

chopperman said:
It's not who i root for that causes the pain. It makes no difference at all. Are you not sickened by the Wayne Rainey comment? guess it passed most by due to the stoner love content in the same post. Rossi boppers had a laugh in poking fun, Stoner neo boppers are a nasty spiteful bread of very inept individuals.

What to do? Every Spring there's an an influx of ....... refugees from Crashnet that come here and say dumb .....

If we could just ignore them they would go away. Unfortunately people feel the need to tell them to .... off and that's

just like throwing gas on the fire.

michaelm · May 9, 2012

mt1960 said:
I tend to pay attention and the only time I have been confused recently is reading your post

(most respectfully meant, not a dig)...

I don't recall seeing an about-face from Dorna. This is all in line with their desire to make racing more affordable. The €1M cap on leased bikes doesn't automatically obviate the use of CRTs - the difference being that you own or lease a CRT, you can't own a factory satellite. The lease cost for an ART is less than €1M but when you factor in all the support, etc it hits the €1M mark.

As to 'working towards' - it's a done deal. The agreement is in. Factory satellite lease bikes will be capped at €1M from 2013.

Currently there are five ways to go GP racing. Factory lease, prototype build, CRT lease/buy, CRT 'parts bin', CRT build, . The figures are correspondingly reduced the less factory involvement there is.

We know who is doing the first. There is no-one doing the second. If we look at Aspar, they have taken the third 'easy' option - CRT lease/buy. Gresini, they have taken the fourth option. Ioda have taken the fifth.

Aspar paid the €1M for a turnkey ART race-bike with full factory support. Given their long and fruitful history with Aprilia, it is easy to see why they went that way - the Aprilia ART team are the old 250GP team. They know these guys.

Gresini have bought a years worth of chassis and development from FTR for under €150k, a years worth of engines and development from TenKate for €500k. At the end of the season, they own everything.

Ioda have developed their own chassis, are running a lightly-tuned superbike RSV engine they source direct from Aprilia. They own everything and are doing all the development, with some help. Their direction is to develop their chassis, they are less interested in outright results at this stage, no doubt they want to end up selling chassis - either to other GP teams or as race-replicas.

This is actually pretty close to how it used to be in GP racing. Ioda are the Aprilia Cube analog, but without the awful Cosworth engine

When the factories stopped selling engines and restricted the modifications allowed, it all went to .....

After the 'Jerez' meeting between the MSMA, the teams and Dorna, it seems like they have finally reached an accord. They have agreed on a DRASTIC series of changes. Not all of which have been made public, but apparently all will be finalised come the end of June.

What we know right now:

2013 there will be a reduction in cost for factory lease, a single-bike rule, a rise in weight, a drop in revs and a drop in the number of engines to 5, Factory lease capped at €1M and the purchase cost for a CRT bike from a factory will be capped at €750k.

2014 there will be more restrictions leading to, in 2015, a homogenised series where they are all on the same bikes, same rules.

If, during the next three years, someone like Ioda or Gresini develops a production-engine-based bike that can compete on speed and usability with the factories, it won't make sense for HRC or Yamaha or Ducati to spend billions on developing a prototype engine to be competing with their production engines. This will force a shift in direction.

I don't think Ezpeleta wants CRTs, but they are an interim step to getting GP racing back to where it is attainable for someone other than a motorcycle factory. Saying that it "would essentially kill off the CRT concept" is a good thing! That's what they want.

There was a very interesting article on exactly this subject, talking to Tech 3's Herve Poncheral:

http://www.motorcycl.../_/R-EPI-135745

In it IRTA chief Mike Trimby made a telling point:

"If a factory can do it for a cheaper price then so can CRT and the more people that do it then the price might come down."

For all the whinging about the CRT bikes, I see it as an exciting time. Who cares that they are 5 secs slower? What I am excited about is that there are a bunch of new teams. Next year there will be more. The year after that they will be having to turn people down. From the utter desperation of 2010 when we had some races with only 13 starters and less than ten finishers, that has to be a positive thing. Even if we can't quite fathom how it's all going to hang together, it looks like IRTA, MSMA, FIM and Dorna are on the same page.

I hope you are correct. As I said I thought this was the original plan and was pretty much with it, particularly in the absence of other plans for the survival of the sport. Various pronouncements since have made me wonder.

I guess the bottom line is whether the CRT teams themselves are happy. If the top aprilia team is a scouting expedition for the future aprilia factory motogp team, I imagine they are happy, and if as you say ioda are getting a test bed and some advertising for their technical capabilities at a relatively cheap price that's OK as well. I am just not hearing at this (admittedly fairly great) distance anything from or about them, positive or negative.

mt1960 · May 9, 2012

I think Aprilia are exactly where they want to be. Their R&D is being fully funded. The rules are changing to their favour. There's no other manufacturer even close to delivering the same package they are. They aren't expected to win against the big boys, so nothing to lose

I think they are setting themselves up to be the vendor of the next RSW250 or RG500 or TZ500... if the other teams aren't careful, they are going to be left behind.

I hope people don't lose sight of the fact that Aprilia managed to produce over thirty NEW race bikes a year and support another 50 teams (if you count the UK, Italian, German, Spanish, national championships.) They have this whole GP racing lark down pat...

Just because we haven't seen them in the premiere class, don't underestimate their abilities. I would venture they are much more capable of developing and producing turnkey race bikes than is Ducati. They understand the market and the logistics necessary to support a lot of riders concurrently. They have over ten years experience doing so. More importantly, they understand the politics of supporting a lot of racers - they made a shedload of money doing so.

with the next generation of ART being mooted at €700k, it is going to be a mighty attractive package for a lot of teams currently racing in Superbike championships. Perhaps the travel, etc. is still too much to attract teams from the Americas and Australasia, but with the right package, we could even see a return of the days when a couple of smart bike geeks, a hot rider and a transporter could surprise some of the big-money teams - particularly if they leave the formula for a few years to mature and cheaper second-hand bikes become available.

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