Gran Premi Monster Energy de Catalunya(spoilers mixed with stoner/rossi talk)
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Baggage is a relevant term and at least in Australia does not mean results but rather generally means the ancilliary aspects of the person or business (good and bad).
As examples if we use VR as the example, the baggage could include increased media and public scrutiny, higher level expectation on results, increases accessibility for sponsors, higher costs as with VR comes staff that he may choose to have paid by the factory. There may also be the general situations with a prima donna attitude (and VR like many have the PD attitude when needed), foot stomping, demands (can be equipment related, heirachy related, first for parts etc), his own expectations of the team (which includes the wider Yamaha team), his expectations of his team mates, suppliers etc. It may even go so far that he may choose to use his sponsors for products where that sponsor may be aligned to Yamaha and as such, sh*tfights ensure (ie. He may prefer Monster wheras the team is Red Bull sponsored etc)
And all of these are before one looks at the team he brings and their demands (it could be certain number of tickets for friends per event, pit passes etc) as all involved will be after their piece of the pie.
On top of that, and as was found last year, baggage can include the need to manage the egos within the team (the situation was not publically evident during the Spies years and nor was it during the Ducati years) and to take control of the situations.
A very public sign of the types of baggage that needs to be managed is/was the cancellation of the championship celebrations (IMO, a very poorly handled situation) to please one personality with little forethought given to the second
Sometimes on the other hand, baggage can be good on the surface (ie. more dollars from sponsors) but when you scratch under the surface they may not look as good. As an example, with increased money into a team because of VR, comes increases in his power (as the bringer of the money) which increases ego (his) as well as bring increased demands from the very sponsors bought in.
Just as I use VR as an example, in that garage, JL will also have his baggage so it is not a one way street as in a team such as Yamaha, you have two large egos of driven men, each with their own wants, desires and demands so there will be baggage clashes.
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So any rider in the lineup is guaranteed to be a championship contender if they're on a factory Yamaha or Honda?
Ducati didn't believe their bike needed fixing. As far as they were concerned the riders were the issue. They gave priority to their bike developers not the riders. The fact that Rossi returned to Yamaha and became competitive again only cements the fact that Ducati's bike and MotoGP program as a whole needed a serious overhaul. It was Ducati's failure to get the best out of the rider talent they had available to them.
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Like Stoner fixed the Ducati.
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Here is the difference:
Rossi was listened to as if his words were the WORD of GOD.
Stoner was dismissed as if he were a lunatic.
A significant difference, one that clearly you and typical Rossi fans cannot comprehend. If you did, you wouldn't have attempted the above quip. Frankly, im glad you, Daniboy, Papabozzo, etal post here because I marvel at your takes. It's fascinating. You obviously follow the sport and know enough to seemingly be well informed. But information devoid of cognition is useless.
The 2009 bike was entirely competitive in his hands. It was when they tried to make it into a Yamaha while keeping the existing chassis in 2010 that it really came unstuck, no fault of Stoner's, or Rossi's for that matter. The increasing unsuitability of the Bridgestone tyre to the bike can be partly attributed to Rossi imo, ironically.
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What makes you believe that Ducati listened to Rossi? When Gigi arrived, one of the first things he said he had to fix was the lack of communication between the Ducati GP team and Ducati HQ. It wasn't "Rossi led them in the wrong direction". There were fundamental problems with the way Ducati's team functioned that couldn't be fixed by any rider.
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I agree that Stoner isn't to blame for Ducati's declining performance. However, people love to bring up "Rossi's failure at Ducati", but IMO it's Ducati's failure for not making the necessary changes for Rossi to be competitive on their bike.
No, the Ducati struggles on the Bridestones was their own damn fault. Yes, their designed their bike to work on the Bridgestones that were specifically designed for them, however once the 'stones became a spec tire they failed to adapt. Ducati cannot have a lot of GP success if they're extremely slow at adapting to different tires and electronics. Inability to adapt is unacceptable in a prototype series. They can stick with production based series like WSBK if they want to be slow with their engineering.
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Stoner never claimed he could fix the Ducati, but you just claimed that Rossi could fix the Honda quickly whole MM (and Stoner when he tested) are or were having the same difficulty with Honda as Stoner had at Ducati. But let's not pretend that Ducati didn't do everything Rossi asked for, the problem IMO was that Rossi wanted instant gratification so they tried to make an entirely new bike rather than the evolution that we have seen since Gigi has been there.
Which makes Rossi an easy and fair target after he claimed the bike was fixable and put all the blame on Stoner for not riding it hard enough. Most likely if he hadn't failed so spectacularly at Ducati(say he stayed with Yamaha) Stoner would still be considered the problem at Ducati because no one would listen to him until Rossi said the exact same things that he had been saying for the 4 previous years.
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Sure, Rossi was wrong for assuming Stoner was the problem at Ducati. Rossi admitted to that. But, lets not act like Rossi was the only one that assumed the problem was Stoner.
Completely disagree with the last paragraph. It is ludicrous that manufacturers have to completely re-design their bikes in response to capricious tyre changes, strongly favours the Honda and Yamaha factory teams, and as well as contributing to Ducati's travails is the reason for Suzuki's temporary, and Kawasaki's permanent, departures. In Ducati's case it required a complete change in their entire design philosophy, after they had only entered premier class GP bike racing in the first place when a 4 stroke formula which fitted their design philosophy replaced the previous 500 2-stroke formula which didn't.
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That there were others that were also wrong only proves large numbers of people can be wrong, rather contradicting your previous argument that Rossi must be doing things right because he has a large number of fans.
I think Rossi was close to being the most arrogantly in error in regard to Stoner and Ducati however, although he was exceeded by that Marlboro guy who is now (ridiculously imo) running the Ferrari F1 team.
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Tire manufacturer changes are nothing new to the series. Did Honda and Yamaha have to completely re-design their bikes for Michelins? It's bad when a bike's design is so rigid that a change in tires kills the entire design. That just wont work for a prototype series.
Now you are are just going to Monty Python argument sketch protocols like DB.
So in a prototype series rules should be made to promote uniformity of bike design? Going from multiple tyre providers to a control tyre was to reinforce prototype principles? What the control tyre did achieve in practice, whether or not that was its intent (I rather suspect it was) was prevent any further shocks such as occurred in 2007 when a small company co-developed a radical bike with a tyre which suited it in collaboration with the hitherto 2nd rung tyre manufacturer (absolutely the acme of all ambition in a prototype series I would have thought), whilst staying within with the regulations, and it proved good enough for an unfashionable rider to beat your boy on it.
The entire change in philosophy to the control tyre was purportedly for cost-saving reasons, but meant it only suited particular designs and for that matter riding styles, and has only made it harder for teams and their riders other than the Honda and Yamaha factory teams. It imposed increased costs on Ducati, Suzuki, Kawasaki, with the effects on the latter two I have detailed.
And yes Honda did have to re-design their bike, and throw away a year of development work, in response to a capricious regulation change in 2012.
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Fans have many reasons for liking Rossi. I wasn't following motorcycle racing when Rossi was on 125s and 250s. I started watching AMA and WSBK racing in 1998. I didn't even really know about GP racing, I eventually saw it on tv and didn't know those riders were considered better than the AMA and WSBK guys. The bikes looked weird sounded like sewing machines so I changed the channel. It wasn't until I tuned in for a full GP race and saw a rider in yellow get a bad start then went roaring through the pack picking off riders left and right like they were amateurs. I can't even remember which race it was, but I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Didn't know who Valentino was, but I started following him at that point.
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Ducati had 6 years to adapt to the Bridgestone control tire.
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I have mainly followed the premier class over the years; Wayne Gardner becoming prominent in that class coincided with the start of the live broadcasting of the sport in Australia and was what first got me interested. I tend to follow the other classes more when there is an Australian rider of interest, but do tend to also follow more when exceptional and exciting riders like MM are involved, and did when Lorenzo and Rossi were in those classes as well.
As I have said, my main objection is the attitude to other riders, and even other great riders, which has characterised much of the Rossi era, in which i now regard him as an active participant rather than merely bedevilled by a fanatical element among his fandom. I do appreciate his talent and racecraft, but for me other riders have been more spectacular to watch actually ride, particularly Stoner, and even what Jorge does when he is really "on" is quite spectacular in a different way.
Which required a total change in their design philosophy, which they could not have been reasonably expected to anticipate when they decided to participate in the sport. Perhaps they deserve credit for pushing on while Suzuki and Kawasaki didn't.
You have not presented any argument which makes the change justifiable, and hence Ducati deserving of condemnation for not adapting as well as Honda and Yamaha. It certainly didn't cut costs, the purported aim of the regulation change, for the less well resourced manufacturers anyway, and nor has it made the field of competition more even, with only factory Honda or Yamaha bikes winning races for the last 6 seasons.
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I do give Ducati credit for toughing it out instead of calling it quits. I also recognize they were likely blind-sided by the switch to a control tire.
You say they had to change their design philosophy, but another theory could be that they were using custom Bridgestone tires to cover up a design flaw (lack of frontend feel). It appears their design philosophy was simply to build a very powerful motorcycle with good aerodynamics, but they didn't focus as much on handling as they should have. The bike needed to be wrestled in the corners.
I agree with you on the control tire not cutting costs.
