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Help needed for info about SNS and Bridgestone switch.
Help Support MotoGP Forum:
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Says the guy who enjoyed destroying the field so completely in 2002.
MotoGP: Valentino Rossi admits MotoGP is a ?little boring? | MCN
MotoGP: Valentino Rossi admits MotoGP is a ?little boring? | MCN
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Thanks!
I'll take a look and see what I can find.
What were you looking for, TV ratings or spectator attendance? Or both?
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When you look at all of that, it's pretty damning evidence about Rossi's hold over MotoGP at a particularly critical juncture.
Many people laughed at the notion Rossi holds considerable sway over GP, but the Bridgestone chief knew exactly what kind of hold Rossi had over GP. That's to say nothing of the unprecedented decision to allow Rossi to run Bridgestones while his teammate had to run Michelin tires. There has never been another instance of such a thing happening in any top tier race series where one teammate was running one tire manufacturer, and the other had a different one.
But the allowance for the switch was made purely on commercial considerations, which was the belief that GP could only succeed if Rossi was competitive. Stoner from Dorna's perspective was bad for business....especially when he was beating the golden child down. Nicky Hayden winning in 2006 could have been chalked up to luck, but Stoner demolishing Rossi in a way that had never been seen was never going to sit well with Dorna. Hence the massive push to get him onto the Bridgestones for 2008. Michelin didn't much help the situation because of their woeful unpreparedness for the 2007 season. They misread the situation, and how detrimental the Saturday Night Special ban would turn out to be for them. But instead of reloading for 2008, Rossi threatened to quit till Ezpeleta stepped in at the 11th hour to broker a deal for him only.
Rossi's narrative was that Michelin started letting him down in 2006, and did even worse in 2007. His reaction seems particularly harsh when he just barely missed the 2006 title, and really was only beaten badly by one rider in 2007. He was targeting a record points score in the 2007 pre-season with 300+, only to find himself third. But the bigger story is that he was happy in 2005 and earlier when he claimed the 5 successive titles. The 2005 Michelin tires had a lot of grip, more so than what the Repsol Honda of Max Biaggi could handle, resulting in chatter that he couldn't deal with. Yet the Yamaha and Rossi by proxy had no issues with this. In fact there's a history of Rossi having the ability to ride high grip tires for all of his titles. He only started complaining about grip in 2006, and really started complaining about it in 2007....which always struck me as strange for a guy who has long been touted as a phenomenal low-grip rider...Jerez 2016 was the latest example of it.
In any event, he's a guy who has long believed it is his god-given right to have superior equipment from bike to tires, and never reacts well when those things are not delivered.
Many people laughed at the notion Rossi holds considerable sway over GP, but the Bridgestone chief knew exactly what kind of hold Rossi had over GP. That's to say nothing of the unprecedented decision to allow Rossi to run Bridgestones while his teammate had to run Michelin tires. There has never been another instance of such a thing happening in any top tier race series where one teammate was running one tire manufacturer, and the other had a different one.
But the allowance for the switch was made purely on commercial considerations, which was the belief that GP could only succeed if Rossi was competitive. Stoner from Dorna's perspective was bad for business....especially when he was beating the golden child down. Nicky Hayden winning in 2006 could have been chalked up to luck, but Stoner demolishing Rossi in a way that had never been seen was never going to sit well with Dorna. Hence the massive push to get him onto the Bridgestones for 2008. Michelin didn't much help the situation because of their woeful unpreparedness for the 2007 season. They misread the situation, and how detrimental the Saturday Night Special ban would turn out to be for them. But instead of reloading for 2008, Rossi threatened to quit till Ezpeleta stepped in at the 11th hour to broker a deal for him only.
Rossi's narrative was that Michelin started letting him down in 2006, and did even worse in 2007. His reaction seems particularly harsh when he just barely missed the 2006 title, and really was only beaten badly by one rider in 2007. He was targeting a record points score in the 2007 pre-season with 300+, only to find himself third. But the bigger story is that he was happy in 2005 and earlier when he claimed the 5 successive titles. The 2005 Michelin tires had a lot of grip, more so than what the Repsol Honda of Max Biaggi could handle, resulting in chatter that he couldn't deal with. Yet the Yamaha and Rossi by proxy had no issues with this. In fact there's a history of Rossi having the ability to ride high grip tires for all of his titles. He only started complaining about grip in 2006, and really started complaining about it in 2007....which always struck me as strange for a guy who has long been touted as a phenomenal low-grip rider...Jerez 2016 was the latest example of it.
In any event, he's a guy who has long believed it is his god-given right to have superior equipment from bike to tires, and never reacts well when those things are not delivered.
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The article I recall was TV viewing numbers dropping in 07...
There will never be a smoking gun on him threatening to quit if he didn't get the Bridgestones, but that would be of a piece with the rest of this, and also with his display of entitlement at the end of the 2015 season.
What I don't think is proven is that the race day special tyres gave him a significant advantage over the other top Michelin runners, although it is pretty definite he had significant input into their formulation. I keep coming back to Max and Sete never complaining about VR having a tyre advantage, which would be rather out of character particularly for Max.
This is all the reverse of the argument in 2007, which was wall to wall complaining by Rossi fans about Stoner's massive advantages. As I have said, I have no problem recognising all of Rossi's titles, perhaps with Povol's caveat on the 2008 season if the Stoner/Ducati tyre was taken away from them (I think Rossi would have won anyway, Stoner was in dire straights mathematically post LS08), but the other title winners in his era deserve the same recognition.
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One of the articles I posted explicitly mentions him threatening to quit. Not sure if you missed that one.
The race day specials were giving him an advantage if you consider that Michelin only had Yamaha as their test team in 2007, while Bridgestone was pulling data from a number of teams beyond just Ducati. Povol posted an article where Burgess talked about the data from Yamaha going to Michelin for the tires before the SNS tires were banned.
BTW, Casey said after 2008, the Bridgestone tires became progressively worse, and required more effort to get heat into the carcass, something the Ducati did not do well at all compared to the Honda. He mentioned working heat into the carcass required extremely deep braking into corners. Who even to this day is considered to be the best late braker in GP? Rossi.
I linked to a Kropo article where he talks about the chatter of Biaggi's Repsol Honda due to too much grip in the tire for the bike in 2005....something the Yamaha had no issues with. You assume Biaggi would have been the first to complain, but you also are ignoring the fact that a tire being made with a certain bike/rider in mind had never been done before, so the thought would have seemed to ridiculous to Biaggi. After all, you're a good example in that you yourself have difficulty accepting this notion...so is it that much of a stretch that Biaggi wouldn't have believed something was going on? If anything, a tire having too much grip is the inverse problem of what most riders experience. For rigging purposes, going with more grip rather than less grip is a smarter move. Kind of an ingenious way to hide it...especially when you consider the 2001 Honda that Rossi won the title on was using a softer compound than any other bike could use for race distance.
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I'll start looking tomorrow and see if I can nail anything down. It's been mentioned everywhere viewership was plummeting, and GP was being unfavorably compared to F1 with the lack of excitement. I'm sure the viewership drop was more of VR's fans tuning out than anything, but it'd be enough to make Dorna unhappy.
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Well done JPS.
Isn't it amazing how all of this gets easily lost or forgotten, yet it was all out there for anyone to see! These are public reports, one can only imagine the content that has gone secret, out of the public eye. There is absolutely no doubt Rossi's career records are artificially enhanced! The tires dictated wins hence championships and the truth is Rossi had utter control of it.
They (Dorna-Rossi, let's face it this is a single entity) got caught with their pants down with Bridgestone. The system was so rigged that they engineered into it a failure by allowing Dunlop and Bridgestone to make it appear there was a tire war while Rossi was racking up ........ championships. Unbeknownst to Dorna-Rossi, the Japanese were slowing working their assess off to make a superior product that was stable everywhere months in advance. They (Dorna-Rossi) didn’t recognize it because it seemed their grasp on tires and titles was so complete, paying no mind to Bridgestone's quiet progress in 2004, 05, 06.
In 2006 it should have set off alarm bells, but the happenstance of the Catalunya GP's disastrous carnage masked the future repercussions behind Ducati-Bridgestone's hard work, which incidentally also benefited Suzuki and Kawasaki. They confidently banned SNS for 2007. Ducati were surely not going to win with their 4th choice "crashy" Stoner. Like Leicester City, absolutely nobody saw the perfect storm coming...well at least those not paying attention. (In 2006, I knew Rossi’s record was a farce and I said as much at the time. But who would believe it?) Like Leicester's run of 10 wins the previous year, everyone was distracted wilst focused on the sensational duel between Rossi and the massive underdog Hayden. Lost in the underlying accomplishments of the Valencia race, perhaps obstructed by the Yellow smoke, two BRIDGESTONE shod Ducatis stood on the podium, one a wildcard.
Surely Rossi would resume his artificial domination the next year, 2006 was written off as "The Fluke", so much was the championship universally disparaged, even by Honda themselves, prompting Nicky Hayden to display a message on his leathers "Numbers Don't Lie". The ultimate irony being, Valentino's numbers certainly do lie!
So caught out by the hard work of Bridgestone and their clients, that Rossi started to moan and whine about his tire advantage that had evaporated when the Saturday Night Special tires (which had previously provided him with such obscene supremacy) were gone. Dorna-Rossi hadn't anticipated the consequence because as is typically of such corrupt systems, often the brazen domination leads to lackadaisical mistakes reminiscent of FIFA's recent debacle. Unlike FIFA though, MotoGP being a niche sport with little to no actual global scrutiny, operates in a dictatorship on what amounts to a taxes haven island. It can impose and changed the rules at will, as long as it benefits Valentino Rossi. That is because the spectator, 99.99% of all involved go along with it. That overwhelming fanbase includes the supposed "journalists" reporting on the preceedings. Honda themselves are trumped by Dorna-Rossi as the canceled release of telemetry illustrated! At the Valencia 2015 press conference which had been convened specifically to release damageing data turned into an astonishing display of Dorna-Rossi's power! Those paying attention to the clash of power politics, watched in astonishment as Honda's Suppo apologized having to submit to the imposed gag order--when two powers collided, Rossi’s interested reined supreme!
What happened next in 2008 has effected MotoGP profoundly, it led manufacturers to exit the championship, and eventually even the retirement of one of the greatest talents of the sport can be traced to the Bridgestone Debacle of 2008. The reports are here on this thread, neatly assembled to remind us how Dorna first coerced Bridgestone to accept Rossi and only Rossi under the threat of a single tire supplier proposal, then executing the proposal a year later. The work that Ducati, Suzuki, and Kawasaki had done with their partnership with Bridgestone was summarily destroyed. And for what? Read again the reports, the clear answer is there, it was for the benefit of the viewing public that demand a restoration to Rossi's ascendance. As they say, if ever you want executives of a company to react to your demands, you hit them in the pocketbook. That is the rationale for boycotts, which the Yellow fans were executing by turning off the channel. No Rossi, no interest, no TV revenue. This is what was reported in one of the above articles, they were "leaving in droves" (Yellow droves). With the threat of Rossi quiting, the sense of urgency was clear, 2006-07 were years that could not and would not be tolerated or repeated. Rossi needed his TIRE advantage back, after all it was the theme of his whining, moaning, and threats. 2008, the Bridgestone changed so dramatically that the reining champion Casey Stoner requested to use the 2007 spec tires, a request which was denied. How embarrassing might it have been for all involved, Bridgestone's deal to provide Rossi a more suitable tire would be exposed with Stoner winning on 07 tires, and for Dorna, the risk of Rossi openly signaling to his fans that they should not be happy with Dorna was not a risk they were about to test. Afterall, when Rossi points out a villain, his fans act immediately voicing their displeasure. The lessons of Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau becoming the object of the fanbase's hate was plenty clear to executives like Carmelo Ezpeleta who's entire mission is to maximize profit NOT (like man erroneously believe) to create an authentic competition! (Read this last sentence again until its profound truth sinks in). It bears repeating, Dorna's job is NOT to make a fair competition, but rather to increase the VALUE of the business, that has meant the utter promotion of Valentino Rossi!
Carmelo has understood and been aware, you don't want Rossi pointing his finger at you and declaring--he is to be hated. This is still true, one only need to revisit the interview he had in his office recently when he explained why Race Direction needed to be overhauled. No, no it wasn't because they were/are incompetent. 'Improvement' was not the impetus for the change; but rather their association with Dorna! Why? Because Rossi made it clear, they were the bad guys who unfair imposed an unjust penalty on him; where three-quarters of a million people sprung into action. Carmelo listened to their collective yellow voice, Race Direction had to be disassociated with Dorna, because if not then the threat of Yellow droves tuning out was a real crisis. It is no different today, except the booing of Lorenzo and Marquez is of no consequence to Carmelo Ezpeleta, his interest is TV revenue, and if Rossi fans are not happy, they turn off the TV. That is a big problem for Dorna and its financial interest. Is it any wonder Carmelo acted as Rossi's sport agent to coerce Yamaha Marketing Department to override the racing team's desire not to work with the man?
The articles JP posted are for posterity of the Bridgestone Debacle. An episode that had profound effect on the championship. However, very little was reported on the massive advantage Rossi enjoyed under the SNS era. This is true for various reasons:
1. SNS Michelin tiered tire system that was largely misunderstood and universally accepted as equitable.
2. The journalists corps has always been an extension of the fanbase, in reality it does not exist independently of the subject they are tasked to report.
3. Michelin were secretive about how the tier system was implemented. Trade secrets are guarded. There is no governing statue for transparency.
4. The SNS era proved very valuable to the promoters of the series, who used the Michelin tier system effectively to increase the value through the cult figure that began to emerge, a fanbase that gravitated to and became unique in the world of sport.
5. The sophistication of Dorna, the promoters, has increased significantly, employing modern marketing principles and the unique culture of Rossi worship as the single most important property to enhance viewership value translated into TV revenue.
6. The promoter Dorna has never had the authenticity of the contest as its primary interest, but rather increasing the value of viewership for their own pay per view platform, TV contracts, and the interests of venues to attract spectators (consider this is the only way venues recoup the absorbent sanctioning fees imposed by Dorna).
7. The property of Rossi The Brand is real and powerful, it has effectively eclipsed any remnant of fair competition. This reality is illustrated in the perversion of what is right and wrong, what is possible and impossible, what is fair and decent, including the very meaning of words. When a winner of a race is believed to have helped the runner up, that is perversion of the meaning of "helping." When riders obviously move out of the way and us called "respect" as they did in Valencia for Rossi, wilst not being able to pass is "proof" of cheating. When a man serves his penalty but is dubbed a 'lap of honor' the opposite of the meaning, the perversion has reached its zenith.
Content Warning: Look ....... (.)(.)
Isn't it amazing how all of this gets easily lost or forgotten, yet it was all out there for anyone to see! These are public reports, one can only imagine the content that has gone secret, out of the public eye. There is absolutely no doubt Rossi's career records are artificially enhanced! The tires dictated wins hence championships and the truth is Rossi had utter control of it.
They (Dorna-Rossi, let's face it this is a single entity) got caught with their pants down with Bridgestone. The system was so rigged that they engineered into it a failure by allowing Dunlop and Bridgestone to make it appear there was a tire war while Rossi was racking up ........ championships. Unbeknownst to Dorna-Rossi, the Japanese were slowing working their assess off to make a superior product that was stable everywhere months in advance. They (Dorna-Rossi) didn’t recognize it because it seemed their grasp on tires and titles was so complete, paying no mind to Bridgestone's quiet progress in 2004, 05, 06.
In 2006 it should have set off alarm bells, but the happenstance of the Catalunya GP's disastrous carnage masked the future repercussions behind Ducati-Bridgestone's hard work, which incidentally also benefited Suzuki and Kawasaki. They confidently banned SNS for 2007. Ducati were surely not going to win with their 4th choice "crashy" Stoner. Like Leicester City, absolutely nobody saw the perfect storm coming...well at least those not paying attention. (In 2006, I knew Rossi’s record was a farce and I said as much at the time. But who would believe it?) Like Leicester's run of 10 wins the previous year, everyone was distracted wilst focused on the sensational duel between Rossi and the massive underdog Hayden. Lost in the underlying accomplishments of the Valencia race, perhaps obstructed by the Yellow smoke, two BRIDGESTONE shod Ducatis stood on the podium, one a wildcard.
Surely Rossi would resume his artificial domination the next year, 2006 was written off as "The Fluke", so much was the championship universally disparaged, even by Honda themselves, prompting Nicky Hayden to display a message on his leathers "Numbers Don't Lie". The ultimate irony being, Valentino's numbers certainly do lie!
So caught out by the hard work of Bridgestone and their clients, that Rossi started to moan and whine about his tire advantage that had evaporated when the Saturday Night Special tires (which had previously provided him with such obscene supremacy) were gone. Dorna-Rossi hadn't anticipated the consequence because as is typically of such corrupt systems, often the brazen domination leads to lackadaisical mistakes reminiscent of FIFA's recent debacle. Unlike FIFA though, MotoGP being a niche sport with little to no actual global scrutiny, operates in a dictatorship on what amounts to a taxes haven island. It can impose and changed the rules at will, as long as it benefits Valentino Rossi. That is because the spectator, 99.99% of all involved go along with it. That overwhelming fanbase includes the supposed "journalists" reporting on the preceedings. Honda themselves are trumped by Dorna-Rossi as the canceled release of telemetry illustrated! At the Valencia 2015 press conference which had been convened specifically to release damageing data turned into an astonishing display of Dorna-Rossi's power! Those paying attention to the clash of power politics, watched in astonishment as Honda's Suppo apologized having to submit to the imposed gag order--when two powers collided, Rossi’s interested reined supreme!
What happened next in 2008 has effected MotoGP profoundly, it led manufacturers to exit the championship, and eventually even the retirement of one of the greatest talents of the sport can be traced to the Bridgestone Debacle of 2008. The reports are here on this thread, neatly assembled to remind us how Dorna first coerced Bridgestone to accept Rossi and only Rossi under the threat of a single tire supplier proposal, then executing the proposal a year later. The work that Ducati, Suzuki, and Kawasaki had done with their partnership with Bridgestone was summarily destroyed. And for what? Read again the reports, the clear answer is there, it was for the benefit of the viewing public that demand a restoration to Rossi's ascendance. As they say, if ever you want executives of a company to react to your demands, you hit them in the pocketbook. That is the rationale for boycotts, which the Yellow fans were executing by turning off the channel. No Rossi, no interest, no TV revenue. This is what was reported in one of the above articles, they were "leaving in droves" (Yellow droves). With the threat of Rossi quiting, the sense of urgency was clear, 2006-07 were years that could not and would not be tolerated or repeated. Rossi needed his TIRE advantage back, after all it was the theme of his whining, moaning, and threats. 2008, the Bridgestone changed so dramatically that the reining champion Casey Stoner requested to use the 2007 spec tires, a request which was denied. How embarrassing might it have been for all involved, Bridgestone's deal to provide Rossi a more suitable tire would be exposed with Stoner winning on 07 tires, and for Dorna, the risk of Rossi openly signaling to his fans that they should not be happy with Dorna was not a risk they were about to test. Afterall, when Rossi points out a villain, his fans act immediately voicing their displeasure. The lessons of Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau becoming the object of the fanbase's hate was plenty clear to executives like Carmelo Ezpeleta who's entire mission is to maximize profit NOT (like man erroneously believe) to create an authentic competition! (Read this last sentence again until its profound truth sinks in). It bears repeating, Dorna's job is NOT to make a fair competition, but rather to increase the VALUE of the business, that has meant the utter promotion of Valentino Rossi!
Carmelo has understood and been aware, you don't want Rossi pointing his finger at you and declaring--he is to be hated. This is still true, one only need to revisit the interview he had in his office recently when he explained why Race Direction needed to be overhauled. No, no it wasn't because they were/are incompetent. 'Improvement' was not the impetus for the change; but rather their association with Dorna! Why? Because Rossi made it clear, they were the bad guys who unfair imposed an unjust penalty on him; where three-quarters of a million people sprung into action. Carmelo listened to their collective yellow voice, Race Direction had to be disassociated with Dorna, because if not then the threat of Yellow droves tuning out was a real crisis. It is no different today, except the booing of Lorenzo and Marquez is of no consequence to Carmelo Ezpeleta, his interest is TV revenue, and if Rossi fans are not happy, they turn off the TV. That is a big problem for Dorna and its financial interest. Is it any wonder Carmelo acted as Rossi's sport agent to coerce Yamaha Marketing Department to override the racing team's desire not to work with the man?
The articles JP posted are for posterity of the Bridgestone Debacle. An episode that had profound effect on the championship. However, very little was reported on the massive advantage Rossi enjoyed under the SNS era. This is true for various reasons:
1. SNS Michelin tiered tire system that was largely misunderstood and universally accepted as equitable.
2. The journalists corps has always been an extension of the fanbase, in reality it does not exist independently of the subject they are tasked to report.
3. Michelin were secretive about how the tier system was implemented. Trade secrets are guarded. There is no governing statue for transparency.
4. The SNS era proved very valuable to the promoters of the series, who used the Michelin tier system effectively to increase the value through the cult figure that began to emerge, a fanbase that gravitated to and became unique in the world of sport.
5. The sophistication of Dorna, the promoters, has increased significantly, employing modern marketing principles and the unique culture of Rossi worship as the single most important property to enhance viewership value translated into TV revenue.
6. The promoter Dorna has never had the authenticity of the contest as its primary interest, but rather increasing the value of viewership for their own pay per view platform, TV contracts, and the interests of venues to attract spectators (consider this is the only way venues recoup the absorbent sanctioning fees imposed by Dorna).
7. The property of Rossi The Brand is real and powerful, it has effectively eclipsed any remnant of fair competition. This reality is illustrated in the perversion of what is right and wrong, what is possible and impossible, what is fair and decent, including the very meaning of words. When a winner of a race is believed to have helped the runner up, that is perversion of the meaning of "helping." When riders obviously move out of the way and us called "respect" as they did in Valencia for Rossi, wilst not being able to pass is "proof" of cheating. When a man serves his penalty but is dubbed a 'lap of honor' the opposite of the meaning, the perversion has reached its zenith.
Content Warning: Look ....... (.)(.)
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My dear friend, I've read you repeat this point many times, I struggle to reconcile how it's possible for you not to see the obvious obscene advantage. Don't take my word for it, listen to Casey Stoner on the subject!
"They can moan and whinge about it as much as they want but it shows they have had such an advantage in the past and this season they cannot bring a tyre in just for the race." Casey Stoner
How you my dear Mike refuse to concede the fact the SNS provided an obscene advantage is quite confusing to me. Surely you don't need the same kind of "proof" that would be impossible to register for the obvious reason that it was by design not openly transparent! The evidence is abundant.
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It says he threatened to quit Yamaha at the end of the next year, which was probably the end of the contract. The "smoking gun" that I meant was VR threatening Carmelo with quitting GP bike racing, and Carmelo forcing Bridgestone to supply him, which was rumoured at the time, and which I am certainly not dismissing.
I remember all this at the time, Rossi certainly pushed for the pneumatic engine which was introduced early with a view to the 2008 season and was the engine that didn't finish the race in one of your reports, and I also recall the stuff about his engineering opinion in regard to Yamaha possibly needing to change to a V4.
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I have no trouble believing Dorna/Carmelo deliberately set out to hamper Casey Stoner, you actually considered me a conspiracy theorist in regard to that at one time.
The question is whether the race day special tyres exclusively catered to Rossi, or whether they were more a "control" tyre for all the top Michelin runners, as J4rn0 and before him Babelfish contend/contended. I have a somewhat open mind on that, but it seems likely that they usually suited Rossi while whether they suited others is more uncertain.
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Where was Rossi going to go for 2008 if he quit Yamaha? He was persona non grata at Honda. Ducati wasn't about to .... anything up with Stoner winning the title. He never would have settled for Suzuki or Kawasaki. A threat to quit Yamaha was very much a threat to quit MotoGP at that time.
