MotoGP: 2015 Round 16 - Pramac Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix (SPOILERS)

Dr No · Oct 24, 2015

Jumkie said:
I don't care if he took a meth ball before he rode, I just don't see it being any kind of benefit. Provided it doesn't endanger anyone but himself.

So heightened endurance, awareness etc is okay?
Against opponents not similarly enhanced.
Sounds suspiciously like cheating.
Sounds just like that fuckhead Stewart.
Except Stewart doesn't look like Bibendum squeezed into leathers.

FastinFastout · Jun 8, 2024

Bumping up this thread due to a comment I made on the 2025 silly season thread. I can see the Sepang 2015 thread got all the attention, but it is the race at Phillip Island that is the key to unlock the truth. Most people from both camps will essentially agree on what happened in Sepang and Valencia, as it's pretty obvious, although they will disagree about "why" it happened... and that's because their different views on PI.

There was a msc student where I work, not that long ago (about 5 years ago), that did a data analysis and visualisation assignment using all the lap and sector times from Phillip Island 2015 to see if there were suspicious patterns in MM's times and moves (as alleged by Rossi at the time). I didn't get my hands on the report as he wasn't my student, but I was curious and did enquire about it and apparently he found very strong evidence that MM was deliberately managing his track position until near the end of the race, when he took off to take the win. I can't comment on the work itself, but there's a suggestion for a project if any of you has the skills and time or happens to be taking a similar course. Please report back!

If there really was any wrongdoing by MM to such an extent as to influence the race result the way Rossi described, it should be easy to find conclusive evidence to support it from the raw data, cross-referenced with track positions and the race video. A straightforward piece of work that should settle this for good.

JPSLotus · Jun 8, 2024

FastinFastout said:
Bumping up this thread due to a comment I made on the 2025 silly season thread. I can see the Sepang 2015 thread got all the attention, but it is the race at Phillip Island that is the key to unlock the truth. Most people from both camps will essentially agree on what happened in Sepang and Valencia, as it's pretty obvious, although they will disagree about "why" it happened... and that's because their different views on PI.

There was a msc student where I work, not that long ago (about 5 years ago), that did a data analysis and visualisation assignment using all the lap and sector times from Phillip Island 2015 to see if there were suspicious patterns in MM's times and moves (as alleged by Rossi at the time). I didn't get my hands on the report as he wasn't my student, but I was curious and did enquire about it and apparently he found very strong evidence that MM was deliberately managing his track position until near the end of the race, when he took off to take the win. I can't comment on the work itself, but there's a suggestion for a project if any of you has the skills and time or happens to be taking a similar course. Please report back!

If there really was any wrongdoing by MM to such an extent as to influence the race result the way Rossi described, it should be easy to find conclusive evidence to support it from the raw data, cross-referenced with track positions and the race video. A straightforward piece of work that should settle this for good.

Yes MM was no doubt managing his track position during this race so as to make an overtake that would stick and win him the race. I think he knew he didn't have the pace to pull away from Jorge Lorenzo at a clip that would have made it advantageous to take P1 at any point before the overtake at MG on the last lap. Plus, it's a strategy Marc has deployed numerous times in many of his GP wins; waiting till late in the last lap to make an overtake so as to give himself the best opportunity to win the race.

And frankly, when did racing your opponents become "wrong-doing"? Yes I recognize there was a championship battle at hand, but why should a rider be expected to sacrifice track position near the front just because another rider is in the midst of a championship battle? For me that is tantamount to race-rigging..sort of like what we got with Valencia 2015 when people were pulling out of Valentino's way just because. It was frankly disgusting to watch.

michaelm · Jun 8, 2024

FastinFastout said:
Bumping up this thread due to a comment I made on the 2025 silly season thread. I can see the Sepang 2015 thread got all the attention, but it is the race at Phillip Island that is the key to unlock the truth. Most people from both camps will essentially agree on what happened in Sepang and Valencia, as it's pretty obvious, although they will disagree about "why" it happened... and that's because their different views on PI.

There was a msc student where I work, not that long ago (about 5 years ago), that did a data analysis and visualisation assignment using all the lap and sector times from Phillip Island 2015 to see if there were suspicious patterns in MM's times and moves (as alleged by Rossi at the time). I didn't get my hands on the report as he wasn't my student, but I was curious and did enquire about it and apparently he found very strong evidence that MM was deliberately managing his track position until near the end of the race, when he took off to take the win. I can't comment on the work itself, but there's a suggestion for a project if any of you has the skills and time or happens to be taking a similar course. Please report back!

If there really was any wrongdoing by MM to such an extent as to influence the race result the way Rossi described, it should be easy to find conclusive evidence to support it from the raw data, cross-referenced with track positions and the race video. A straightforward piece of work that should settle this for good.

I have watched Motorsport for a long time, and the notion that a competitor could tank a race he actually won was a new one on me, and risible in the extreme. MM’s race tactics in that race won him the race, and that is what bike and car racing are about. As Lorenzo said when asked about MM helping him at PI said yes, especially on the last lap, which is pretty much the last word on the whole thing imo.

There are several other aspects if you want to go there well explored on this thread. Povol, one of the best and most knowledgeable posters on here in days of yore, offered money to anyone who could show a date stamped suggestion from anyone anywhere that there had been anything fishy about the race prior to the Sepang press conference. It emerged later on that the savant who had discerned the malfeasance was Uccio, hardly likely to be least biased of analysts, and particularly after the fact people tend to find what they want to find, but this is common in actual scientific research as well. As was said on the other thread this all assumes the bike was the same throughout the race. There is ample evidence the 2015 Honda was fractious early in races when MM tried his 2014 approach of dominating the whole race each and every race, ie 5 dnfs due to crashing out early in races. I believe someone did the calculation that MM would have won the title if he had accepted the position he was in before crashing out, and I don’t see how he was obliged to continue that losing tactic. Another aspect was that Valentino’s often poor qualifying that year necessitating him coming through the field late in races was his problem and no one else’s.

The other bottom line for me is that the whole stolen title thing is fictional. As MM himself said, Rossi needed to beat Lorenzo, not him. As I recall there were quite a few wet races that year in which conditions he was Lorenzo’s superior, and if he had won because of that it would have been on merit of course. In the late season races which were mostly dry and in which Dani Pedrosa was back and healthy he simply wasn’t fast enough, and iirc it was Povol again who did the calculation that VR lost more points by not being able to beat Dani Pedrosa in several races and Iannone in that same PI race than he did to MM. I also saw no evidence at all that Var was other than the 4th fastest rider at both Sepang 2015 and Jerez 2015, Jerez being a bogey track for him of course which is why he was keen to not have Jorge in range to win the title by simply beating him at Jerez.

michaelm · Jun 8, 2024

JPSLotus said:
Yes MM was no doubt managing his track position during this race so as to make an overtake that would stick and win him the race. I think he knew he didn't have the pace to pull away from Jorge Lorenzo at a clip that would have made it advantageous to take P1 at any point before the overtake at MG on the last lap. Plus, it's a strategy Marc has deployed numerous times in many of his GP wins; waiting till late in the last lap to make an overtake so as to give himself the best opportunity to win the race.

And frankly, when did racing your opponents become "wrong-doing"? Yes I recognize there was a championship battle at hand, but why should a rider be expected to sacrifice track position near the front just because another rider is in the midst of a championship battle? For me that is tantamount to race-rigging..sort of like what we got with Valencia 2015 when people were pulling out of Valentino's way just because. It was frankly disgusting to watch.

michaelm · Jun 8, 2024

Given I am rapidly approaching old fogeydom I recall tge 1992 season fairly well. Doohan had a far more dominant lead that year, against Rainey and Schwantz among others, than VR had in 2015, and still only lost by a few points with all the races he missed, and another week of recovery might still have brought him the title. I don’t recall him expecting riders other than Rainey not to race him on his return for the last 2 races.

MichaelBolton · Jun 8, 2024

michaelm said:
ie 5 dnfs due to crashing out early in races

Two of those DNFs were caused by Rossi directly. Not like 40 additional points would've won the championship but still.

Rossi really benefited from insane luck during the first races. Jorge had a horrid start with all kinds of issues (helmets, rain), Marc with the unruly Honda and DNFs, Dani with his injury and then complications during the healing process that delayed his return to 100%. The second half of the season really showed Rossi's real speed, and he was often the slowest of the four, needing always luck coming his way to score a desired result. If the whole strategy relies on luck, don't complain when it runs out, but sadly Vale chose to make a big fuss about it.

michaelm · Jun 8, 2024

MM rode a remarkable last lap to win that race. He rode a similar lap to catch Rossi at Assen, where Rossi outsmarted him, with which I had no problem.

As you imply if you have such a lap in you the time to use it is the last lap when it can win you a race, and when the bike might have come to you with less fuel load etc if you have enough tyre left. That he could pull out such a lap doesn’t mean he was tanking the rest of the race, in fact the whole 2015 season demonstrated over-riding the bike early in races was a bad, in fact title losing, tactic for MM.

michaelm · Jun 8, 2024

MichaelBolton said:
Two of those DNFs were caused by Rossi directly. Not like 40 additional points would've won the championship but still.

Rossi really benefited from insane luck during the first races. Jorge had a horrid start with all kinds of issues (helmets, rain), Marc with the unruly Honda and DNFs, Dani with his injury and then complications during the healing process that delayed his return to 100%. The second half of the season really showed Rossi's real speed, and he was often the slowest of the four, needing always luck coming his way to score a desired result. If the whole strategy relies on luck, don't complain when it runs out, but sadly Vale chose to make a big fuss about it.

The crash at Argentina imo was on MM even though Rossi was involved, he had caught up several seconds on MM who was not going to stay ahead of him even if he had successfully re-passed, and was again imo another example of over-riding the bike.

michaelm · Jun 8, 2024

michaelm said:
MM rode a remarkable last lap to win that race. He rode a similar lap to catch Rossi at Assen, where Rossi outsmarted him, with which I had no problem.

As you imply if you have such a lap in you the time to use it is the last lap when it can win you a race, and when the bike might have come to you with less fuel load etc if you have enough tyre left. That he could pull out such a lap doesn’t mean he was tanking the rest of the race, in fact the whole 2015 season demonstrated over-riding the bike early in races was a bad, in fact title losing, tactic for MM.

Intended to be a reply to JPS.

michaelm · Jun 8, 2024

I

MichaelBolton said:
Two of those DNFs were caused by Rossi directly. Not like 40 additional points would've won the championship but still.

Rossi really benefited from insane luck during the first races. Jorge had a horrid start with all kinds of issues (helmets, rain), Marc with the unruly Honda and DNFs, Dani with his injury and then complications during the healing process that delayed his return to 100%. The second half of the season really showed Rossi's real speed, and he was often the slowest of the four, needing always luck coming his way to score a desired result. If the whole strategy relies on luck, don't complain when it runs out, but sadly Vale chose to make a big fuss about it.

i had no problem with Valentino winning the 2015 title by taking advantage of circumstances best, as he looked like doing for most of the season, and getting as close as he did at age 36 was remarkable. But as you say rather than any conspiracy circumstances changed, the weather gods dictated less wet races, Dani Pedrosa was healthy and back racing, and MM was under no obligation to continue crashing out of races.

What the events of late 2015 did demonstrate to me was that rather than a rogue element of his fandom persecuting his rivals Valentino was pretty much orchestrating the whole thing.

techDmn · Jun 9, 2024

I was relatively new to MotoGP in 2015, having taken about a decade away from following road racing in order to recover from the politics and mid-season rule changes in Formula 1.

My impression at the time was that Rossi was old and crabby, and complained endlessly about people like Zarco when they raced him half as aggressively as he had raced his rivals.

Marquez had incredible speed, but he was recklesss and showed a lack of sportsmanship by frequently crashing into other riders to force his way through.

In short, I disliked them both!

I rewatched Phillip Island after "the incident", and saw nothing untoward. In Sepang I thought it was quite clear Marquez was harassing Rossi after the third pass. Things escalated from there, and fans of either rider seem to think the other got what they deserved.

I don't care for off the track drama, but it's easy to ignore. Escalating that to on-track drama with a hard pass or similar is unfortunate, but so it goes. Hard passes are part of racing.

The biggest failing I see is that in Sepang Marquez put the conflict with Rossi ahead of the racing. He was clearly faster. He should have put on a hard move, roughed up Rossi and kept moving.

At any rate, the event remains polarizing and a black mark on the sport. Both riders bear some responsibility, both have displayed poor sportsmanship at various points in their careers, both should have made better choices.

JPSLotus · Jun 9, 2024

michaelm said:
MM rode a remarkable last lap to win that race. He rode a similar lap to catch Rossi at Assen, where Rossi outsmarted him, with which I had no problem.

As you imply if you have such a lap in you the time to use it is the last lap when it can win you a race, and when the bike might have come to you with less fuel load etc if you have enough tyre left. That he could pull out such a lap doesn’t mean he was tanking the rest of the race, in fact the whole 2015 season demonstrated over-riding the bike early in races was a bad, in fact title losing, tactic for MM.

His Phillip Island 2015 final lap is one of the best I've ever seen. It being a short track, you really have got to have immense faith in your ability to pull off an overtake that late in the lap. While MG Corner is probably the best spot since Lukey Heights is far too risky, and the rest of the earlier corners are also no better in that regard, you have to really trust the bike over Lukey Heights. It's left-hander that Marc excels at, but on the last lap of a race with the tire spinning to kingdom come? Impressive.

Assen 2015 I thought was ballsy by Rossi to take the shortcut at the time. I still feel that way since it could be easy to pull a Colin Edwards if the bike were to go down at that point in the race.

I did the calculations one time, and based on Marc holding position at a point where he crashed out, or dropping a position instead of overrriding the Honda, he would have easily won the 2015 world title. I thought he learned the lesson in 2016, but given his title battle with Andrea Dovizioso in 2017, when he nearly crashed out in Valencia, he didn't seem to quite have learned the lesson. But, based on his riding in 2024, he seems to be more circumspect these days than he ever was.

michaelm · Jun 9, 2024

techDmn said:
I was relatively new to MotoGP in 2015, having taken about a decade away from following road racing in order to recover from the politics and mid-season rule changes in Formula 1.

My impression at the time was that Rossi was old and crabby, and complained endlessly about people like Zarco when they raced him half as aggressively as he had raced his rivals.

Marquez had incredible speed, but he was recklesss and showed a lack of sportsmanship by frequently crashing into other riders to force his way through.

In short, I disliked them both!

I rewatched Phillip Island after "the incident", and saw nothing untoward. In Sepang I thought it was quite clear Marquez was harassing Rossi after the third pass. Things escalated from there, and fans of either rider seem to think the other got what they deserved.

I don't care for off the track drama, but it's easy to ignore. Escalating that to on-track drama with a hard pass or similar is unfortunate, but so it goes. Hard passes are part of racing.

The biggest failing I see is that in Sepang Marquez put the conflict with Rossi ahead of the racing. He was clearly faster. He should have put on a hard move, roughed up Rossi and kept moving.

At any rate, the event remains polarizing and a black mark on the sport. Both riders bear some responsibility, both have displayed poor sportsmanship at various points in their careers, both should have made better choices.

The whole end of the 2015 season thing is a much bigger discussion, and one even I with my very strong views weary of debating.

Your take is not imo unreasonable particularly if you evaluated matters without the preconceptions or biases most observers had; I myself was a strong Jorge Lorenzo fan, which I remain, and not much of an MM fan then.

I will say that a certain Sepang press conference provided important context, and that if you (and Valentino) are correct about MM being faster then MM crashing out gained Valentino 3 points in the title race, because this would mean he was going to finish fourth at Sepang.

As I said previously what completely changed for me was my attitude to Valentino in general, calling the Valeban off Iannone and setting them onto MM was proof to me at least that the persecution of his rivals by an element of his fandom over pretty much his whole preceding career was orchestrated by him.

#22 · Jun 10, 2024

JPSLotus said:
Yes MM was no doubt managing his track position during this race so as to make an overtake that would stick and win him the race. I think he knew he didn't have the pace to pull away from Jorge Lorenzo at a clip that would have made it advantageous to take P1 at any point before the overtake at MG on the last lap. Plus, it's a strategy Marc has deployed numerous times in many of his GP wins; waiting till late in the last lap to make an overtake so as to give himself the best opportunity to win the race.

And frankly, when did racing your opponents become "wrong-doing"? Yes I recognize there was a championship battle at hand, but why should a rider be expected to sacrifice track position near the front just because another rider is in the midst of a championship battle? For me that is tantamount to race-rigging..sort of like what we got with Valencia 2015 when people were pulling out of Valentino's way just because. It was frankly disgusting to watch.

Exactly. If you watch his 2019 Phillip Island race, he does almost exactly the same thing (backs off mid race to save his front tyre for a charge).

And again, myself and a number of people have repeatedly asked for a time stamped post online of anyone having any suspicions about his performance, prior to Rossi's meltdown press conference.

MotoGP: 2015 Round 16 - Pramac Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix (SPOILERS)

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