Motogp GB silverstone Rnd-5..SPOILERS

Pigeon said:

Ryder



How many aliens do we now have in the MotoGP universe? Obviously there's one: Jorge Lorenzo won with such ease today it was almost embarrassing. He retains his alien status. The recuperating Rossi obviously still belongs in the category of supernatural, but Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa's status has been in doubt recently.



Pedrosa crashed yesterday and in Sunday morning warm-up, which can't have helped his confidence or his knee but his race was a flashback to Qatar. There he got the holeshot then drifted back to seventh, this time ditto but he ended up eighth. Dani was completely perplexed, saying the feel with his hastily rebuilt bike just wasn't there. As track temperature was eleven degrees up on yesterday, he went for the harder rear tyre but was mildly surprised when all the guys on soft tyres came past him. One of them was Casey Stoner who had such a bad start he was last into the first corner thanks to a grabbing clutch. He spent an inordinate amount of time at the back of the field before mounting a late charge that looked like it might get him a rostrum finish. It was truly impressive and the sort of thing you expect from an alien—Casey's status remain intact. Dani's condition is unclear to everybody, including Dani. One week he's unbeatable, the next week he's an also ran.



Both Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso have been knocking on the door all season but haven't quite got there. Dovi' had another solid ride and Nicky looked like he was on for his first rostrum of the year before he was mugged by Ben Spies on the last lap. Ben had the decency to say he felt bad about depriving a fellow American of a top-three finish, Nicky said that been had been riding hard all weekend and reminded everyone that he'd been saying all year that Spies would be a rostrum regular. None of which made his fourth fourth-place of the year any more bearable. Nor does the fact that the man who looks most likely to make it five aliens in MotoGP is Ben Spies.



By next year when all the building work is finished Silverstone is going to be one of the best facilities we go to.



The only downside to MotoGP's return to Silverstone was the sight of just fifteen bikes starting the race, the smallest field since 1991. As well as the absent Rossi, we lost Hiro Aoyama after a morning highside; he is likely to be out for three months but the team expect to field another rider at Assen next week.



By the way, if you're wondering if the title to these Ryder Notes is a play on the four aliens, it's not. Lorenzo's victory celebration was to dress up with three of his crew for a reconstruction of the Sgt Pepper's cover...



Dang. When the camera crew popped by Nicky's garage minutes after he'd been mugged by Spies, Hayden waved the crew away.

It wasn't like a half-hearted "Oh hi guys." It was more like, "I'm feeling a little verklempt just now. Could you come back later when

I'm not on the verge of tears?"



soup

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Pigeon said:

Ryder



How many aliens do we now have in the MotoGP universe? Obviously there's one: Jorge Lorenzo won with such ease today it was almost embarrassing. He retains his alien status. The recuperating Rossi obviously still belongs in the category of supernatural, but Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa's status has been in doubt recently.



Pedrosa crashed yesterday and in Sunday morning warm-up, which can't have helped his confidence or his knee but his race was a flashback to Qatar. There he got the holeshot then drifted back to seventh, this time ditto but he ended up eighth. Dani was completely perplexed, saying the feel with his hastily rebuilt bike just wasn't there. As track temperature was eleven degrees up on yesterday, he went for the harder rear tyre but was mildly surprised when all the guys on soft tyres came past him. One of them was Casey Stoner who had such a bad start he was last into the first corner thanks to a grabbing clutch. He spent an inordinate amount of time at the back of the field before mounting a late charge that looked like it might get him a rostrum finish. It was truly impressive and the sort of thing you expect from an alien—Casey's status remain intact. Dani's condition is unclear to everybody, including Dani. One week he's unbeatable, the next week he's an also ran.



Both Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso have been knocking on the door all season but haven't quite got there. Dovi' had another solid ride and Nicky looked like he was on for his first rostrum of the year before he was mugged by Ben Spies on the last lap. Ben had the decency to say he felt bad about depriving a fellow American of a top-three finish, Nicky said that been had been riding hard all weekend and reminded everyone that he'd been saying all year that Spies would be a rostrum regular. None of which made his fourth fourth-place of the year any more bearable. Nor does the fact that the man who looks most likely to make it five aliens in MotoGP is Ben Spies.



By next year when all the building work is finished Silverstone is going to be one of the best facilities we go to.



The only downside to MotoGP's return to Silverstone was the sight of just fifteen bikes starting the race, the smallest field since 1991. As well as the absent Rossi, we lost Hiro Aoyama after a morning highside; he is likely to be out for three months but the team expect to field another rider at Assen next week.



By the way, if you're wondering if the title to these Ryder Notes is a play on the four aliens, it's not. Lorenzo's victory celebration was to dress up with three of his crew for a reconstruction of the Sgt Pepper's cover...



soup

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demingracer said:

Are ducati going to able to fix their top end speed problem. It seems ever since the start of the season the honda's and yamaha's can just breeze by them. Once again in this race they just cannot stay with the front running teams.

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mylexicon said:

They don't have a top end problem. The Hondas were breezing by Nicky at Qatar b/c he did a really poor setting up the TC. The Ducati is fast in a straight line, it just has serious grip issues that have resulted from the new firing order.

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chopperman said:

Couple of things were said today of interest. One was the Ducati was heavy in the turns which may explain why Nicky is managing the bike and stoner is struggling more. The other was about the track. Were the F1 cars break a lot later than the motogp bike's is causing a problem. When the F1 cars break they roll up the tarmac causing the bumps in the track. The motogp bikes hit these bumps as there coming off the breaks which is causing the problems. Now put a bike that feels heavy in the turns on the track that gets bumpy as your coming off the breaks and you can see the problem. Still thought it was a great track though.

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mylexicon said:

I really thought Silverstone was epic, and the racing gods were definitely smiling at Silverstone b/c the sun came out and we got to see the true pace of the circuit. I might actually have to watch a formula 1 race just to see what kind of speeds a car can do.

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J708 said:

Now they're calling lorenzo "Whore-gay" ? Someething has to be done about setting universal pronounciations for racers and riders

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levigarrett said:

I was being a ....! Feel free to respond in kind, no harm done. To be honest, Rossi is the GOAT, no question and anyone with any sense would agree. However, had Rossi gone from last to 6th in the span of 12 laps I suspect we would have all been subjected to pages and pages of boppers proclaiming his greatness. I suspect Stoner will be somewhat displeased with the day but to come from last to 6th is a very good result that anyone should be proud of. The success of other riders (Lorenzo, Stoner, et al) takes nothing away from Rossi's accomplishments.

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mylexicon said:

Yeah I heard that too. Slow steering is just the nature of L-engines, I've heard. I'm not good enough to really tell a big difference, but apparently the L engine is very spread out, and the way Ducati position the engine in the bike makes it slow steering.



I really thought Silverstone was epic, and the racing gods were definitely smiling at Silverstone b/c the sun came out and we got to see the true pace of the circuit. I might actually have to watch a formula 1 race just to see what kind of speeds a car can do.

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is200 said:

Mate if there is one race to watch for the amazing speeds of an f1 car it has to be silverstone. It is a phenomonal track.



When you see the speeds through Copse, Maggots and Becketts you will be blown away, last year the Red Bulls were flat through all of those corners in 7th gear, the corners were reportedly taken at around 295kph! its pretty redic when you consider Copse is close to a 90 deg right hander!!

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