Pedrosa Growing On Some Of You? Think Again!

The HRC 2011 drama kicks off to an early start. Welcome back 2006 & 2007, a leopard never change its spot bojuhl.

















Casey Stoner has urged his 2011 employer Honda not to operate a split garage, and insisted that Dani Pedrosa has nothing to fear from Stoner's former Ducati boss Livio Suppo if the Italian takes charge at Honda.



Suppo joined Honda from Ducati in a marketing role last year, but there have been suggestions that he could reprise his former team manager position at his new squad to coincide with Stoner's arrival next season.



This is reported to have met with resistance from Pedrosa's camp. Like Yamaha, Honda currently runs virtually separate teams for its two works bikes with each having an individual team manager - a situation Pedrosa sees no need to change.



"I think right now the structure is good. It's working perfectly," he said.



"You can see we were struggling quite a lot at the beginning of the year. We got lost with the bike, and with the current structure we did a great job and now we are doing well. The situation, I think, couldn't be better."



But Stoner is adamant that he does not want to be working with a split team.



"Most teams these days, other than Suzuki and Ducati, have two different team managers for each side," he acknowledged. "We're all about the team here [at Ducati].



"They're not teams, they're freaking split down the middle and all this sort of stuff. They're two completely separate sides under the same brand.



"I think if you're going to ride for a team, you may as well be a team player. I've got no issues."



He admitted that the apparent tension over the 2011 Honda structure had come as a surprise to him.



"At the moment it's nothing to do with me," said Stoner. "When it gets sorted, then we can understand.



"At the moment there seems to be some conflict in the team. I don't know why. I'm not even there yet... So really I can't say anything on that matter.



"I have my contract with Honda and I was the first to sign this year, so no problems for me."



Stoner denied that Suppo had been instrumental in signing him - and insisted that his former Ducati boss would be totally even-handed at Honda.



"I think Livio's about the best one [for fairness] in the whole paddock, to be honest," said Stoner.



"The perfect example is when he was with Marco Melandri [at Ducati in 2008]. Marco complained about a lot of things to do with the bike, but Livio worked so hard. He changed people, did everything he could to get everything working inside that team.



"I didn't see him on my side of the garage because when everything was going well, he didn't need to be there. He was working as hard as he could for... I don't want to say it, but... the weakest link of the team.



"Livio isn't what everyone thinks he is. He's not working for me.



"Honda was interested [in me] from the beginning. My contract was up and he was absolutely nothing to do with it."



Pedrosa added that as far as he was concerned, there had been no firm decision about whether the team separation would be kept for 2011 - but that he was keen that it was retained.



"I don't know, this is something we have to wait and see," said the Spaniard. "But, as I said, my plan is yes [stay separate]."





http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/86851











I am going to go ahead and make my 2012 prediction now. Stone wins the 2011 champion on his first try for HRC. This will give HRC what they need to show both pedrosa & evil pig the door. This may also end the HRC repsol marriage & starts the HRC Red Bull factory team with Livio at the top.



Pedrosa, pig & repsol goes to Suzuki for 2012. This might not be a bad thing for Dorna as this could increase the grid size. Two repsol Suzuki & one Rizzla Suzuki for 2012......................... Mmmmmm could be nice me thinks.















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Repsol aint signed yet and if they pull out pug might as well feck off now

and let dani stand on his own two feet but thats a hard task

Evo, I agree. He's a turd, always will be. (jk Levi, Dani is only half a turd ) BTW, you're late. I already posted this in the Love Feast for Dani AKA fkn Pedro thread. LINK





MERGE

Like Yamaha, Honda currently runs virtually separate teams for its two works bikes with each having an individual team manager - a situation Pedrosa sees no need to change.

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I cant see where pedros is doing anything wrong. He just want's to leave things how they are. It's stoner the new boy who wants to change things as far as i can see. My question is to stoner. Why dont you want your own team, surley this way tyhere is no #2 rider at HRC ?

chopperman said:

I cant see where pedros is doing anything wrong. He just want's to leave things how they are. It's stoner the new boy who wants to change things as far as i can see. My question is to stoner. Why dont you want your own team ?

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Yes, that is the problem. Leaving things how they are will continue the trend of tension and bad blood (spawned by Pedro/Puig) in the team resulting with infighting (Hayden & now Dovi). Casey is trying to break that trend. Casey should be commended for reaching out a hand of unity, but Pedro's resistance is turning up his nose. (Don't let your blind hate for Casey blind you.... )

chopperman said:

I cant see where pedros is doing anything wrong. He just want's to leave things how they are. It's stoner the new boy who wants to change things as far as i can see. My question is to stoner. Why dont you want your own team, surley this way tyhere is no #2 rider at HRC ?

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Take a look at the Honda yamaha walled teams and tell us the good..........





















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evo9 said:

Take a look at the Honda yamaha walled teams and tell us the good..........





















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you and jumkie make a good point.

chopperman said:

you and jumkie make a good point.

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WTF? Are you ok? Aren't you gonna call me a gimp or something as a retort?

Jumkie said:

WTF? Are you ok? Aren't you gonna call me a gimp or something as a retort?

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Ok i'll play



The split garage seems to have working great for lorenzo ! Given the performance of ducati after the capi developed 07 bike, maybe pedrosa doesnt want casey ....... up all the work he and puig have done on the Honda.

What will not having a wall bring to the team in the end???



At the end of the day the the rider that wins is king and his bike is considered the best on the grid. Constuctor points/titles are for factory bragging rights. Who cares that Ducati won the WSBK constuctor title in 2009....Ben Spies was the talk of the town.



Only one rider can be champion unless they change up the rules/point system to make it a true team sport competition. There will always be some form of team orders or more support for one rider over the other. Fans don't like to see riders take team orders or give up a race result to their teammate so the factory they ride for has optimum results/exposure (like Xaus did for Bayliss in 2001 to make sure Bayliss had a good points cushion). I have never seen a rider win and thank his teammate for letting him "earn" more points.

chopperman said:

Ok i'll play



The split garage seems to have working great for lorenzo !

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LINK

Jumkie said:

LINK

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even funnier is you breached your contract with the boppers. Thats a bottle of wood's you owe

chopperman said:

Ok i'll play



The split garage seems to have working great for lorenzo ! Given the performance of ducati after the capi developed 07 bike, maybe pedrosa doesnt want casey ....... up all the work he and puig have done on the Honda.

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Nahhh... that ain't gonna cut it Mate. Changes made by the dominant rider wouldn't be mandatory for the secondary rider.

It's about being "teammates" not adversaries. Their riding styles and bike requirements are so different that there should

be no paranoia about information theft. Granted that the two of them being similarly endowed (talent-wise) it's a lot to ask

for Dani to be supportive of his teammate - but should Stoner turn out to be the points leader early in the season - it's yer man's

job to be supportive; what he's paid to do. Given what we saw in '06 - I don't think Pedrobot will be having any

bro-mances with Stoner, but as highly paid Honda employee - he is obligated to at least give the appearance of being

a sportsman and a team player.

Not sure why stoner would want to buy into this at this particular point in time (or pedrosa for that matter who is one lorenzo dnf away from being in strong contention for this year's title). No details are given about where or why either made such statements, and who asked them about the hrc situation next year; how reputable is gavin emmett? It does sound like the sort of thing casey would say if asked such a question though.



To my mind stoner and pedrosa have always displayed considerable mutual respect, whilst competing in the premier class anyway, and I can't really recall negative remarks by either towards the other. With the best will in the world though conflict is inevitable with 2 aliens in the same team; 2 objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time . My interpretation of the stoner signing was that hrc had pretty well given up on dani +/- puig and stoner would be the favoured rider. This is now not necessarily the case with dani's storming recent form, and even if he doesn't win the championship a 6 or 7 win season would be hard to overlook, particularly if stoner had a no-win season as looked likely till last week-end; I think this has given stoner impetus as I said in the aragon race thread.



If accurately reported I suspect stoner is telling the truth as he sees it as is his wont; he has apparently always been happy to share data at ducati.

Keshav said:

Nahhh... that ain't gonna cut it Mate. Changes made by the dominant rider wouldn't be mandatory for the secondary rider.

It's about being "teammates" not adversaries. Their riding styles and bike requirements are so different that there should

be no paranoia about information theft. Granted that the two of them being similarly endowed (talent-wise) it's a lot to ask

for Dani to be supportive of his teammate - but should Stoner turn out to be the points leader early in the season - it's yer man's

job to be supportive; what he's paid to do. Given what we saw in '06 - I don't think Pedrobot will be having any

bro-mances with Stoner, but as highly paid Honda employee - he is obligated to at least give the appearance of being

a sportsman and a team player.

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Bear in mind honda's attitude to riders. Its 95% bike 5 % rider. We build bikes capable of winning, your paid to ride it. Also there is bound to be in-fighting in an open garage as neither casey or dani will accept being classed as #2 no matter what the points standing. I think this is more a case of casey wanting the years of data collected by the pedrosa side to assist him in the change.Im not so sure there styles are so different that danis data would be useless to casey.

michaelm said:

Not sure why stoner would want to buy into this at this particular point in time (or pedrosa for that matter who is one lorenzo dnf away from being in strong contention for this year's title). No details are given about where or why either made such statements, and who asked them about the hrc situation next year; how reputable is gavin emmett? It does sound like the sort of thing casey would say if asked such a question though.

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OK, I was actually at all of this, and will be writing it up in a little more detail in a day or two. To answer your questions:



First, Gavin Emmett is extremely reliable. He is paid by Dorna to do the commentary and a bunch of other stuff for the website, and so is very well connected. If anything, Emmett (no relation) is likely to err on the side of caution when it comes to scandal and intrigue, as that doesn't sit well with Dorna.



It all started because some Spanish journos found out that Repsol is pushing for Suppo to be booted out. Repsol - allegedly - won't re-up with Honda until Suppo is gone. As Suppo was a personal signing by Shuhei Nakamoto, that's a lot of face he'd be losing if he dumped Suppo. Puig is believed to be behind the Repsol pressure, but no evidence of that is forthcoming.



The Italian and Spanish press asked Pedrosa about the Repsol situation, and asked Stoner about the Suppo situation. Both Pedrosa and Stoner were very reasonable about it, Pedrosa saying he doesn't want anything to change, as he's only just go Honda doing what he wants now, and that's the difference between 7th at Qatar and back-to-back wins at Indy and Misano. When I asked Suppo, he said that he completely understood that Pedrosa would not want anything to change, and that Pedrosa's job was to focus on the championship. He also said he would be completely even-handed. Stoner agreed, saying that Suppo was very fair, and that when Melandri was in the team, Stoner never saw Suppo, as he was in the other side of the garage with Melandri, and this is exactly as it should be, trying to help the team member who is struggling.



Those are your cliff notes for the situation. Pedrosa has no real dog in this fight, he just wants Honda to keep listening to him and making the changes he wants, rather than sending him a shitload of parts for him to test, all of which include changes he has NOT asked for. Stoner is still wary of talking too much about Honda, as he's not there yet, and has to be careful in his statements until he leaves Ducati. Suppo and Puig are managers, and are therefore about as trustworthy and reliable as those nice gentlemen who ask for help moving the money of dead people out of Nigerian banks.

^^^^ Suppo and Puig are managers, and are therefore about as trustworthy and reliable as those nice gentlemen who ask for help moving the money of dead people out of Nigerian banks.

Maybe im being naive but id be interested to know on what grounds puig is asking repsol to use their weight to get rid of suppo. Is he that scared of a suppo casey team. Surly if that were the case puig would want the garage wall to come down. Keep your enemy's close and all that ?

chopperman said:

even funnier is you breached your contract with the boppers. Thats a bottle of wood's you owe

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No breach, I've been faithful. I'm just providing you with a link to your own assessment about who has benefited from a garage wall at Yamaha. I wish you were a better Rossi fan as you have lost some faith in him...unlike me.

chopperman said:

Maybe im being naive but id be interested to know on what grounds puig is asking repsol to use their weight to get rid of suppo. Is he that scared of a suppo casey team. Surly if that were the case puig would want the garage wall to come down. Keep your enemy's close and all that ?

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Puig was just getting some control over HRC, and wants to keep things as they are. It's your basic power struggle. Puig had control over his side of the garage, and a weak opposite side, and doesn't want anyone coming in. Suppo is supposed to be coming in as overall manager, so as Puig's boss, and Puig hates that idea.



For those of you who want to take sides, remember, this is like picking sides in a cage fight between Kim Jong Il and Osama bin Laden. Whoever you root for, you end up feeling morally tainted.

Jumkie said:

No breach, I've been faithful. I'm just providing you with a link to your own assessment about who has benefited from a garage wall at Yamaha. I wish you were a better Rossi fan as you have lost some faith in him...unlike me.

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ooooooh you ......