Joined Jan 2011
3K Posts | 152+
The North!
I said I didn't know whether MM knew where VR was, but my main contention is that MM did nothing but turn in normally for the corner, it was VR who made the non-racing move of slowing down markedly and going markedly off line.
I just watched the first laps of the race again, something for which I normally feel no necessity since I do the gifted visual memory thing which still seems to persist despite the passing years, and I was incorrect that Rossi turned his head to look where MM was at the time of the incident, it was a little earlier than I had thought.
However my memory of the remainder of the early race was correct, JL had the then fastest lap of the race by 0.5 seconds to catch MM immediately before he passed him, MM whatever his motives made only fairly clean (particularly by his standards) racing moves, Nick Harris who whilst not a leading intellect is hardly a "Rossi -hater" called MM as having made an error in the braking zone when JL passed him, voiced no suspicions of shenanigans whilst MM and VR were duelling, and basically said "what the f... was VR thinking/doing" when the incident occurred. MM also looked to be riding fairly raggedly early in the duel to stay with VR. I have previously agreed that he probably raced more fiercely than is warranted against a championship contender, against whom there is no obligation to concede position imo but probably an obligation to not take out by a rash move, but I remain puzzled as to what reaction Valentino expected to elicit by his pre-race remarks.
I also looked at the warm-up times concerning which Paparazzo has made much ado; MM rode one lap which was 0.319 seconds faster than JL's fastest, and another which was 0.094 seconds faster. JL's fastest lap was faster than all but these 2 laps, and his second fastest faster than all but 3 of MM's warm up laps, whilst being 0.095 seconds slower than MM's 3rd fastest lap. So MM can do a banzai lap in a session? Who would have ever guessed.
I am no MM fan, because of the Willairot incident in particular but also several other reckless incidents, and partly adopted JL when Stoner retired because I thought he had the best chance of beating MM. However I do think he rode much more judiciously in the second half of the 2015 season, and rode particularly cleanly at PI after which Valentino started all this argy-bargy. I think the accusations made against him were fairly outlandish and the burden of proof for such accusations was on the accusers, and such proof fairly obviously doesn't exist.
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Joined Aug 2008
6K Posts | 748+
Thailand
There's a dog chasing its tail out of my window.
Sort of reminds me of you lot trying to explain why and what.
It's never gonna happen.
It is what it is and it's over now.
So wipe the sand outa your ......s and move on.
Me
I'm off to watch the dog
Seeya
Hi Red!! As Wilski would say, an 'interesting'... obsession has developed here. Several actually, and all boring as hell.
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Good to see yer name up on the boards. Was concerned you were going to hibernate till Qatar.
Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
You boppers can try and justify what Rossi did till you are blue in the face, facts are,he blatantly rode a competitor to the edge of the track which resulted in a crash. Everyone watching knew immediately that Rossi would be punished, the only question was how bad. Turns out he got off with a smack to the wrist as he was allowed to keep points that were illegally obtained and given a penalty that almost certainly had zero affect on his final position at Valencia and the championship. As he knew in his gut from Aragon, he was going to need help from Marquez and Pedrosa to hold off Lorenzo. In the biggest miscalculation ever in sport, he thought slinking around the paddock berating riders, then publicly humiliating them would somehow earn him favor. Another myth debunked of how clever and smart Rossi is, cause that has to be one of the most stupid, ....... campaigns ive ever witnessed.
Joined Oct 2015
2K Posts | 827+
Texas
You're upset that Rossi wasn't punished severely and there's nothing that can be done about it?
Biggest miscalculation ever in sport??!! hahahaha are you new to sports? You're making assumptions as to what Rossi thought would happen, then getting angry at your own assumptions.
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I think most of those who you make reference to as being upset really arn't. Like me, I think most are disappointed, but not surprised by how Rossi was punished. I would have been upset if Rossi won the championship after receiving a hand slap penalty when a stronger one was warranted. The end result of how the championship ended in my view justifies the champion and reveals the villain.
The villain needed to be faster than everyone to be the hero, and he couldn't.
Joined Oct 2015
2K Posts | 827+
Texas
Well, we heard what RD had to say about it and essentially he said he found some merit with Rossi's accusation that Marc wasn't simply riding his own race. That played a role in how severely Rossi was punished.
The end result of the championship also justifies things to me as well. Many here don't feel Rossi deserved to win, and he didn't. I don't feel Marc deserved to win and he didn't. Justice was served. Lorenzo was consistently the fastest (when the conditions were favorable) and thus he won. I can live with that.
Like Baturro, I would have been disappointed if JL had lost the championship by off-track manipulation, which you may not have noticed did not happen.
Otherwise Rossi and you guys are the ones making outlandish and imo baseless accusations concerning riders other than Rossi, in particular the latest farrago that MM lurked way across the track just waiting for poor innocent Valentino to drastically slow down and drastically alter his line just so he could run into him, and I am disputing them. It is not as though I have not seen the like before, such as when Casey Stoner somehow became the guilty party after being taken out by an egregiously stupid move at Jerez 2011. I had resolved to quit the thread after Povol's most recent and fairly definitive post, but if you want to keep it all going I am happy to oblige.
Joined May 2009
6K Posts | 4K+
Shovel's Club
Casey total is at fault. If you are on the outside of a ducati on brakes then you are about to become a victim.
Anyone who say MM lurked around that corner causing that to happen doesn't understand that corner at all. I love when people talk about all the room he had.
Joined Sep 2007
2K Posts | 60+
here
I'm sorry that was what you took away from my comments. Not what was intended at all.
No, not referring to you at all, your comment was very measured, and had the virtue of being correct. I agree that riders other than MM may well have avoided collision, and that Valentino did not have the primary intention of causing a crash; nor did he deliberately kick MM imo. My only points to you were that Valentino made the non-racing move and was responsible for its consequences, and that it was not unreasonable for MM at some stage to turn in to make the corner.
I was referring to Paparazzo who is the one making outlandish claims about villainy on MM's part and abusing anyone who disagrees with him, to which I find it amusing to respond rather than taking any offence btw.
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Joined Sep 2007
2K Posts | 60+
here
No worries - sorry to have got the wrong end of the stick. The yellow hordes are quite determined to see only good in their yellow god and appear to jump on anything said even vaguely in VRs defense as being vindication.
As you say, it was not unreasonable fot MM to expect to turn at some stage to make the corner, it's just that at the point he chose to do exactly that, his vision was filled with a blue & white yamaha. To quote Doohan again "to try and turn in to somebody when there's a bike there seemed a bit odd". It is this that struck me as incongruous at the time and what prompted my mate to say that MM was the architect of his own takedown.
Joined Nov 2015
130 Posts | 67+
Seattle
Hey guys. Been away from the forum for a few days. HOLY HELL there is a lot of spam on the home page.
I just wanted to put my 2 cents in about the original post. I know I'm several pages late.
Personally I think it's pretty lame that Petrucci admits to letting Rossi through and people don't ream him harder for that. He's a racer, after all. He just admitted to doing the 1 thing he is expected not to do on track....literally the only thing. Try to finish ahead of as many other racers as possible. Maybe Rossi would have gotten by him eventually (definitely he would have actually) but every little bit helps. Imagine if that happened in the first race of the year and he just let Rossi through.
Anyways, pretty lame I think. Sorry I'm not sure what you guys are arguing about here on page 6. I didn't read the whole thread.
I just wanted to put my 2 cents in about the original post. I know I'm several pages late.
Personally I think it's pretty lame that Petrucci admits to letting Rossi through and people don't ream him harder for that. He's a racer, after all. He just admitted to doing the 1 thing he is expected not to do on track....literally the only thing. Try to finish ahead of as many other racers as possible. Maybe Rossi would have gotten by him eventually (definitely he would have actually) but every little bit helps. Imagine if that happened in the first race of the year and he just let Rossi through.
Anyways, pretty lame I think. Sorry I'm not sure what you guys are arguing about here on page 6. I didn't read the whole thread.
Yam, this is something that concerns me and I do know has concerned MichaelM for a while and relates to MM's previous injury that affected eyesight.
Genuine question here (so the boppers don't leap at it), but I do wonder if he has 100% recovered or if there are still issues as with limited peripheral vision within the helmet he does not seem to turn his head to check and I do just wonder about the eyesight issues of a few years back.
BTW, not questioning you or your mate ............. but trying to change the direction of the thread a little
Joined Sep 2007
2K Posts | 60+
here
Interesting thought, but that is why I offered the attached photo to MichaelM - its from the vid I linked to on page 4 and is just before MM begins his turn in and acceleration.
From the angle of MM's head he would not need to be using peripheral vision to see the fact that VR is there, plus he said after the incident
Marquez said:
Mind you he also finished that statement with "Then he kicked out at me, knocking my brake lever, and I crashed" so maybe he did have an issue and was trying to cover it...
Attachments
Alternately of course, he was not expecting VR to be there - is all very easy for us but when you look at the video he basically tries to accelerate through the corner as he had seemingly lost position
It would be interesting to know if he still has any visibility issues as a result of that head knock years ago as I had a pretty hefty head knock in the Royal National Park (yep, the head knock explains a lot) and know that since, I have had sight issues and get occasional blurriness (now wear glasses and blurriness could be allergies but throwing it there)
I do have some suspicion he may have continuing visual disturbance; certainly he had problems for some time after the Willairot incident with double vision, which was said to be career threatening.
What is fairly certain is that he has judgement issues, of which the aforementioned Willairot incident and the Argentinean race this year are examples. So he may have made a wrong move, assumed VR wouldn't continue to ride him the whole way off the track, or even enveloped in a red mist similar to the one which was presumably enveloping VR just decided that he refused to be run off the track. The analogy I drew in a previous discussion/argument with Paparazzo was that if you lunge at someone with a knife the possibility that the other party could have dodged is probably not much of a defence.
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Joined Apr 2015
6K Posts | 5K+
NJ
Mike I still maintain VR punted MM intentionally with that chop block in Argentina.
Even though VR was claiming MM was mad at him because of Argentina and Assen, I fully believe it's always been VR who has been mad at MM since Laguna 13. I believe Argentina was intended to be a payback for Laguna 13. VR has never shied away from making contact with other riders on overtakes his entire career.
As for the turn 14 incident at Sepang, I believe it was a case of MM simply not realizing VR had every intention of running him well beyond reason on that turn, which is why he started to accelerate. The idea that VR was not going to cede an inch was foreign to MM. And being racers, these guys have a 6th sense for a lot of things that we do not. As such, there's a certain trust factor involved even if you don't like someone out there personally. He may have thought VR would begun to turn in as opposed to not budging.
Even though VR was claiming MM was mad at him because of Argentina and Assen, I fully believe it's always been VR who has been mad at MM since Laguna 13. I believe Argentina was intended to be a payback for Laguna 13. VR has never shied away from making contact with other riders on overtakes his entire career.
As for the turn 14 incident at Sepang, I believe it was a case of MM simply not realizing VR had every intention of running him well beyond reason on that turn, which is why he started to accelerate. The idea that VR was not going to cede an inch was foreign to MM. And being racers, these guys have a 6th sense for a lot of things that we do not. As such, there's a certain trust factor involved even if you don't like someone out there personally. He may have thought VR would begun to turn in as opposed to not budging.
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I don't really feel in a position to have an opinion on that incident having not watched the race live and having only watched the replay fairly recently at a time when I had already seen/heard the opinions of many other people.
The error of judgement I was referring to was his frequent early season error of not settling for the best position that was possible for him in a given race, and particularly this race; Valentino had caught him up by 4 seconds and passed him easily and he was never going to make a re-pass stick.
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