Nope, Vudu was attempting to argue that Marquez didn't say he would crash. Marquez did in fact say it, I'm not wrong at all. I also said that he was wrong and/or omitted something. He was in fact wrong but did not omit anything from the article.
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Nope, Vudu was attempting to argue that Marquez didn't say he would crash. Marquez did in fact say it, I'm not wrong at all. I also said that he was wrong and/or omitted something. He was in fact wrong but did not omit anything from the article.
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Ironically thats all Dani P. has too. A few "gotcha" wins left in the tank and he's all done.
In 2008 YRT gave their #2 equal status with 'a guy who had been making direct public statements about leaving GP bike racing entirely'. In 2015 they gave their #2 equal status with a guy who 'screwed the pooch by dallying with other teams'.
Rossi had more titles and race wins in 2008 when Yamaha gave Lorenzo equal status in the team.
I think it's pretty evident that #1 status at Yamaha isn't linked to loyalty or race records. Their perception of how competitive their rider would be in the coming season would likely be a much bigger factor. The best gauge for which IMO (not necessarily Yamaha's) is the points tally. Crutchlow scored more wins last season but Pedrosa & Dovizioso still have a better shot at the title this year.
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As someone once said; "You can prove anything with statistics"
Another convenient comparison to a rider in his rookie year, to stack the argument in your favour.
How on earth can Yamaha gauge how competitive a rider will be in the coming season? Lorenzo had the better form at the end of 2015, and went into the 2016 season on the back of a very dominant pre-season and first race win. So by that argument he should have been given preferential treatment over Rossi but wasn't.
YRT loyalty lies with their biggest sponsor, Yamaha Motorcycles, who in turn have a biggest loyalty to money, which in turn has the biggest loyalty to their prize earner, Valentino Rossi.
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That genuinely made me laugh.
Hard to believe at the end of 2015, myself included, a few of us were thinking 2016 would be the Year of the Midget.
I sometimes imagine that when Pedrosa finally gets the hook from the factory team, his replacement will come in and win a title within 3 years.
If that happens, we may have to strongly evaluate Pedrosa's entire HRC career.
I do predict that my evaluation will cause some people around here to have sore ......
Serious question JPS, do you believe that Pedrosa could've won on the Yamaha? I do wonder if Stoner hadn't retired if Pedrosa would been fired from HRC and signed to Yamaha the moment Marquez was signed for HRC.
Yes I know DORNA wanted the golden goose back on the Yamaha but if there was such a good alternative YRT may have stuck to their guns and gone with Pedrosa.
I would also be very surprised if someone was able to beat Marquez riding the same bike/without an equipment advantage.
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Pedrosa on the Yamaha is a very interesting question.
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Won races, or won a title?
Races no doubt would have been won by Pedrosa on the Yamaha. The title question is more difficult to answer. Even when he was given some pretty solid bikes from Honda, he was unable to convert it into a title. 2012 was as close as we ever saw him get to the title. Pedrosa is a lot like Lorenzo in that when they get the bike and tires to their liking, they are unbeatable. Misano 2016 was a glimpse into how much that combination being in sync matters for Pedrosa as was 2015 down the stretch when everyone thought Dani was finally back.
But after typing that paragraph, I have to say that on the Yamaha, I don't believe he would have won a title. Pedrosa has had the...shall we say, misfortune of being paired up with two of the greatest riders the sport has ever seen consecutively. Going to Yamaha for say 2013 had Stoner not retired would have paired him up with Lorenzo, and he would have still been in the same quandary of having to not only battle against Casey and Marc at HRC, but his own teammate. Both the M1 and RCV were capable of winning the title that year. Taking that into consideration, my opinion is that Pedrosa not only would have had to win the inter-team battle, but the battle with HRC. That turns into 3 riders he would have had to beat, and considering the caliber of rider involved and matched up with the respective machines, it would have been a tall order. He would have had to hope for not only luck, but that the others cannibalized each other enough for him to sneak in there and get out with the title. Not entirely out of the realm of possibility for him to win the title, but it would have not been done in a dominant fashion. I do think that if Yamaha had truly been serious about contracting him as a replacement for Lorenzo last year, he should have taken the opportunity because the RCV has gotten worse and worse since 2014...and it's not a bike that suits him anymore. If he couldn't win on the Pedrocycle of 2007, he sure as .... isn't going to win on the current bike.
What on earth are you talking about?
Birdman is right, you are just another Rossi fan who reflexively defends Rossi regardless of the argument, or even of whether you were following the sport at the time and have any knowledge of the events under discussion, and on this occasion when someone has mainly agreed with you. I actually said Yamaha imo mostly gave Lorenzo equal status in terms of equipment, and that if he left because he wanted preferred status with equipment rather than being happy with genuinely equal equipment then he imo made an ego-based misjudgment similar to Rossi's in 2010. For some reason you chose 2008 as an example, when the riders did not even run the same tyres, an unprecedented situation for such a major team and one of the prime phenomena which convinced many of those you oppose on here that Rossi had undue influence within the sport.
For Rossi's tenure at Yamaha prior to Lorenzo they mostly ran the likes of Colin Edwards as a tyre mule for Rossi, and you will have trouble convincing anyone Yamaha ever even contemplated hiring a competitive second rider and giving them equal support for a championship run in those years. Rossi is on the record as saying the one rider Nastro Azzurro team situation he had when started in the premier class is his ideal, and the move to Ducati for 2011 was all about Lorenzo having equal status. It looked to me that they gave Lorenzo a good bike for 2009, but unless the Ducati move was purely about the money Rossi wanted the unequivocal number 1 status he had always had at Yamaha which I could make a "reasonable inference" included control of the direction of bike development. You will recall (or may not as above) that Rossi continued to have the "wall" mandated by the riders running different tyres in 2008 in 2009 when the control tyre came in.
Ben Spies reputedly had an incompetent crew chief of his own choice, but during his tenure his bikes had numerous difficulties including him being sent out for several races on a bike with a broken frame, and again you will have trouble convincing anyone Yamaha were very interested in him being a contender.
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I don't disagree with you about Edwards' WSBK career. He did quite well there and deserved all of the success he had. But he was not MotoGP top team material as we quickly learned.
The reason MotoGP has a "succession to Rossi" issue is because Dorna created a monster they thought they could control, but obviously have not been able to do so. Instead the monster took control of them and by proxy the entire sport. As the adage goes, play with fire and get burned. They had a great opportunity with the abundance of talent they had in their grasp. They had the next generation of riders who truly were the heirs to the mantle Rossi was carrying. But in their infinite wisdom, what did they do? They went the route of creating light and darkness for their "feuds". The problem was, Rossi was always cast as the light, and everyone else was cast as darkness.
Dorna had a way to escape from all of this several times. The first was in the summer of 2007 when Rossi was threatening to quit if he were not given Bridgestone tires. Had they called his bluff, he would have had two choices. 1) Ride on Michelins for 2008 or 2) quit MotoGP. He would have rode on Michelins. Stoner might have repeated, or he might not have. But it would have put Rossi in his place effective immediately. They bent over for him instead and ceded him more power. Then there was the Ducati stint. That would have ended any other rider's career. But Dorna and Yamaha marketing colluded to get Rossi back at Yamaha, thus doing something that had never been done to that point. Gifting an aging rider a top flight ride on arguably the best bike on the grid for him. Then you have the third incident which was Sepang 2015. Dorna/FIM had the opportunity to finally throw down the gauntlet and make a statement that no one rider is bigger than the sport by hitting him with a multi-race ban and suspension of his license. Instead, they fed his stories and gave him a slap on the wrist for endangering another rider's life over some ridiculous conspiracy theory.
So what we have now is a sport that is still dependent on a 38 year old rider for it's commercial success because it burned every bridge with every other rider who could, and should have been the heir apparent or even a worthy person of promoting. Instead Dorna and the media both colluded to bury every single person and exerting their ability to influence over the fanbase at large so the burial would be complete. We were robbed of one generation talent because of this when he chose to retire rather than to deal with the blatant favoritism and ......... We watched another talent go to a team that may result in him never winning a race or title again, just so he could get away from the toxic ........ of Yamaha. And then we have one who grew up a fan of Rossi, and rode with as much passion as the former did when he was young, get buried when he dared to challenge the lies by racing head-to-head.
The latest push for Vinales is because Dorna is starting to realize the end is coming for Rossi as a racer very soon, so they need to now hit on something else. But the people who could have been that were all buried by Dorna/media/fans. Vinales is the only guy left they can put out front.
Rossi was allowed to get away with so much by Dorna who was desperate to milk the cash for everything it was worth, that they were willing to roll dice on the future of the entire sport for the sake of one man...who at the end of the day was just another in the history of the sport of grand prix motorcycle racing.
I always found it interesting how Rossi mimics the Antichrist on some level.
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Trunkman said as much in his articles "MotoGP's obsession with Valentino Rossi", that the NBA for example, while promoting their current stars, also takes time to promote future stars and the future of the sport so that they don't end up with all their eggs in one basket. Something Dorna has seemed to do.
I'd be interested to see the drop in viewing figures once Rossi does retire.
I'd be interested to see the drop in viewing figures once Rossi does retire.
Funny you say that.
There was an article in Australian magazine TwoWheels many many years ago (thinking 25 - 30 or so years back) that still sticks in my mind as a slap down to many in the Asutralian media who at the time were calling for bans on motorbikes due to the power and 'safety concerns'.
The mainstream media had been producing statistics on motorbike accidents to try to illustrate how dangerous bikes were and thus to try to get additional restrictions put in place.
So, TwoWheels used the exact same statistics to prove that the safest motorcycle for roads in Australia would be the NSR500 so they started a campaign to allow them and other GP bikes to be road registered (of course it went nowehere as it was satire).
How they deduced the NSR500 was that using the stats (I am paraphrasing and summarising - do not have the mag around but the article really sticks in the mind), most motorcycle accidents occurred at intersections, on this all agreed.
Thus, TwoWheels argued that the less time spent in an intersection by a motorcycle would make the bike safer, thus the faster that the rider could go through the intersection the safer they became, and at the time the NSR was considered teh fastest so they decided that the safest bike would be an NSR500 as it could be ridden through the intersection faster.
It was an excellent use of your statistics, my statistics and one that shows that it is how one presents the statistics that can shape the desired opinion
Let me recap and I'll try to keep it as simple as possible.
JPSLotus alleged that Yamaha forced out Lorenzo last year, by subjecting him to the ignominy of an 'identical contract' with Rossi. When it was pointed out that Lorenzo was considerably higher paid, he clarified his statement to mean Lorenzo was effectively forced out because Yamaha subjected him to equal status with Rossi.
[And also cancelled his post-Valencia celebration, which in reality was cancelled by Movistar a full week before Lorenzo clinched the title.]
This despite the fact that Lorenzo received parity in the first place in the Yamaha team in very similar circumstances.
In 2009, Rossi had won three world titles for Yamaha, while Lorenzo had won two titles at the end of 2014 (when Rossi regained equal standing). Rossi had won 38 races for them, Lorenzo had won 33 races (albeit over a longer period).
Yamaha policy did not deprive Lorenzo of equal status when Rossi comfortably took the 2008 & 2009 titles. It makes no sense for Lorenzo to have expected #1 status in 2016 under that same policy despite securing the 2015 title.
Then you are in disagreement with JPSLotus and it is perhaps his post you should be quoting.
Acc. to Lorenzo it wasn't a factor.
Lorenzo: Equal status with Rossi not a factor
My mistake. That ought to be 2009. Rossi was the reigning champion in 2009 (same as Lorenzo in 2016) after a two year titleless streak (same as Lorenzo), the first of which he lost in the final race by just 5 pts (same as Lorenzo) and the second where he got demolished ending up in 3rd place in the rider standings (same as Lorenzo).
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Its a judgement call obviously. Lorenzo didn't have Rossi's record but they gauged his potential and gave him equal billing.
Lorenzo has always been faster pre-season and has more victories at Qatar than anybody else. Rossi went into the 2009 & 2010 as the title holder without receiving preferential treatment on the technical front.
Broadly speaking they're both still comparable riders and Yamaha can't be faulted for giving them equal treatment (even if they liked Rossi more and paid Lorenzo more).
As true in 2016 as it was in 2010. Maybe less. (The Yamaha target customer base as well as the MotoGP audience is larger today but Rossi's stardom, though still substantial, has receded a fair bit.)
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That was the problem, you assumed because I usually disagree with you and often agree with JPS that I was arguing as you expected I would rather than actually reading what I said, hence my post to the effect that your posts are formulaic.
I actually have always thought, and posted to that effect numerous times over the years, that it was still a big step for Yamaha to choose to back Lorenzo in 2010 for 2011, and that if he had showed absolute loyalty to them thereafter, which he didn't, that they may have been more loyal to him.
The part of your previous post in regard to how Yamaha choose to support their factory riders still makes no sense to me, and as I have said they have at times chosen to back both riders strongly, and at other times not, not that having a strong number 1 rider and mainly backing that rider is a bad tactic as far as winning championships.
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My post was in a certain context. If you intended your post to be a general comment disregarding that context rather than a specific reply, okay. Though perhaps a point rebutting JPSLotus' position should have quoted his post rather than mine.
As long as they've had two riders capable of winning on the bike, they've always backed both riders strongly. True for Lorenzo & Rossi, true for Rossi & Vinales and will be true for Vinales & whoever succeeds Rossi at YRT (after maybe a year or so of transitory #1 status for Vinales).
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Here is what I said since you have a tenuous grasp on reading comprehension.
Second, I never cited the Movistar cancellation. Kropo who I suspect would know more than you do (one can hope!) cited multiple celebrations as being cancelled by Yamaha and NEVER mentioned the Movistar cancellation.
Then there was this bit -
Are you absolute sure 'identical contracts' meant 'equal standing', cause the money bit sure suggests otherwise.
They had one major celebration planned that was cancelled pre-Valencia. There may have been other minor publicity events (judging by typical post-seasons) but there's no evidence to suggest that they were cancelled only after Valencia.
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There is no "always" about it, which was my point, they have done different things at different times in their history; they haven't even always sought to have 2 strong riders in the first place. As I said, I do believe they treated Lorenzo and Rossi fairly equally most of the time whichever rider was currently theoretically in the ascendancy, and hardly need you to tell me that they are giving Vinales adequate equipment currently.
You appear to believe that those who disagree with you on here are only ever motivated by blind prejudice against Rossi. It appears to Birdman and me at least that you blindly defend Rossi against anything which could be construed as unfavourable to him, so I guess that makes us even.
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Blah blah blah.
I said I misspoke and meant to say equal contracts. But keep clinging to the former statement rather than the one I said after that reflected what I was thinking. I even apologized for that, but leave it up to you too continue on about nothing.
Simple question for you: are you claiming Kropo lied about events being cancelled by Yamaha after what transpired towards the end of the 2015 season? Movistar cancelling an event is not Yamaha cancelling an event. And please do shut the .... up about Movistar as no one brought it up other than you.
