I agree this is a rossi bashing thread and was at its inception, which is why I haven't contributed to it previously. I don't particularly want the riders to hold hands and sing hymns/folk songs anyway, and see no reason why they should. The only requirement should be that they give respect in terms of racing room/ being trustworthy in racing situations, and simoncelli whilst sometimes a victim of circumstances (particularly in the pedrosa incident imo) doesn't have the trust and confidence of his fellow riders, and to a degree their attitude is justifiable.
As I have frequently said, rossi is statistically probably the safest rider in history, which is not the same as saying stoner had no reason to be upset over the jerez incident. All your criticism of him over the incident is based on implications you have drawn, stoner actually called it a racing incident and moved on. I think with the mutual contributions to the history between them neither stoner nor rossi is in a position to complain about what each says about the other. In terms of rossi's famous mind games, rossi is apparently "not speaking" to stoner at present, which looks like a win for stoner regardless of their respective current results.
There are now two things concerning which I won't defend stoner, his ungracious (even if probably true) comments about the Indy track, and his lack of respect for nicky hayden in their practice incident.
F..ing excellent post, as has become your custom!
And I'll add, something that has puzzled me a bit has been the rider's attitudes toward going to Japan. I was a bit harsh on all of them (Talps was particularly harsh on Stoner...that is until Rossi made similar foot in mouth statement that he would not go either). But anyway, this got me thinking a bit more, and I may be guilty of judging these guys too harshly for this reason: they are young kids. Well, at my age, they are to me, as they are for the most part, half my age (except Rossi, who is an old ... man
) I suspect they have a few people who are probably also feeding them stupid stuff (which I think Kropo suggested once, I think it was him). These guys have spent all their time at the track since they were 3, and certainly have a different prospective on life. Where as me, I went to school, got a job, dealt with relationships, a "normal" life, etc. So perhaps they are still learning the social constructs of acceptable behavior, which sometimes unfortunately for them, gets played out in public. And of course, there is never a eager journalist to catch them in a fit of stupid words, eh. (sarcasm).
Again, I'm not one to come to Rossi's rescue, as he is the senior fellow bar Capi in this group of riders, but certainly he was not the "only exception" of putting foot in mouth. I mean, guys I have grown to like, like Crutchlow and Abraham also said some not so kind words in public (though again, they were hilarious). Ah, if only Kalio were back in MotoGP, hitting guys and never copping responsibility. Like when he clearly torpedoed Melandri, and rant to him to yell out, "what the F are you doing?" to have Melandri look back like, 'did this guy bump his head?' Hahaha.
