Joined Apr 2008
7K Posts | 3K+
Out of Nowhere
Joined Apr 2008
7K Posts | 3K+
Out of Nowhere
Joined Oct 2006
25K Posts | 4K+
Your Mom's House
Joined Oct 2006
25K Posts | 4K+
Your Mom's House
The Sepang press conference about the PI race is the big issue for me, from which all else ensued, and I think your attitude as opposed to Rossi himself and a large element among his fans is reasonable. MM certainly could have had a motive of ultimately surpassing Rossi, but given he eventually beat Lorenzo and won the race and put no hard/risky moves on the contenders I am not sure what more could have been required of him. Rossi may have ridden 300 races, but has also been badly wrong before about how hard a rider was trying on a bike he himself had never ridden cf his remarks about Casey Stoner's degree of effort on the 2010 Ducati.
I think they would all have been aware that Rossi was no chance of catching the front 3 at Valencia. I take Jumkie's point that 2nd for Lorenzo with MM 3rd still wins Lorenzo the title, and it can be argued that MM contesting Pedrosa's attempted pass was actually the most dangerous thing for Lorenzo's title hopes, since both of them going down puts Rossi 2nd in the race.
I favour my own explanation for Lorenzo's post race thank you obviously.
Bottom line though is that Iannone whom even Rossi has cleared as a co- conspirator beat Rossi at PI, and Rossi's likely results without all the controversies were 4th and 4th at Sepang and Valencia. As David Emmett opined, Rossi's problem was that he needed to subcontract beating Lorenzo to the HRC guys for the last race, and possibly at Sepang as well. Dani was always going to win that Sepang race, it was one of his weekends, but MM beating Lorenzo, who had the fastest lap of the race btw, into 3rd at Sepang with Rossi 4th still gives Lorenzo the title by 1 point (EDIT 1 point less) by my calculations.
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Apropos of nothing at all, when Bautista had a Honda that worked he was battling Rossi for fourth continually. Mostly losing, as I recall, and ending up fifth, but we're talking Bautista on a satellite Honda VS Rossi on a factory bike!
So maybe it was first years for Rossi on that Yamaha, but so what?, the mighty Rossi should have taken to that bike like a duck to water.
Anyway, I did say ' apropos of nothing' so ......
So maybe it was first years for Rossi on that Yamaha, but so what?, the mighty Rossi should have taken to that bike like a duck to water.
Anyway, I did say ' apropos of nothing' so ......
Joined Oct 2006
25K Posts | 4K+
Your Mom's House
I thought about you reading this modest description by your favorite GP hackstorian.
"Rossi’s weekend was a LAZARUS-STYLE comeback of BIBLICAL proportions." Hack Oxley
That's an actual quote.
Hack Oxley goes on to say, even though there have been comebacks from broken bones "but NONE of them has been able to hide the fear of further injury in some dark recess of their brain to the extent that it has zero effect on their ability to ride as fast..."
It's fascinating that people take this guy seriously, as if he's some kind of authority on MotoGP.
Diatribe over.
If you live in a glass house don't throw rocks.
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Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
Why the Rossi hate, his fans and his unwillingness to pull them in. Now the custard faithful have hatched the narrative that its Vinales' fault for Yamahas struggles this year. They are saying that Yamaha ignored Rossi in favor of Vinales in the development of the 2017 bike. It doesn't register with them that Vinales wasn't even on the team when the 2017 bike was drawn up and built, no doubt with no one but Rossi's input as Lorenzo was leaving. Vinales jumped on A bike 100 % built to suit Rossi and was immediately much faster . That was when Rossi started whining about the new tire after approving it earlier. At that point, Goubert said Rossi was the only rider complaining about the tire and basically told him to figure it out. After the first race, all of a sudden Goubert is talking about bringing a different tire to Argentina, we can only imagine who got in his ear "uncle Carmelo". Now that it looks like Rossi's demands are gaining traction, there is a revolt in the paddock when Michelin announced they are bringing a stiffer tire to Argentina. The reason for the revolt is the entire thing reeks of Michelin bringing in Sns for Rossi once again. Other riders vetoed the tire until testing could be done. Then we hear that 20 of the riders voted for the new tire which may be true but Redding speaks up and says that is ........., that there was just a few riders who wanted to switch but at that point it was happening so you might as well go with it because you can't win against the power that certain individuals have in the paddock. Of course he was talking about Rossi and probably Marquez, who didn't push for the tire but once it looked like it could happen, he happily jumped on board with the stiffer tire. In the end, Rossi got what he wanted but still couldn't beat his teammate and started demanding a chassis change which also happened. Now they have a bike that hasnt won since Assen and its Vinales fault. Yamaha is to blame for following Rossi demands as they took a bike that was leading the championship to a bike that can't win a race and handed the one thing Marquez needed to win. I'm seriously starting to think that Rossi's motivation was to derail Vinales even if it meant handing the title to Marquez. It's a helluva of a lot easier to explain Marquez winning a title than to explain how a young teammate jumped on his bike and won a title. It may sound far fetched but us who have followed the sport have a pretty good idea on how Rossi thinks.
Yes, I feel that Rossi was not fast enough at Sepang or Valencia to clinch the title. At Sepang, Jorge hunted Rossi down quite easily, and pulled a gap pretty quickly. At Valencia, Rossi didn't show the pace he'd need to battle the front three.
I'm ultimately speculating (and who knows what he'd pull out of the hat if he was in touching distance at Valencia), but my feeling is that he would've finished 4th at Sepang and Valencia and lost the title.
EDIT: Good point re Rossi's comment on Stoner at Sachsenring 2010.
If not for Marquez crashing at Aragon trying to beat Lorenzo and Rossi punting Marquez off the track his results for the last 1/3 of the season could've been 5,4,2,4,4,4 but yeah the Valeban is right and Rossi not being fast enough in 2013 had nothing to do with Lorenzo winning the championship.
Joined Nov 2015
2K Posts | 582+
A caravan on an island
Pov, from Valencia onwards the development work was based on both riders inputs, because Vinales topped all the pre season tests it was highly likely that they assumed the bike was ok, why wouldn't they?
The early 2017 bike tested in Valencia would have been the base on which the bulk of development was carried out on but Rossi's struggles didn't matter to Yamaha, they had their fast rider in Vinales which is all they wanted.
To say the bike was done and dusted in 2016 is wrong.
The early 2017 bike tested in Valencia would have been the base on which the bulk of development was carried out on but Rossi's struggles didn't matter to Yamaha, they had their fast rider in Vinales which is all they wanted.
To say the bike was done and dusted in 2016 is wrong.
Joined Jun 2007
10K Posts | 1K+
Norah Head
Like its the bikes fault
Heres a factual take on the real problem at Yamaha:
http://motogpforum.com/motogp/20786-wtf-have-yamaha-done.html
Joined Oct 2012
3K Posts | 725+
Crab Key
Pretty amusing. Particularly coming from the guy who wrote Doohan's bio
Joined Jul 2011
1K Posts | 872+
Dont Know
Riders don't use each other's set up data. Unless its reported Vinales copied Rossi of course. Then you jump all over it in triumph. Rossi leads he never follows. Oh the irony. Yes I believe you it's Vinales that led Yamaha astray. Yamaha never listened to Rossi. Where's your fishing icon?
Joined Oct 2006
25K Posts | 4K+
Your Mom's House
Far fetched? On an infamous occasion, Rossi 'voted' for a tired he did NOT want knowing it would thwart a rival. Fact. Considering, a rival can be defined as teammate, it's not far fetched.
Far fetched? There is a video interview with Michael Scott, old school GP journalists, using the word "ruthless" to describe Valentino Rossi, in which he suggested Rossi had come up with The Great Conspiracy Debacle of 2015 to deflect from the inevitable realization that he simply wasn't good enough to win the title.
Daniboy, Viñalez was essentially a rookie in the Yamaha factory, his task was to 'learn' the bike he was presented with; it's rather irrational to state that Maverick was developing the 2017 bike, which frankly had been developed in 2016. You may recall, Lorenzo was disallowed to even look at what was being engineered given that Yamaha considered him already a rival, such information is guarded for obvious reasons.
I agree, the bike was ok, ...., it was more than ok, it went 2 for 2 to start the season. Then what happened? The wrong guy won those two races, and since then they've been chasing modifications to a tire whose introduced was based not on safety reason. They reverted to a older iteration of a chassis, which (and I'm laughing as I say this) may have been engineered with Lorenzo's input to....yup, mitigate the problem that was created by pushing for this previously rejected tire, a tire that Viñalez is on record voting against. It's hilarious, but I'm sure you represent many Rossi fans who blame Yamaha for their struggle. How you connected those dots is fascinating.
If you live in a glass house don't throw rocks.
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Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
Vinales took a bike he had never sat on and proceeded to dominate testing, not a foolproof sign but damn the kid was fast , clocks don't lie. He proceeds to win the first 2 races on 2 different continents, had a typical Yamaha race at COTA, then came Jerez where Yamaha unexpectedly struggled in the heat. Then the Yamahas were dominant at LeMans with Vinales winning again and Rossi crashing out of second. Does that sound like a flawed bike, 3 wins in 5 races ,comfortably leading his number one rival. Rossi was struggling and had seen his young first year teammate out score him by 20 points thru the first five races and panicked. Let me ask you a simple question, had Rossi won 3 of the first 5 races and had a commanding lead on Marquez, what would have happened if Vinales wanted Michelin to change tires midstream to give him a softer carcass , then demand a reboot from Yamaha on the chassis.
Had Rossi not pulled this stunt to avoid the humiliation of getting his ... stomped, Vinales could very well be leading the championship. Even with all that he is still in the hunt and still to this day has only finished behind Rossi once in 10 races they both completed.Thats on a bike that started2016- 2017 testing 100 % built on Rossi input, then yanked from under him after he mastered it and replaced with 2017 Rossi version 2.0. It's actually kind of sad to watch the machinations of Yamaha Racing as they dance to Yamaha Marketing.
Yes, yamaha lost their soul when they effectively let Lorenzo walk.
I don't care if they never win again, especially as long as Jarvis and Rossi are there.
I do feel kind of sorry for vinales, but he knew what he was walking into there
If he is truly good he will ride around the problems and solve them to win, as Lorenzo did.
I don't care if they never win again, especially as long as Jarvis and Rossi are there.
I do feel kind of sorry for vinales, but he knew what he was walking into there
If he is truly good he will ride around the problems and solve them to win, as Lorenzo did.
What exactly do you have against Oxley Jumkie?
Seems an alright fella to me, sure his articles can be a bit over the top but there's worse.
Seems an alright fella to me, sure his articles can be a bit over the top but there's worse.
Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
He is Rossi's biographer, mouth piece etc etc, which automatically makes anything he says on the subject of Rossi suspect. He most certainly carries Rossi's water when the endless controversies arise.
