The Japanese...

clarkjw said:

I don't like Pedrosa, but this is really disrespectful. He's a fast guy that lines up to race. He plays his position.

At the end of the day Mot4oGP is just another form of entertainment (albiet a very practical one). Not everyone needs a feature role to move the plot.
:kanyeshrug:

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Daniboy said:

Lol, he's 8th on the all time GP winners list, hardly a slouch even though his season so far is not great at all. With less injuries he could possibly have had a couple of , I still think he can if the bike can be improved and he stays healthy.

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JPSLotus said:

If only Repsol Honda had seen the unrivaled talent of Cal Crutchlow and signed him instead of re-signing the midget.

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Jumkie said:

Excellent point bro, though I admit, I've done my fair share of talking smack about Pedro around the campfire.

Over the years I think Pedro has changed, matured a bit, at very least not the prick we knew 05-09. That may have something to do with losing Alberto Puig. Having said this however, I hear peeps say Pedro is the next fastest guy. I'm not sure, Honda hasn't replaced him however every teammate he has had had earned a championship. Therefore, the case for replacing him is strong. Two more years, when you have a bloke like Iannone available for me is more about politics than potential performance. I could even make the case Pedro himself should want to leave and try his hand at Suzuki or Yamaha. Certainly that rumor was planted as a 'hurry up' for negotiation, the only question is for who's benefit? I'm starting to think more and more it was to secure Pedro back at HRC by someone with ties to Pedro. Frankly, if I were Pedro, I would have knocked on Lin Jarvis' door and said, I'll ride for free, just give me equal material to Rossi, and promises to stroke Rossi’s fragile ego. I say this from the point of view of assuming Pedrosa 'should want' a realistic shot at a championship, god knows he's not going to beat Marquez on equal footing, therefore he should have taken the chance.



Disagree. Overrated.

I feel he chose safety. He cemented his legacy, all the opportunity without delivery. And for me I'll add, a sense that his record was inflated given his tenure. Consider Spies got two years, really one when you consider the second year shouldn't have counted thanks to Yamaha's unmitigated incompetence. Meanwhile Pedro gets 10+ years! In that time: Hayden, Stoner, and Marquez all have title. That article was harsh, when i read it back when it was published i loved it; the underlying point still stands though, enough is enough. We really don't know if the wing man is doing enough, because we've never seen him replaced. The average of 2 wins per season could very well be 4 by another decent rider. The thing is we've been lulled to believe Pedrosa is the next best because of the 2 wins per year. (Oh, let's not use Cuntslow as a benchmark for what the RCV is capable of for the love of god.)

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wannaride said:

Besides according to Honda it's always the bike not the rider. That's why Rossi left the Repsol team...

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Daniboy said:

Dani has had a terrible time with injuries which I believe makes him look a lot worse than he really is. He had pre season crashes a couple of years and mid season crashes, often at critical times when he was doing well.

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Jumkie said:

They all get injuries. Pedrosa just gets more sympathy for his. (Except when Rossi busted his leg, which was cause for world wide morning and gratuitous glamour camera shots of Rossi on crutches every possible moment). Imagine if Pedrosa were on a .... bike having to override it? He's been on the best machines. Meanwhile you had Hopkins, Spies, Stoner, cheating death on a Kawasaki, Suzuki, Ducati. Newsflash, Pedrosa was crashing on a RCV, these most resources and engineered machine on the grid. As it was put in this thread, the "NASA of GP".

Pedrosa's Svengali-like manager helped in the camouflage of misleading statistics by staunchly thwarting Hayden's voice, starting with the absurdity of blaming the Kentuckian for the infamous Estoril torpedo, highjacking the MotoGP site to spew criticism of the American, and influencing HRC towards this utter failure which tailored a motorcycle to the Spaniard in the extreme. So you can continue to point out empty statistics like you do for the inflated artificial titles during the SNS era--doing so without profound meaning; however even doing so superficially, the fact remains; Pedrosa's teammates tally of World Champions: 3 Pedrosa 0.

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moto vudu said:

True, the R1 is struggling more in WSBK than I thought it would. But I cut it some slack because it's the newest bike on the grid.

You're not winning a title without a quality bike or rider in GP. You cannot take a rider from the back of the grid, stick him on Lorenzo's M1, and expect the same amount of wins.

Wasn't it around the time Rossi had switched to Yamaha that he (and Burgess) made the 80/20 claim? Back then, there wasn't as much trick electronics on the bikes so rider skill was even more of a factor. Now the bikes know where they are on track and adjust mapping for each corner.

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Keshav said:

Wrong, corner-to-corner technology has been around for quite some time.

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Daniboy said:

Dani has had a terrible time with injuries which I believe makes him look a lot worse than he really is. He had pre season crashes a couple of years and mid season crashes, often at critical times when he was doing well.

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moto vudu said:

Do you know exactly when the bikes were equipped with GPS and started changing engine mapping for each corner? "Quite some time" is vague.

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Keshav said:

While it may be unfair to denigrate him because of his fragility - realistically - one has to factor that characteristic when rating a rider's caliber with regards to his ability to be a serious threat over the course of a championship, and winning the championship is kind of the whole point. The ability to stay on the bike has to be considered as well. Look at how rarely Rossi and Lorenzo crash (during practice and especially during races) and compare that to Pedrosa's record. You can't fault the guy for trying - but for years he's been producing the kind of results one would anticipate from a 2nd or 3rd year rider.

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Cool Blue said:

I don't condone this but...

Just as a tick works tirelessly to find a suitable position on it’s host, so too Pedrosa worked hard to get to MotoGP. Being Spanish, he enjoyed support and financial backing not available to many other nationalities, but he had both the ability and work ethic to make it. The point is that in the eight years he’s been there, he hasn’t contributed much beyond riding the bike. As a personality, he’s given nothing to the sport the way the likes of Rossi, Edwards, Hayden, Capirossi, etc have over the same period. Pedrosa’s contribution to MotoGP is all about Pedrosa. And without MotoGP, what would Dani Pedrosa be? A motorcycle courier? An author of children’s books? A midget in an Ewok costume in the next Star Wars movie?


DANI PEDROSA - MOTOGP'S BIGGEST PARASITE - BIKE ME!

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Keshav said:

Programming for individual corners has been around since 2006 - 2007 thereabouts. One of the more tech savy members will likely know exactly which year. Well before Vale went to Ducati.

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Jumkie said:

This is the narrative Rossi created. However, HRC deserved partial credit, Rossi wanted it to be ALL about him. Ironically, it had more to do with neither HRC nor Rossi, but rather Michelin's tier system.

Welcome to the forum. I see you're from Florida, for god sakes, be careful who you meet out there, some real wackos in the South.



Content Warning: Look ....... (.)(.)

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Arrabbiata1 said:

I disagree. The point that I'm making is that the project was formidable in size and undertaking resulting in the merging of the departments which was hitherto unheard of. It also followed a very different philosophy, introducing production methodology into a prototype paradigm and the designs upon a road going counterpart certainly had profound implications for this resulting in a series of compromises. The initial feedback from VR and JB was that the RCV lacked the scope of the NSR500 and it was very much attributed to this. The advantage was a 'well mannered' bike and the ultimate in rideability with a smooth linear power delivery that you would expect to contrast with the temperamental peakiness of the strokers.

Remember the infamous NR500? Although their approach to the project as very much a tabula rasa Honda had learnt from those mistakes and very much with marketing in mind wanted to avoid the conflation of too many new and nascent technologies. However, HRC were keen to invoke the earlier concepts of mass centralisation from the V6 FXX experiment which is why Tomoo Shiozaki was chosen as project lead. I remember reading an interview with him in Motorcycle Racer I think in which he felt that onerous production objectives stymied some of the the freedom and creativity - the latitude - of the designers; this being the case it's frightening to think how even more formidable it could have been - particularly in the the hands of VR.

One massive advantage was this simplicity and its comparative ease to work on. Another objective was to provide engines for satellite teams and reliability and durability was paramount. Also, as I recall the injection system was very revolutionary and there was a new pro-link swing arm assembly which was very clever because it was anchored to either end of the shock as opposed to the chassis.

The objective was a race bike that could be easily emasculated for a road going counterpart but although innovative, in so doing traded the complexity and precision adjustment of a prototype for accessibility and all round functionality and user friendliness.

I'll trawl through my back issues and try to find the Shiozaki article when I get home.

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Daniboy said:

I remember one of his crashes being at the Sachsenring when the team were telling him to get a move on when he had a massive lead. I do think he could have at least one championship in his pocket had he been less fragile. Genuinely nice bloke though, I hope he gets a few wins this year.

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