3682551384284308
My memory's a little hazy, but I recall when Stoner was winning on the GP07, people were attributing that success more to the bike than they did to Stoner. When Stoner was eating pavement on the Duc and complaining about how the front end was worthless, people attributed that not to the Duc's shortcomings on the bike but to Stoner's lack of skill. It seems comical now, but just a few short years ago people were penciling Ducati in for the title after Vale jumped to the Italian factory, with stories being written about how awesome it would be for an Italian to win the title on an Italian bike.
Of course, we now all know what really happened: the Duc was an awful machine and Stoner was making it look a lot better than it was. If Jorge ever jumps ship (unlikely, but you never know) and an "ordinary" rider takes his place, then we'll know just how limited the M1 really was and how hard he had to ride it to race at such a high level. I'm willing to bet Jorge is pulling some serious magic tricks to keep the M1 at the front of the grid.