Will Rossi win a race? Going back in time a bit

J4rn0

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Valentino at least always stayed out of politics and religion, this much we can say for him.

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You hardly need to dabble in religion when your own deity evolves around you..


 


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You have a short memory my friend:


 


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and......


 


http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/70179

Arrabbiata1

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You hardly need to dabble in religion when your own deity evolves around you..


 

imagesCAYCJJXA.jpg


 


You have a short memory my friend:


 

imagesCA62WQ9B.jpg


 

RossiwithMayor1.jpg


 


and......


 


http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/70179

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Nah, that's not politics nor religion -- it's just goliardic fun. Silly maybe.

mad mick

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Let's all see how this season unfolds... At this stage, it looks like Lorenzo has Rossi easily covered. Rossi doesn't seem the same after his accident in 2010. Plus the realisation that Yamaha were not gonna favour him over Lorenzo must have been a huge blow to his ego. Then to be humbled by 2 win-less years at Ducati (the same team that the simple farm boy managed to get victories in every season) must have all taken its toll. Add the extra age to the equation, and its quite apparent that we are not witnessing the Valentino Rossi that we were witnessing in 2004.


 


Would the young Rossi mix it with the current new breed of elite riders? Hard to say. But if the current Rossi IS gonna mix it with the new guns, he had better get his act together.

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Or it could simply be that now that others have equivalent equipment his actual place in the pecking order has been uncovered.

J4rn0

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Kinshasa 1974 and Laguna 2008, why not -- one could see some similarities, like how to trick a stronger opponent into your kind of fight to beat him...

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Don't often disagree with you, but while Valentino may have tricked Stoner into underestimating him at LS 2008, and rode a wonderful race with only one half mistake, I don't think there was any luring of Stoner into his kind of fight; it is abundantly clear, with much evidence from Valentino's own tenure at Ducati, that the Ducati 800 could be ridden competitively in only one way, and that Stoner had no choice in regard to tactics on that bike. Valentino's only and brilliantly executed tactic was not to let Stoner get in front of him on the part of the circuit where Stoner was faster, hence his desperation at the corkscrew.


 


If you are saying Stoner should have gone at maximum warp from the start as was his usual wont on the Ducati, and never let Valentino get past him in the first place, then I agree with you.


 


(EDIT I think it is reasonable to draw parallels between Ali and Rossi in general, similarly iconic figures in their respective sports, and  as you say regardless of whatever else Rossi may do going forward or of his ill advised Ducati move he will be remembered as a true great, and probably the greatest, as is Ali despite those few fights at the end of his career. As far as the Foreman fight goes, seen the film (also great as a film), read the book (by Norman Mailer) and watched the fight live on black and white TV in Australia after a school exam in the morning, and it was an amazing event despite my disapproval, at least on an intellectual level, of boxing.)

Mental Anarchist

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Or it could simply be that now that others have equivalent equipment his actual place in the pecking order has been uncovered.

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Or perhaps he's simply aging and is no longer as fast as he was in relation to the rest of the field when he was in his prime?


Could you please remind me how many factory RC211v's were on the track in 2004?

michaelm

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Don't often disagree with you, but while Valentino may have tricked Stoner into underestimating him at LS 2008, and rode a wonderful race with only one half mistake, I don't think there was any luring of Stoner into his kind of fight; it is abundantly clear, with much evidence from Valentino's own tenure at Ducati, that the Ducati 800 could be ridden competitively in only one way, and that Stoner had no choice in regard to tactics on that bike. Valentino's only and brilliantly executed tactic was not to let Stoner get in front of him on the part of the circuit where Stoner was faster, hence his desperation at the corkscrew.


 


If you are saying Stoner should have gone at maximum warp from the start as was his usual wont on the Ducati, and never let Valentino get past him in the first place, then I agree with you.


 


(EDIT I think it is reasonable to draw parallels between Ali and Rossi in general, similarly iconic figures in their respective sports, and  as you say regardless of whatever else Rossi may do going forward or of his ill advised Ducati move he will be remembered as a true great, and probably the greatest, as is Ali despite those few fights at the end of his career. As far as the Foreman fight goes, seen the film (also great as a film), reasd the book (by Norman Mailer) and watched the fight live on black and white TV in Australia after a school exam in the morning, and it was an amazing event despite my disapproval (at least on an intellectual level) of boxing.)

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Continuing with the boxing similes, if Rossi is Ali, then Marquez could be Sugar Ray Leonard...


Can't really place Stoner though. Maybe Joe Louis...

bluegreen

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Or perhaps he's simply aging and is no longer as fast as he was in relation to the rest of the field when he was in his prime?


Could you please remind me how many factory RC211v's were on the track in 2004?

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Six. And four M1's - the one closest to the front, that didn't have Rossi on it, was Abe in 9th.


 


Seriously though, this is getting as tedious as discussions on Benghazi.


 


Rossi was (note, was) the most influential and successful rider of the 2000's, never being lower than 3rd in the championship and bagging in that time, seven top-class championships. With his move to Ducati he went from third place to sixth/seventh place and now, back on the M1, to fourth place (after 4 races). Anyone who thinks that a rider, on form, that goes from consistent 1/2/3rd places over a decade and in the space of a three-month winter break becomes uncompetitive is just wearing partisan blinkers. His drop of form was mostly due to the Ducati, somewhat due to dissatisfaction at Ducati and somewhat due to a lack of motivation given he knew the bike was a turd.


 


I will be nailing the lid on his coffin after the end of a full season, not after the third race on a bike he has been away from for two years. 


 


Marquez notwithstanding, Rossi is currently fourth out of four full factory bikes. I suspect if Rossi were on the RCV and Marquez on the M1, that their positions would be different. It is clear the RCV is superior on speed and drive out of corners. If Yamaha make enough progress over the next few races, expect to see that superiority lessen. Having the full Burgess/Doohan/Rossi Aussie Invasion crew back at Yamaha will no doubt help development along as they clearly have great feedback skills to the factory engineers.


 


With all this to-ing and fro-ing I am reminded of the recent comment by Robert Gates: <span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size:15px;"a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces." - it's the same for motorcycle racers. People expecting him to come back and just turn up to win are under a "cartoonish impression of his abilities" and those expecting him to fail because he is old or has lost it are just reinforcing their predisposition.


 


<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size:15px;Rossi has to unlearn all he has focused on for two years at Ducati and re-learn the M1 - a bike that has undergone significant development in the last 30 months.


 


<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size:15px;Just as with Bradley Smith and Stefan Bradl, I am willing to give him more than three races before deciding his worth.

J4rn0

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Continuing with the boxing similes, if Rossi is Ali, then Marquez could be Sugar Ray Leonard...


Can't really place Stoner though. Maybe Joe Louis...

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Or on the canvas

BJ.C

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Six. And four M1's - the one closest to the front, that didn't have Rossi on it, was Abe in 9th.


 


Seriously though, this is getting as tedious as discussions on Benghazi.


 


Rossi was (note, was) the most influential and successful rider of the 2000's, never being lower than 3rd in the championship and bagging in that time, seven top-class championships. With his move to Ducati he went from third place to sixth/seventh place and now, back on the M1, to fourth place (after 4 races). Anyone who thinks that a rider, on form, that goes from consistent 1/2/3rd places over a decade and in the space of a three-month winter break becomes uncompetitive is just wearing partisan blinkers. His drop of form was mostly due to the Ducati, somewhat due to dissatisfaction at Ducati and somewhat due to a lack of motivation given he knew the bike was a turd.


 


..................

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His form wasn't that great in 2010, a year in which he managed two serious injuries and finished 5th-7th on several occasions even on his M1. So it isn't 3 months, it's more like 13.  No doubt the injuries made him decline faster, and the move to Ducati made his decline look even more dramatic and apparent to the world. Unfortunately Ducati provided an excuse that allowed him and his fans to blame just the machine for the total lack of competitivity. I personally was more inclined to blame the injured shoulder. Both ideas were wrong.


 


However after the first six months of the 2011 season I began thinking it wasn't just the Ducati, or the shoulder, but he really had lost some of it. The rest of the season, and 2012, reinforced my impression. Of course for a top rider declining doesn't mean that he suddenly doesn't know how to ride, -- but he will show his old form only occasionally and his performance will be erratic. Setting up the bike and finding the speed becomes more difficult and often too difficult. This is not something unique to Rossi: Agostini was the same towards the end of his career, and many others.


 


So seeing these signs I wasn't holding my breath for his return to Yamaha, and wrote about it in this forum, predicting only occasional brilliance (and of course a better consistency than on the Ducati), but nothing close to title-winning standards. Which is what is happening, so far. I was (and will) be pleased when he manages a fine race as he did in Qatar, but I'm afraid the old Rossi will shine only now and then and the intervals will get longer and longer. That's life. Sic transit gloria mundi.

For someone that you think had poor form in 2010, he he still finished up third in the championship.


 


From Germany on (when he returned from injury), he got 5x 3rds, a 2nd and a win, including podiums in the last 6 of 7 races. Yeah, completely ...... form - I'm amazed he could hold up his head. Then there was the whole coming back from the broken fibia in only 41 days to only miss two races and fail to podium only 4 times out of 14 races, thing. Shocking form, really.


 


I'm pretty sure any commentator or competitor on the planet would say a podium in 6 of 7 at the end of the season shows a rider, while maybe not at the top of his game, certainly at the top of the sport.


 


Some riders will never achieve such a mediocre season...

It's all relative... Rossi being Rossi (and not Barbera), that was definitely a season to forget, not knowing or even imagining what was waiting for him at Ducati. Anyway, it was Burgess who went on record at the time saying that according to telemetry he was not entering the corners "his" way any more in the rounds between Qatar and Mugello 2010, and he attributed that to the shoulder injury. After the shoulder healed (in between he broke the leg, but let's assume he was in good form...) the problem remained, and it was blamed on the Ducati (which undoubtely is a difficut bike, but when you see Barbera on the Pramac faster than VR46 on the factory, there's something with the rider too). <span style="font-size:14px;Now he's on the M1 again, but it seems the problem is still there... What shall one attribute it to? Oh wait, he's turning 35!

lil red rocket pilot

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Or on the canvas

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Casey reminds me of another sporting great


 


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Way Aye, Anthony Gobert,  it's me Casey, Ive got a fishing rod, a six pack o Fosters and a chicken sandwich. Lets get this sorted mate, cam oot o yer drain and put that gun away. Lets go Waltzing Matilta doon tha billabong canny lad.

That was seriously ...... up in a kinda weird Scotch/Geordie/Ocker way...

J4rn0

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It's all relative... Rossi being Rossi (and not Barbera), that was definitely a season to forget, not knowing or even imagining what was waiting for him at Ducati. Anyway, it was Burgess who went on record at the time saying that according to telemetry he was not entering the corners "his" way any more in the rounds between Qatar and Mugello 2010, and he attributed that to the shoulder injury. After the shoulder healed (in between he broke the leg, but let's assume he was in good form...) the problem remained, and it was blamed on the Ducati (which undoubtely is a difficut bike, but when you see Barbera on the Pramac faster than VR46 on the factory, there's something with the rider too). <span style="font-size:14px;Now he's on the M1 again, but it seems the problem is still there... What shall one attribute it to? Oh wait, he's turning 35!

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Truth is most thing are harder to do when your dreams are dry and farts are wet. 


 


Old age. 

bluegreen

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Or perhaps he's simply aging and is no longer as fast as he was in relation to the rest of the field when he was in his prime?


Could you please remind me how many factory RC211v's were on the track in 2004?

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HRC threw the kitchen sink to try to beat him didn't they?

HEISMAN

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HRC threw the kitchen sink to try to beat him didn't they?

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According to everything I have read and watched. Mental forgot to respond to that one...