| Author | Message | ||
     Xb1125r |
Stoner would not take a wild card becuase is not worth gettign injured, when there is no big pay check. he has nothing to to prove, he is the man. | ||
| Jaimec |
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| Bads1 |
He won two championships. Ducati once and he went down hill after that till he rode the Honda. A bike that was completely developed before he came. Stoner is awesome hes just not a champion. Lorenzo is.... Marquez is showing he is..... Rossi is. Stoner lacks being a champion not riding like one. Soon as you can see that the better off your lil mind will be. Broaden it... look at the bigger picture of the other riders and their accomplishments and maybe just maybe you can understand us. | ||
| Gaesati |
..and Rossi (who never won on the Ducati)is quoted as saying he could not work out how Stoner won as many races as he did on it. As well, Honda regards Stoner as a development rider highly enough to not only invite him back from retirement but also to say that development actually improved with Stoner riding and "he woke up our engineers". Additionally, his win , podium and pole rate puts him up amongst the best for the period he was racing a factory bike. Being popular doesn't make him a champion..but performance on the bike does! | ||
| Gaesati |
Interestingly, Stoner's pit crew and team managers always had an intensely loyal relationship with him. Cecchinello, Preziozi, Livio Suppo and Nakamoto were all effusive in their praise of him as a team member. Also, his pitcrew from Ducati largely followed him to Honda. | ||
| Gaesati |
Interestingly, Stoner's pit crew and team managers always had an intensely loyal relationship with him. Cecchinello, Preziozi, Livio Suppo and Nakamoto were all effusive in their praise of him as a team member. Also, his pitcrew from Ducati largely followed him to Honda. | ||
| Crusty |
Hey! You just said that! | ||
| Crusty |
Hey! You just said that. | ||
| Trojan |
Honda regards Stoner as a development rider highly enough to not only invite him back from retirement but also to say that development actually improved with Stoner riding and "he woke up our engineers". He may have woken up the engineers, but how can he be considered to have helped in developing a bike when nobody else can ride it? Stoner had the ability to ride anything fast, and to adapt his style to whatever he was riding. That does not make a good development rider and it has been aptly proven by the dismal form of everyone else who has swung a leg over the Ducati since Stoner 'developed' it initially. Honda may shoot themselves in the foot by developing next years bike around Stoners input, although I think that Marquez will probably drag them out of the sh*t by being even more able to ride anything fast than Stoner was  It will be interesting to see how Pedrosa gets on with it though. Being popular doesn't make him a champion..but performance on the bike does! Being a true champion involves more than just winning races. PR, press conferences, sponsor commitments and above all being happy to spend time with fans are all part of the sport and make up of a true champion. There are plenty of people who have won championships and then been forgotten because they lack the rest of the package. | ||
| Jaimec |
This article is about Crutchlow, but it makes comments (not all of which I agree with) about nearly everybody else on the grid too: http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/739/16800/Motorcycle -Article/STM--Crutchlow-at-Ducati---Why-the-Surpri se-.aspx One interesting observation was this:
I'm sure the "Test Rides" are simply an attempt by Honda to tempt Casey out of retirement and build their own dream team out of him and Marquez. That might be fun to watch: Marquez showing "The Moaner" how to REALLY push a bike beyond its envelope. | ||
| Xb1125r |
what would be awesome is Stoner going to yamaha and takign Rossis spot,lol | ||
| Trojan |
Good article by Frank Melling. The uneducated comments afterwards make me laugh though Frank has been around motorcycle racing longer than most of the people commenting on his article have been on the planet, and has probably forgotten more than they will ever know about racing. Still these idiots think they know more than him and other knowl;edgeable insiders (including Cal's management and Ducati/Audi, who are after all willing to pay Crutchlow a huge salary- twice what they pay Dovi currently), I hope these naysayers are proved wrong very quickly | ||
| Xb1125r |
honda offered stoner 15 million,lol and he still has not signed. if you had stoner and marquez is pretti much garanteed championship | ||
| Trojan |
if you had stoner and marquez is pretti much garanteed championship or save 15 million and just have Marquez, same result All this talk of Stoner returning forgets one thing of course...Pedrosa has a contract until 2015 with Repsol Honda (as does Marquez). If Honda want to upset the applecart by running a third factory bike for Stoner it would mean withdrawing either the Gresini or LCR machine from their 'factory' allocation. The current rules only allow the factories to run 4 bikes (2 factory, 2 satellite) so they have no room to manoevre and couldn't even run Stoner as a wild card under current rules unless pedrosa, Marquez, Bautista or Bradl step down to allow it (can you see that happening?). Stoner should stay retired and let the championship stay happy | ||
| Gaesati |
I disagree with parts of Melling's article: If Rossi can say that Ducati would not respond to his team's development ideas why then do people think that they would have been more likely to listen to Stoner? On MotoGp history I see no evidence that Crutchlow, great hearted though he is, is any faster than Dovizioso on comparable machinery. I look forward to seeing the two of them racing each other on the Ducatis next year. I think also that Melling's underrates Hayden. On competitive machinery Hayden is/was a very fast racer . If not an alien at his best he was not far off. | ||
| Jaimec |
In regards to Gaesati's evaluation of Hayden: http://www.motorcycledaily.com/2013/07/rossi-vs-ha yden-at-ducati-what-the-numbers-tell-us/ | ||
| Trojan |
On MotoGp history I see no evidence that Crutchlow, great hearted though he is, is any faster than Dovizioso on comparable machinery. I don't think that they have had the chance to show how different they are in riding style yet. The Yamaha favours a very smooth (Lorenzo style) 250 riding style that Dovi has in spades and Cal has to work very hard to achieve. Cal is a much more ';seat of the pants' rider and I think he will be better at Ducati than Dovi (or Rossi) because of that. He isn't hindered by having a 250 GP background or style. Dovi's style worked well at Yamaha and Honda but could actually be counter productive at Ducati...we shall see | ||
| Jaimec |
Dovi is currently doing better than Nicky who also doesn't have any "250 baggage," and came up from production style racing just like Cal... | ||
| Trojan |
Dovi is currently doing better than Nicky who also doesn't have any "250 baggage," and came up from production style racing just like Cal... With all due respect to Nicky, I wouldn't put him in the same category as either Dovi or Cal. he won a world championship because he had the best bike and the 'other guy' threw it away. He hasn't won a race since then, has never scored more points than his team-mate at Ducati, and really has kept his ride because he had the right passport for Ducati marketing. Nice guy, hard worker, good for company PR, but I don't rate him as highly as a rider I'm afraid. | ||
| Jaimec |
He also won the world championship on a bike that was very clearly being developed for the "other guy" on his team. In fact, he had the "Development Bike" which was suffering all kinds of clutch issues that his pint-sized team mate wasn't experiencing at all on the bike he was given. Honda even gave some lame reasons as to why they couldn't just give Nicky the "working clutch" despite the fact he was leading the championship standings most of the season. And don't forget, before the other guy "threw it away," Nicky collected a big fat ZERO the race before because his IDIOT of a team mate took him out of the race. Otherwise, there wouldn't've even been an issue at the last race. | ||
| Gaesati |
I watched Hayden at Phillip Island numerous times on the Honda he was very quick. His greatest weakness was that he would fade towards the end of the race or the bike would fail. His fading may have been due to fitness or his super bike riding style may have been hard on tyres. | ||
| Jaimec |
Nicky was definitely known for his "backing it in" style of riding. Something he picked up from flat track racing here in the States even before he got into Superbikes. | ||
| Trojan |
He also won the world championship on a bike that was very clearly being developed for the "other guy" on his team. Hayden won the championship on the bike that Rossi had developed, not one that was developed for Pedrosa Pedrosa had to work with what he was given too). Since then (5 years ago!) he has not even been close to winning and has really enjoyed lonerg at the top teams than he had any right to unfortunately. I hope he picks up a decent ride in WSB but he no longer deserves a top factory ride in MotoGP. he isn't the only one either, there are plenty of people in MotoGP that really need to move aside and let the new generation get a chance (Edards, Abraham, Bautista, De Puniet to name but 4) | ||
| Jaimec |
If you look at the two bikes they both had, they even looked different. Hayden had what Honda called the "Development" bike, whereas Pedrosa had the bike Rossi developed. It was the information that Honda gleaned from that bike that went into the little "Pocket Bike" they came out with for the dawning of the 800cc era (the one that Nicky took one look at and thought he was being "punked"). I remember a friend of mine (a RABID Hayden fan) was pissed that he was being forced to ride an "unproven" bike, but I guess since he was the "Senior Rider" Honda counted on his input more than Pedrosa (who was in his rookie year). Nicky never got the respect he deserved from Honda. He was ALWAYS the "Number 2" guy in the garage, even when he was the World Champion. That's one of the reasons I despise Honda. As good as Marquez is, and as likable as he appears, as long as he is in Repsol/Honda colors, I can't root for him. | ||
| Simond |
Not the most exciting race. You'd never guess that Nicky Hayden was leaving Ducati! So LCR possibly to run a second bike for him next year | ||
| Trojan |
Apart from the race for 4th-6th places it wasn't the best race I have seen (although Marquez is certainly impressive to watch every time he rides this year, even if he does have a 3 second lead!). The battle between Crutchlow, Bautista and Rossi was excellent in the closing laps, and I'm pretty sure that people at Ducati will be getting their heads banged together prertty hard! This is the second time in three races that the factory Ducati riders have managed to take each other out and let Bradley Smith steal two positions from them on the last lap. Ducati are poor enough this year as it is without the riders making their position even worse by fighting amongst themselves for 9th and 10th places! Funny how LCR don't have any money to run a second bike until Honda put the squeeze on them to employ Hayden (paid for by American Honda it appears). I think American Honda would be better to employ James Rispoli, JD Beach, Jake Gagni, Cameron Beaubier or any of the top young guns in AMA rather than keep plugging away with a rider that has won just 3 GP's in 10 years! I like Nicky (and Colin) but they need to makie way for younger riders who could be challenging for the title in a few years, not just some short term tactic to try and sell more bikes in the US. So now that Indy is back on for next year will it get the much needed resurfacing of the track? | ||
| Trojan |
This is the second time in three races that the factory Ducati riders have managed to take each other out and let Bradley Smith steal two positions from them on the last lap. correction....This is the third time in 3 races that the Ducati pairing have collided! I had forgotten about the 'Laguna incident' although they were lucky on that occasion that nobody took advantage of their personal dust up. At Assen they ran into each other at the final chicane and let Bradley Smith through (just like at Indy). Good to see Scott Redding defend his moto2 championship lead 'robustly' against Espagaro too Funny how the guy in second place already has a factory contract for next year (not just a Tech 3 conract but a direct Yamaha Racing contract no less!) while the leader of the championship looks like he will be lucky to score a 'production racer' Honda for next year. If Scott wins the Moto2 title this year he will be the first Moto2 series winner not to have moved straight onto a factory prototype in MotoGP (in fact the first not ot have a direct HRC contract I believe). But please don't think for one minute that MotoGP favours Spanish riders over other nationalities of course..........................yeah right, pull the other leg! | ||
| Xb1125r |
the germans have somehtign up their sleeve but won't be seen until next season. Crutchlow will not outrun Dovi for sure. Dovi is one classy guy, he did not get upset over Nicky, but liek he said is not like they were going to be on podium. Nicky is trying to hard to get a ride with another team. it sucks for Young and Spies, nothign but bad luck. | ||
| Xb1125r |
smith did not look pleased, if it wasn't for nicky messing it up for dovi, he would have finished behind them both | ||
| Jaimec |
Redding let me down, Matt. I was hoping for a chorus of "God Save the Queen" sandwiched between the guaranteed opening and closing race renditions of the Spanish National Anthem. At one point I thought we might even hear the Japanese National Anthem, but no... once again (just like last year) we hear the Spanish National Anthem after every race (not counting the XR1200 and eBike races, of course). I'm starting to hear that tune in my sleep. And the way things are going, it'll be a mighty long time before any other National Anthem is heard at these races. |
