MotoGP 2014

[husaberg]

Yep. As soon as they swapped the 'issue' for Collin Edwards though, it came good.

Nah the issue was the vague front end.(well vauge isn't the right word, but it was a fundamental issue with the steering) Aaron tried just to ride around the problem. (with a slow steering set up) but didn't have the HP to run at the front.
Rumi had it working for Crafer.(non works bike)
i think you will find the Kokinski and Edwards bikes were poles apart from the original bike.
Polen and Fogarty couldn't do anything with it as well as Slight and both of them were previous champs.

[DidJit]

An insight into the thinking of our man, the Race Director...

[pritch]

Another writer's thoughts on Messrs Rossi & Burgess.

http://backmarker-bikewriter.blogspot.co.nz


I was a bit startled to see that ".co.nz" From memory the writer is a Canadian, a long time US resident, an ex racer who competed in the IoM TT.

[DidJit]

Great find.

[eelracing]

An insight into the thinking of our man,

So the Dorna PR machine is already ramping up in a two part interview.

Webb is a cock if he thinks he can sit in a room with a bunch of racers and get the feeling that the "general perception of what is reasonable has changed."
Fuck off,(real) racers will never take a backward step...they might blow smoke up Webbs arse in a committee room but on the track it's an entirely different ball game...hence the reason Jorge got more aggressive at the pointy end of the season.

The only voice of experience worth listening to in that entire article came from Rainey.

[pritch]

Great find.

Thanks. He is a good writer. I have the kindle version of his "Riding Man" which covers his attempt at the TT. I think my favourite story of his is the one about the Mt Blanc tunnel disaster. That FIM gold medal on the cover of one of his books refers to that. Sadly the medal was awarded posthumously.

Another guy who writes really well, although about the US Harley set rather than GPs, is this guy
http://www.bikesandbuddies.com

[steveyb]

"...would make those guys psychopaths out in the world."

Stoner is actually a borderline psychopath, or at least a borderline sociopath.

And that is not just my opinion but compilations of personal observations from people I know, of him in social situations away from the sealed environment of the paddock.

[pritch]

"...would make those guys psychopaths out in the world."

Stoner is actually a borderline psychopath, or at least a borderline sociopath.

It's not just the riders either, Puig & Suppo f'rinstance .

All international athletes need to have absolute confidence in their ability, if they haven't got that they are in the wrong place. Other people can mistake this for arrogance.

Stoner though was a special case, I haven't seen him post anything negative about r/c model cars yet but it probably won't be long.

[steveyb]

All international athletes need to have absolute confidence in their ability, if they haven't got that they are in the wrong place. Other people can mistake this for arrogance.

That's what I reckoned about Marc Marquez right at the outset. He has some strange mental ability to simply believe implicitly that the bike and his skills will do what he wants, when he wants and how he wants.

Perhaps after he has really hurt himself (although he did do that at Philip Is when he gave his head that big whack, 125? or Moto2? can't recall now) he will step that back a notch or 1.5.

But right now, he has 150% confidence in everything and pushes through all other riders limits. Even the incident with the black flag at PI indicated that he had supreme confidence in his team that they had sorted it out for him and did what he was told to do. If he had doubts, he would have pulled in when George or Dani did.

Not only that, but having seen the rear tyre that came off his bike, he continued to push hard on a tyre that was ready to im(ex?)plode.

I am not sure whether this sort of behaviour is actually sane or not really.

I do remember though that in MotoGP Year 1 of JL that he went really well (but had to battle Rossi at the top of his game), but Year 2 was much tougher with injuries. Do I recall that right or talking out my arse again?

[actungbaby]

We've seen aggression and determination from Jorge and Dani like never before toward the end of this season been. The wee fella I backed this year, is still my pick for next year.

Marquez has obviously (to me at least, this is only an opinion after all) told to dial it back at some point. Where the 'old dogs' are accepting that risk is the only way to win with MM on track.

Tell ya what, after the processional last couple of years, that's got me fair fizzing about next year...Hope the midget don't get fucked up when he crashes, because I think we can expect more lie down time for everyone willing to push as hard as required to win.

I think you mean vertically challenged ;-) and when has being short been disavntage with bike racers hehe

yeah hope so he just needs to belive he can do is all got the skill needs to get agressive

Think hes to poilte

[onearmedbandit]

Saw this on Facebook this morning.

[Tony.OK]

Saw this on Facebook this morning.

Haha.....that is fukn cool. He's so cute hahahahaahaaaa!
That looks like a awesome class for younguns, pitbikes on steroids!

[pritch]

From 2014 naughty points will last one year. This so that riders don't get the idea that they can get away with dangerous riding in the last race.

Should we refer to this as the Lorenzo Rule?

[suzuki21]

This lack of response to set up changes was meant to be fixed by moving to the twin beam frame, but surprise, surprise it's still exactly the same.

Everything gets changeed but the engine and the bikes behaviour. You'd think they've got to be linked.

Ducati didn't listen to Rossi. The motor has too bigger vee and cant be moved forward enough to put enough weight on the front. With the electronics now days most bikes are equal on acceleration so time has to be made up on corner entry. They want to stay with what they have for marketing purposes, as we all know a motogp bike is similar to what we can buy.

[roogazza]

Ducati actually seemed to make a lot of changes for Rossi ?(well more than anyone else got ?)
But still the basic problem stayed. Seems you may well be correct , it's in that V lump ?
The strange bike suited the strange little Australian tho, well , in it's early form more so.