MotoGP | 2020 | Round 2 | Spain | Jerez | July 24-26

It's been raining here for approximately 10 million hours, and I need to be entertained, but damn if some of y'all don't take yourselves too seriously. By all means, continue. I'll be over in the corner with a bemused expression upon my face.

 

I only know what we paid Bobby Fong, and Dalton Gauthier and I promise it wasn’t 8 million lol!!

so I got bargains IMO

 

We put the haddock in the paddock. Enjoy the catch of the day, while you watch the crash of the day.

 

other than securing a contract extension for Honda to keep Marc.[/QUOTE]


You keep saying this.... but you also say they dumped Alex after 1 year. So the pleased MM then fucked him by dumping him?

What do you know that says Mm had anything to do with their decision? Who else was Repsol going to sign for 1 half year?

 

this is what i meant when i said Dovi and Pedrosa always bridesmaids. the dude clearly doesn't suck, i don't think anyone was saying that. saying you're arguably the 3rd or 4th best motorbike rider in the world for a time pretty much ever puts that conversation to rest. but he was a consistent Top 5er at Honda, and now he's been a consistent Top 5er at Ducati. for whatever reason... bike, tracks, luck, training, himself... he just doesn't seem to have that last little 5% that would put him over his peers consistently enough to win a championship. i agree with Redtrail... at some point it has nothing to do with "well firing a runner up seems stupid, sorry he got 2nd." 2nd is not a championship. i bet you'd be hard pressed to get any team owner or manager to flat out say they just wanna be in the show, or are doing this to "maybe not win, but have fun." maybe one of them, maybe a few at Moto2/3 level, but at this level that's nonsense. that's an answer I WOULD give about going to the track after not racing anything now for 10 years haha. he may be amazing, but if he can't get on top of the box, and that's the goal, then they gotta find somebody else to do it. Bagnaia would be cheaper, Miller would be cheaper. somebody from Moto2 would be way cheaper and there's probably a dozen that you could at least justify giving a shot to. you never know until you give one of them a try, but you DO know at this point that Dovi ain't gonna get it done. such is life i guess. nobody is gonna ever say Mamola sucks and he's another bridesmaid. the dude is awesome, but for a multitude of reasons didn't get it done. you wanna make friends go club race.

 

What, did someone slap you in the head?

 

Other than JLo, who else has?

Oh and those multitude of reasons for Mamola are known as Spencer, Lawson, Rainey and Schwantz.

 

I get what you're saying but the problem is Dovi has been with Ducati since 2014 and the list of other Duc riders that didn't beat him in the championship standings is getting pretty long.

Iannone beat him in 2015, besides that he's been the top finishing Ducati rider every year. So if anybody was going to come along and show him how it's done, you'd think it would have happen by now. I mean Miller is/was supposed to be the guy, Jlo was gonna turn shit around, etc...and yet here we are....

 

Now that looks like some really good eats!

 

You keep saying this.... but you also say they dumped Alex after 1 year. So the pleased MM then fucked him by dumping him?

What do you know that says Mm had anything to do with their decision? Who else was Repsol going to sign for 1 half year?[/QUOTE]
Would that really surprise you considering Honda's history? They've never been anything but cutthroat about winning. And if they didn't sign Alex just to keep Marc, then I think it was a bad move. I'm not going to go back and try to figure out who was available at the time. Not worth the trouble trying to figure out all the timelines. Maybe there truly wasn't anyone. I doubt it. But I'll grant that's a possibility. If that is the case, then Alex simply got lucky because I still maintain he has no business in that seat and again, HRC seems to agree because they replaced him before the season even started.

 

See @Sweatypants post a few above yours. He explains it well.

 

That`s called respect!

 

Not really. He states his own opinions which are fine and he isn’t wrong or right one way or the other necessarily but at the same time ........ GASP.........VOID OF FACTS.

 

What results have proven me to be wrong? No other rider has been in his seat this year. Plenty of other riders have beat him, including Taka, who has smoked Alex 2 weekends in a row on the older version of Alex's equipment. And I don't think anyone's been campaigning for Taka to even have a factory ride. Alex is on a championship bike and the only people he's beaten were guys that have crashed, been injured, are on absolute garbage equipment, and Tito Rabat. I suspect half the current moto2 grid could accomplish as much

While I don't think Honda necessarily signed him in order to keep Marc, letting him fall to the satellite team is an easy let down. At this point, dropping him altogether would be silly given how Marc would feel about it. You're already committed to it, there's not really anyone else currently available to take his seat, and dropping him only pisses off you multi time champion rider.

 

I've not claimed most of what I've said to be fact (outside of the comparison I drew to Dovi using career statistics). Likewise, no one responding to me has provided any facts either. We're all just throwing opinions out there based on our unique observations. So what's your point?

 

My point is, for being such a self proclaimed data driven individual you certainly become emotional with your rational towards expressing your thoughts and opinions. I’m still waiting for the facts that prove Crutchlow is better at bike development than AM is, as you’ve stated.

 

This is the only thing you have said through this whole thing that made sense.

 

You should check out this guy named Tom Luthi if you think that's bad. Or a fellow named Sam Lowes.

That, I still don't know for sure.

If the new bike is that much better, why is Marc not using it?

 

1. How have I been emotional? I am in no different state of mind than I was when I woke up this morning. Simply discussing/debating GP shit on a motorcycle racing forum. I've actually been smiling/laughing at half of this debate as I find a lot of the points other people make silly and somewhat humorous. Maybe you're projecting your own emotions?
2. Yes, I absolutely prefer for data to drive results. Unfortunately for some things, either no such data exists or it is not available to us. Does that mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion? A rider's skill at development is subjective. If there is a foolproof way to quantify it, I am not aware of it and I suspect neither is anyone on this board. But would you not agree that older, more experienced riders tend to be better at development than a rookie? I mean I'm thinking that's why Pedrosa has a job right now - because he can probably further bike development more by himself than 4 hotshot young guys can collectively. If you disagree with this then I suppose we just have to agree to disagree because I can't disprove your point, nor can you disprove mine (or at least you haven't done so yet).