Is it because he has an on/off throttle style due to too many laps in the dirt at the Ranch? Something is up.... other Yammis have the issue to some extent, but not nearly at his level. Let's solve this issue for Rossi and get him back to the front!
I don't know, maybe the tennis balls on the front legs of his walker are digging in and he's sliding the rear wheels a bit too much?
Maybe he needs a high spin target to get the bike to finish corners, but its too high for the current tire construction. Maybe his preferred setup causes the bike to pitch a lot, loading the rear too much on exit. Maybe Yamaha should have run their swingarm winglet to cool the rear tire more.
He is getting long in tooth...if he were a lion he would take the long walk ...i don't like seeing greatness of any kind struggle near the end. And he is struggling.
I would think SOME of the issue is due to hanging off the bike less than most other current riders. Assuming the same corner speed, hanging off the bike less means the bike is leaned over more, which must put more force into the edge of the tire.
The younger riders are better and more fearless (overall) than the competition he had several years ago. He's having to work harder.
Mid 40s is tough. Things take longer to recover and high heartrate stamina declines. I didn't feel it when I was 40-41 very much but somewhere around 43 I did.
Clearly, it's because he's riding without traction control unlike everyone else, because that's what you need to do to be the real GOAT. That's an extra 10 places for doing that. It just gets added at the end of the season. Fifth place here we come.
Does anyone know for certain his issues are with rear tire wear? Or are we just believing the narrative that is being offered? Rear tire fade would show up in the lap time progression. He'd run, say, low 1:55 laps for the first ten laps and then you'd see a steady drop. So does anyone have access to the full lap times? As one of the biggest Rossi fans out there I'm willing to admit at this point that he's just not fast anymore. I'm NOT ready to believe some half-baked story about how only he suffers from some weird tire degradation, unless it's attributable to his higher weight compared to the other riders....
Maybe these are making him a premature... Or too hard from the start and not lasting the whole race......