Damn, Biaggi tossed some live fireworks inside the Ducati office floor!

Cams

 

Eh. The rules were written to give them an advantage and then they used deceit to keep that advantage - that's the key factor for me. They broke no rule, I absolutely agree, and that's the fault of the rulemaking body: The rulemakers implicitly relied on Ducati always using all of their performance in order to detect imbalances, and that was clearly a severe weakness in the rulemakers' balancing plan. However what Ducati did was the sportsmanship (not legality) equivalent of running a 750 in a 600 frame and just not opening the throttle all the way all the time. Again, I agree with you that they broke no rule (making the 750-in-a-600 a somewhat poor analogy) but they deceived everyone into thinking they had no performance advantage when in fact they did. And I call that deceit "cheating".. just legally.

 

So Ducati needed a rider known to be fast but not actually going too fast in order to keep their power advantage? So Biaggi had an important role to play on the team, he just didn’t know it at the the time and he would have scratched for every fraction of a second during all sessions when the electronics guy could have just turned up the rpm and power a bit? Eeek. Considering Ducati’s actions could negatively affect his reputation and future earning potential, and make him ride at or over the edge to try and compete, it sucks. I get it. Think about if your company undermined you and then you get a bad performance review and bonus, you’d be pissed for sure. But for the record, I’m not a big Biaggi fan, he was mean to VR46 lol…

 

This kind of reminds me of when a Gobert said he tested the Muzzy Kawasaki before he signed the contract and it was an absolute rocket ship.

Then once they got to the race season the bike he had didn't feel nowhere near as fast.

Not too long afterwards the Raptor 850 came out.

 

Idea for hot pit crossing safety: those on a team can cross as needed with credentials. If they do something unsafe, dock them time/money/points/position. Anyone else has to cross at a designated crossing with official present.

 

I would argue that legally cheating isn't cheating.

 

AMA had these type of provisions in place as far back as I can remember.

 

cool. I'm all for rehashing old ideas if there's a way to make it work. I do think it's cool for those interested in the sport to see the action from pit wall, but I don't want to see anyone needlessly get hurt.

 

Ducati did their job, the rule makers didn’t do theirs. Tough luck. Sucks for Max, but if I were in Pretzel man’s fine Italian shoes I probably would’ve done the same thing. Preserving the advantage is way more important than having multiple contenders.

 

Cheating is cheating…
Nothing else to say…
No justifications, no excuses…
Yeah, we can just say it’s racing….all teams/individuals squeezing all they can out of a rule book or a motor, pushing the limits on what is legal…
Still cheating…

 

Pushing the limits on what is legal…

It’s still cheating…

Whooooooosh!

 

Smokey Yunick…

 

Chris was spot on. Poor sportsmanship. Perhaps that's an antique concept to some but it's sadly missed in today's world.

 

Are you racing Harleys in the CRA by any chance?

 

Technically it is not cheating but it is very unethical to hire a multi-time world champion to ride for you, ask him to put his life on the line and then deliberately set him up for failure on a bike he has no chance of winning races or a championship on. Sure doesn't make me want to run out and buy a Ducati and I really like Italian bikes.

 

Its unethical as hell, but at the end of the day, Ducati are racing to win and sell bikes. Riders come and go.

 

I'm not saying what Ducati did in this instance is right, but if we all start buying motorcycles and cars based on whether a company has made every moral decision correctly, we'll all be walking everywhere. I don't think selling cigarettes is a great moral choice but that doesn't stop me from going into the corner convenience store to grab a pop and a bag of chips.

 

Did Ducati hire him or did the team?