Yamaha trying to snap up Vindaloo and Rins. Lorenso is leveraging a "strong" Ducati offer with Yamaha. Ducati throwing around huge amounts of Marlboro money to get an alien or two. Might just be internet yapping but they are specualting that some of the first signings make take place at Qatar. Poor Steeltoe, he might be suicidal by year's end.
Several outlets reported when he signed that it was a three year deal. It may be structured as a two year with an option for three, first right of refusal or whatever. Of course we have seen contracts broken, but only on the lesser teams. Coming off a championship, hitting the ground running as strong as he has, it certainly makes sense that JL is going to try and get a big raise out of Yamaha, especially since the Duc is looking good right now in terms of being competitive. Honda, well they need to sort their bike out. They've got two very capable riders but a bike that is extremely difficult to ride. Right now that seat is probably not as appealing as it once was.
Dani to Factory Yamaha for 2017. Yamaha puts Spies' wrenching team on it. Dani wins 2017 Championship. You heard it here first!
If Lorenzo goes to Ducati he will never win another championship. I'll put a $100 to the AFF on that. I'll give him 2 seasons. If stoner came back on the Ducati he would win a championship his 2nd year back. I can't bet on that one though.
There's probably some wisdom in this... Stoner did well on it because he rode the thing like the throttle was an on-off switch. Lorenzo is highly granular in his throttle control. You can see it in telemetry when they do on-screen graphics. And what's uncanny is that he can do it EXACTLY the same lap after lap. Their riding styles are so radically different, I'd expect him not to do as well on it as the Yamaha. Ducati is sort of the anti-Yamaha, if you think about it... Yamaha is lower on power, higher on all around handling. Marquez on a Ducati would be MUCH more entertaining, and I'm not even a fan.
Lorenzo doing well all depends on the bike Ducati has at the time. Stoner did well on the one of his era but then his results started to fall off and he went to Honda. Rossi couldn't ride the one they gave him (not sure anyone could have - and yes that includes Stoner). They seem to be getting better again so no reason to compare them to the other models.
false. he's the lynchpin. if he retires, the re-shuffling will be serious. (sizable either way really) ton of contracts up this year + a new factory coming in. entirely new suzuki and tech3 teams just for starters + dovi's seat.
Rossi is not retiring. He's like the clap, unless you really try to get rid of it, it's sticking around. (this is just talking out loud) What would be cool would be for him to set up his own team running Yamahas. What wouldn't be cool is he'd take a lot of the factory team's sponsors with him.
"Rossi is not retiring. He's like the clap, unless you really try to get rid of it, it's sticking around." Starting to think the same about Payton Manning.