WSBK | 2023 | Silly Season

Seems BMW have more work to do. This limited testing is not going to help them. They need to load it up, go somewhere warm, and figure it out. But that isn’t going to happen.

 

Yeah not a confidence building 2-days of testing if you're a BMW rider in WSBK right now.

Redding a full second off Toprak, Baz well back from him, then GG and VDM 1.5 seconds off and in 15th/16th?

Yeesh...

 

Wait, didn't GG clinch the championship just yesterday? What happened?

 

Reality.

 

Cue up the meme of allen iverson - something about "Practice? We talkin' bout PRACTICE?"...

 

He was 11th yesterday. Who suggested he was competitive with the front runners?

 

I mean, we're all fans of his, but I don't exactly see blind fanboyism. There seems to be a good balance of us ready to call him out for his mistakes, to counter-balance those that are convinced of conspiracies of Yamaha intentionally holding him back. And I don't think even those blind loyalists have claimed he was the favorite or even in contention for the championship. I think the most I've see is excitement for his chances on a new team. Sometimes, it's nice to be a little optimistic, especially when he'd stagnated at P8-P10 for the last two years at most rounds.

 

What has BMW done in recent years to warrant optimism? Personally, I'd wait until at least FP3 at the first round to get my hopes up.

 

GG was far back from the championship...but Gigi wasn't

 

Haha, yep me too. No problems with the web stream

 

what championship, the legit chip or the independent rider title?

 

The real thing.

 

Ummm, NAW.... not even close...

1 Alvaro Bautista Ducati 601
2 Toprak Razgatlioglu Yamaha -72
3 Jonathan Rea Kawasaki -99
4 Michael Ruben Rinaldi Ducati -308
5 Andrea Locatelli Yamaha -327
6 Alex Lowes Kawasaki -329
7 Axel Bassani Ducati -357
8 Scott Redding BMW -397
9 Iker Lecuona Honda -412
10 Xavi Vierge Honda -437
11 Garrett Gerloff Yamaha -459
12 Loris Baz BMW -476
13 Philipp Oettl Ducati -516
14 Lucas Mahias Kawasaki -540
15 Michael Van Der Mark BMW -555

 

Did GG have a crash today? I checked mid day and he was well down in the order with only a handful of laps. I checked again towards the end of the day, and he had quite a few more laps, but no where near what most of the others had.

 

I'm not sure if he did but I did think it was odd that he went slower overall on day 2 than he did on day 1.

 

What site y’all streaming from? I’m using the wsbk site and screen casting from my phone to TV.

 

I'm streaming from the WSBK site too

 

I'm optimistic that GG can compete for the occasional P5 on the BMW, but I'm not delusional enough to believe he'll compete for regular podiums, let alone championships. But as it was, there was nothing to hope for last season so I'm happy there is some change.

 

Beating the yamahas is good enough for me.

 

I'll be very impressed if he finishes the championship in front of his former team.