The End is Nigh for Motogp - BSN Dave Stewart
Discussion
Interesting article by The Boss - Dave Stewart on BikeSportNews.com
http://www.bikesportnews.com/articles/article.html...
Imagine a dishevelled bloke wearing a sandwich board with "The End of the World is Nigh!" written on front and back...
If we end up with a one-make tyre deal in MotoGP, it will never return to a true Grand Prix series. It will signal the end of true "open class Prototype" racing. In effect, its demise!
And when we eventually have to call the mortician to establish the cause of death, it will be "suffocation" and the murder weapon will be "the rule book".
In its place we'll get a charade, where cutting-edge technology is about as welcome as a fart in a space-suit.
Too many rules to "level the playing field" stifle competition. The tyre companies need to compete for the best riders on level terms and if they need to improve their product to get the best riders on board, they need to invest more in testing.
If one company has the upper hand, the others need to work harder to compete. It would be ridiculous if all the other 100 metres sprinters insisted on Usian Bolt running in lead trainers simply because he was too fast. Roger Federer has been almost unbeatable at tennis for a long time, but Rafa Nadal just worked harder and harder to get on level terms and now he's the top dog, no-one is suggesting that he should have to go back to using a wooden racket with cat-gut strings to make it easier on the others.
I am a long term Dani Pedrosa fan and I think he is a fantastic rider, potentially better than Rossi!
Before you argue, he won 125 and 250 championships quicker than Rossi and was only foiled by his dimunitive size in the big class. HOWEVER, his premier class career has been blighted by a lack of fighting spirit. If everything is right with the bike, the conditions and the tyres he IS THE MAN, but unlike Rossi, he can't ride around problems and he's not willing to battle his most formidable opponent... himself!
This is currently the most vociferous critic of Michelin.
Rossi is a real fighter and doesn't know how to give up, but his greatest advantage over Pedrosa is that he knows in his heart that his rival is a quitter. You only have to give up once and it becomes a habit and that's why it will always be Rossi and Stoner that go the distance.
Casey has an unfortunate habit of saying what's on his mind, instead of dressing it up in roses and that makes people think he's a moaner. This is nothing more than an Australian trait though: Mick Doohan was much the same and Wayne Gardner before him. They aren't actually whinging, they just see it as being honest and up front, but we've come to expect a polished - sponsor friendly - performance in front of the camera, so we find it jarring and sometimes mildly offensive. We just need to get over it and stop expecting everyone to be as media friendly as Rossi and Simoncelli. It's about the racing after all.
Anyway, the point is that the championship now revolves around the personalities so much, that we are in danger of adapting the rules to suit the individual riders and not the capabilities of the manufacturers and ancilliary suppliers. We need to get back to the principal of: "You're paid to ride it, so ride it". If it doesn't do what you want it to do, tell us how to improve it. Help us with feedback and hard work, you're a part of this team too and while you're taking the King's Shilling you need to put in the graft and earn it."
That is not personified by doing just 11 laps of post race testing and hitting the exit gates saying: "The tyres are crap!"
If riders chose to switch teams at the end of the season to get what they feel they need, that's fine. This actually creates competition for the best seats, as always, and there are a fair few riders who would take a lot less money to be sitting on a package they knew they could run at the sharp end on, rather than doubling the money and having to ride a "three-legged donkey" at the tail of the field.
Racing forces development on at an incredible pace and all the parts that end up improving production machines need to be kept free of the danger of suffocation by the rule book.
It's not cheap.
It's not equal.
It's Grand Prix racing!
Just get on with it.
http://www.bikesportnews.com/articles/article.html...
Imagine a dishevelled bloke wearing a sandwich board with "The End of the World is Nigh!" written on front and back...
If we end up with a one-make tyre deal in MotoGP, it will never return to a true Grand Prix series. It will signal the end of true "open class Prototype" racing. In effect, its demise!
And when we eventually have to call the mortician to establish the cause of death, it will be "suffocation" and the murder weapon will be "the rule book".
In its place we'll get a charade, where cutting-edge technology is about as welcome as a fart in a space-suit.
Too many rules to "level the playing field" stifle competition. The tyre companies need to compete for the best riders on level terms and if they need to improve their product to get the best riders on board, they need to invest more in testing.
If one company has the upper hand, the others need to work harder to compete. It would be ridiculous if all the other 100 metres sprinters insisted on Usian Bolt running in lead trainers simply because he was too fast. Roger Federer has been almost unbeatable at tennis for a long time, but Rafa Nadal just worked harder and harder to get on level terms and now he's the top dog, no-one is suggesting that he should have to go back to using a wooden racket with cat-gut strings to make it easier on the others.
I am a long term Dani Pedrosa fan and I think he is a fantastic rider, potentially better than Rossi!
Before you argue, he won 125 and 250 championships quicker than Rossi and was only foiled by his dimunitive size in the big class. HOWEVER, his premier class career has been blighted by a lack of fighting spirit. If everything is right with the bike, the conditions and the tyres he IS THE MAN, but unlike Rossi, he can't ride around problems and he's not willing to battle his most formidable opponent... himself!
This is currently the most vociferous critic of Michelin.
Rossi is a real fighter and doesn't know how to give up, but his greatest advantage over Pedrosa is that he knows in his heart that his rival is a quitter. You only have to give up once and it becomes a habit and that's why it will always be Rossi and Stoner that go the distance.
Casey has an unfortunate habit of saying what's on his mind, instead of dressing it up in roses and that makes people think he's a moaner. This is nothing more than an Australian trait though: Mick Doohan was much the same and Wayne Gardner before him. They aren't actually whinging, they just see it as being honest and up front, but we've come to expect a polished - sponsor friendly - performance in front of the camera, so we find it jarring and sometimes mildly offensive. We just need to get over it and stop expecting everyone to be as media friendly as Rossi and Simoncelli. It's about the racing after all.
Anyway, the point is that the championship now revolves around the personalities so much, that we are in danger of adapting the rules to suit the individual riders and not the capabilities of the manufacturers and ancilliary suppliers. We need to get back to the principal of: "You're paid to ride it, so ride it". If it doesn't do what you want it to do, tell us how to improve it. Help us with feedback and hard work, you're a part of this team too and while you're taking the King's Shilling you need to put in the graft and earn it."
That is not personified by doing just 11 laps of post race testing and hitting the exit gates saying: "The tyres are crap!"
If riders chose to switch teams at the end of the season to get what they feel they need, that's fine. This actually creates competition for the best seats, as always, and there are a fair few riders who would take a lot less money to be sitting on a package they knew they could run at the sharp end on, rather than doubling the money and having to ride a "three-legged donkey" at the tail of the field.
Racing forces development on at an incredible pace and all the parts that end up improving production machines need to be kept free of the danger of suffocation by the rule book.
It's not cheap.
It's not equal.
It's Grand Prix racing!
Just get on with it.
Been exchanging emails with Dave as I fundamentally believe he is absolutely spot on, in fact owe him one on BSB tyres as I think that's another bad move.
It is supposed to be prototype racing, before long it'll have a rule book like F1. I hope it doesn't descend into the farce that has become.
It is supposed to be prototype racing, before long it'll have a rule book like F1. I hope it doesn't descend into the farce that has become.
Gassing Station | Biker Banter | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff