MotoGP Aragon

[Cheeses of Nazareth]

Well I have to say , as much as it pained me to see Nakagami bin it, you could see it coming, way off line , covering where he didn't need to and as a result lobbed it on a cold tyre..

He did not need to win that on the first lap, he just needed to sit in and see what happened, it would have done him good to get mugged off the line, and then that would have woke him up a bit. This was the first time he ever led a race, and while it might sound daft, the first thing you find out, is the fact you don't know fast to go... easy when you are in the pack, but when you are setting the pace on what is effectively an out lap, you have to make sure you don't get it wrong.

Quateraro is just a bottle job now, there is nothing wrong with the bike, its just him, he should have this won by now , but everyone seems scared to win the thing.

I hope Mir wins, because i don't see Dovi doing it, and i would rather see Suzuki win than Ducati. Ducati deserve nothing . I can really see Miller and Bagnaia just doing nothing there.

[Cheeses of Nazareth]

epom said:

So much talk if McPhee every week in here. Yet nearly every single week after the race it’s a case of how poor he has been ? I know he’s a great British hope, but I think it might be time to move on to the next one.

And who is that exactly?

Tom Booth Amos got the flick for Max Kofler, who has done no better on the bike, probably for the same reasons .

When you have a class that is rev limited , as Moto3 is, this is what you get, a class where even being half a tenth off, is a disaster.

We have nobody for at least 3 years in Moto3 , the last bloke we had pissed it up the wall and is tugging around in superstock.

[Cheeses of Nazareth]

Centurion07 said:

I'm happy to admit I'm one of those.

I'm over the moon he's doing well and we have a brit to cheer in Moto2, but, based on his performances in Moto2 preceding this season, there is no way he should've got that ride and anyone would be hard pushed to justify it.

He was throwing it down the road multiple times every weekend and you can perhaps blame that on having to override poor equipment, but once you've found the limit of your poor equipment there's nothing to be gained from continually stepping over that line is there?

I think he's been extremely lucky to have got the chance with VDS and thankfully for him and all of us he's doing a damn fine job of making the most of it.

I agree 100%

That said, the same logic would have stopped Dixon getting the PETRONAS ride.

The thing you need to remember here is that only the people who are providing the kit , know who is doing what , with what they have. As an outsider looking in, that's hard to grasp.

But Lowes has finally woke up to the fact he was doing it wrong, and now he isn't , he can win... who would have thought?

[Cheeses of Nazareth]

Centurion07 said:

Having more data doesn't stop you crashing though, it just means you don't have to override it to make up the time, which is the point I just made about finding the limit and learning not to go over it.

If you have a crap bike and there's only so fast it will go, what's the point in crashing it all the time looking for tenths that aren't there?

He found that limit and went over it pretty much every single session.

As Cheeses said, the paddock will have an idea what the equipment is capable of so overriding it all the time achieves nothing.

That said, from what Huewen and Hodgson have said, Dixon's team only decided to listen to him after he banged his head leaving Pasini to have a go on his bike and found he couldn't do anything with it either. So there is also an element of "we know best" when it comes to trusting what a rider is telling you.

I mean, it's even happened with Rossi and Yamaha recently so if it can happen at that level you can be damn sure it happens the lower down you get.

But that is exactly what it does do. If you have great data, and people who understand it, you can set the bike to do what it needs to do. Otherwise you are leaving the rider to lob it at the scenery at will. which is what happens.

So when you come in and the data guy says , ' you say you are doing this, buy the data says otherwise', they have to take that on board. That's why Sam doesn't ride like a supermoto guy any more because the data guy can go.. ' I don't care what you say, the data says its slower and this is why' .

So this is a common thing, You get teams that don't believe the rider ( see Dixon , and also Tom Booth Amos who said his bike was bent for 6 races before they finally went ' oh yeah its bent' ) , and make him look worse than he is , because they think they know best , then you get the teams that work the data with the rider, to show him what he has.

I will tell you now, the easiest race you ever have is the one you win, because that is the one where you got the set up, the tyre selection, and had your lucky pants on the right way round, and you cant understand why everyone else is so slow.

So Sam finally listened ( after how many years) and is now a force for the championship, He doesn't have to over ride the bike, because it works, because the data guy knows what he is doing.

[Cheeses of Nazareth]

FourWheelDrift said:

He is the other official Aprilia test rider, maybe Smith's ankles need some time or they're just giving him a run out they promised, he was down to be a wildcard this year before the pandemic hit.

that is a shame, he is a great rider, he has spent too much time not quite on the right bike.

He had a good chance at Tech3 , on the Yamaha, but I think that politics saw him out of there too early IMO.

Should go WSB and show them what he can do,