MotoGP 2013 : Round 6, Barcelona

[bestfit]

He has already had it plated and is rumoured to be on his way back to Assen and may try and ride. He has already put in a practice time quick enough to guarantee him 12th place on the grid so won't need to qualify.
An attempt to minimise the losses.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by bestfit

He has already had it plated and is rumoured to be on his way back to Assen and may try and ride. He has already put in a practice time quick enough to guarantee him 12th place on the grid so won't need to qualify.
An attempt to minimise the losses.

Blimey, I think he should wear 2 airbag suits if that's the case

[canamman]

Rossi back on top. Ducati a distant memory. Lorenzo is the MAN !

[gomick]

Who wrote Rossi off
Good ride by Lorenzo, does it say much about the riders/bikes that finished 6th & lower?

[formerf1champ]

So it's a little short of 3 years that Rossi's drought has lasted for. Filthy! I was hoping it'd go a bit longer. Hopefully Lorenzo can continue his quick recovery has kick his arse for the rest of the season.

Lorenzo is one tough dude!

[formerf1champ]

Originally Posted by JohnnyFiama

Is it the electronics or the tyres?

Originally Posted by chunder

The tyres were probably developed around certain riders maybe the original Bridgestone ones, and the philosophy has followed, so tyres do play a part, but this is what happens when you don't have a competitive tyre deal.

I've had discussions with other poster about tyres in F1, but it applies if it's relevant to bikes. I don't have a problem with a single manufacturer producing rock hard tyres anymore, whereas the others did.

With a tyre war. How fast are the bikes/cars supposed to go? It's almost pointless going faster, what's the big deal? It pointless having a tyre war these days, I think.

Even on rock hard tyres, it just means the type of pass changes. Instead of squirming under brakes, it may be more important to accelerate out of the previous corner and get the pass done halfway-3/4 up the straight. As long as tyres are all the same, what's the big issue?

[wnut]

Originally Posted by formerf1champ

So it's a little short of 3 years that Rossi's drought has lasted for. Filthy! I was hoping it'd go a bit longer. Hopefully Lorenzo can continue his quick recovery has kick his arse for the rest of the season.

Lorenzo is one tough dude!

Seconded!

[cg7aa]

Regarding the ART bikes, is Espargaro using a special engine in his compared to de Puniet? I seem to recall some comments along those lines in by the Europsort commentators at the last round.

[frostie]

I asked Randy about it at Assen and he did say that Aleix had a different spec engine but that in the race they were both running the same spec. I was also told by a couple of ART riders that "Espargaro is running something special."

[chunder]

He must be to be fair

As in the past the lad hasn't looked naything special

It is Aspars team remember, Aspar and Ezpeleta are hand in hand and Ezpeleta wants CRT in the whole field

No surprise really, he is Spanish after all is Aleix, yawn

[gomick]

Wait til the Spanish domination hits WSBK & those English lads are pushed back to the BSB

[chunder]

I doubt that will happen, the GP boys will and always have looked after their own

There is very little bike progression from kids anywhere else in the world, certainly not in the old power houses like US and Australia, even Italy struggle now.

The next region might be Eastern Europe, you are seeing a lot in Rally and rallycross now, that might be the next growth area for bike racing.

But Spaniards will not head to WSB, they know what side their bread is buttered and hundreds have made a career keeping talented riders from other countries away from decent bikes in GP simply because they are Spanish, well backed and looked after by Ezpeleta and Dorna, Sykes has already stated he doesn't have the right passport for GP and has no intention of even trying to get a ride there.

[frostie]

Originally Posted by chunder

I doubt that will happen, the GP boys will and always have looked after their own

There is very little bike progression from kids anywhere else in the world, certainly not in the old power houses like US and Australia, even Italy struggle now.

The next region might be Eastern Europe, you are seeing a lot in Rally and rallycross now, that might be the next growth area for bike racing.

But Spaniards will not head to WSB, they know what side their bread is buttered and hundreds have made a career keeping talented riders from other countries away from decent bikes in GP simply because they are Spanish, well backed and looked after by Ezpeleta and Dorna, Sykes has already stated he doesn't have the right passport for GP and has no intention of even trying to get a ride there.

Italy have at last tried to spend money to develop talent with the FMI team in Moto3 and they should have a pretty good pipeline of talent once again. Germany have invested heavily too. In my view it's a case of the rest of the world finally doing what Spain did ten or fifteen years ago and invested heavily in their domestic series. In the UK and Ireland we dont do that and the top riders from here all come about despite of the system rather than because of it.

In the UK riders have historically been pushed to the 600 and Superbike series and in Ireland we want our racers to ride the roads. So we struggle to develop GP calibre riders.

Hopefully the likes of Crutchlow and Redding competing well at GP level (as well as the likes of Danny Kent winning races last years) should see the investment improve in future.

[frostie]

Also for anyone interested I finally got round to uploading some of my Catalan GP photos. The full album is here

[chunder]

To be frank, you can say what you like about other nations not pushing their talent, but when you are Spanish and if you are half decent you are pretty much guaranteed a GP career, aren't you Elias, Olive, Pons, Cardus, Nieto, Torres and many many other in the past.

there are always hangers on in GP racing, guys like Rolfo, Di Meglio, Simon, Corti, Corsi, Pasini, de Angeliswho dont really deserve a GP ride but now and then get a good result, but being Spanish certianly helps, and coz there are a few Italian teams being Italian helps too.

Most non Spaniards have to race their early career in Spain to get noticed for goodness sake,and if that isnt a big enough sign I dont know what is, Stoner, Davies, Haslam, Webb, Smith, all raced mainly in Spain before being picked up. Kyle Ryde should be in GP now as Mcphee is, but he just isnt getting the breaks. Why is JD Beach still in teh US and not picked up?

And the only reason Cal and JT were picked up for GP is sponsorship mainly, if you looked at Cals WBS results, he was a risk compared to Spies or Toseland, at least they were champions. Yet Cal has succeeded where both JT and Spies have bailed spectacularly, just goes to show its not just about talent, its about hard work.

So how do we know that guys like I dont know, Byrne, Reynolds, Emmett, Mladin, Duhamel, Neukirchner, Schrotter, Kallio, Pitt, Talmacsi etc etc couldn't all be potential race winners in the top class if they were given time.

Remember how long Criville was given to learn in GP, that would never have happened if he was anything other than Spanish, Barros the same, he was funded all the way, and Abe had to ride for a Spanish team to stay in.

Its all about money and passport now sadly, though talent can still just about get you there.

[frostie]

Originally Posted by chunder

To be frank, you can say what you like about other nations not pushing their talent, but when you are Spanish and if you are half decent you are pretty much guaranteed a GP career, aren't you Elias, Olive, Pons, Cardus, Nieto, Torres and many many other in the past.

there are always hangers on in GP racing, guys like Rolfo, Di Meglio, Simon, Corti, Corsi, Pasini, de Angeliswho dont really deserve a GP ride but now and then get a good result, but being Spanish certianly helps, and coz there are a few Italian teams being Italian helps too.

Other nations didn't push their talent. They've started to do so now and hopefully we'll see improvements in the next few years and a better balance on the grid.

Originally Posted by chunder

Most non Spaniards have to race their early career in Spain to get noticed for goodness sake,and if that isnt a big enough sign I dont know what is, Stoner, Davies, Haslam, Webb, Smith, all raced mainly in Spain before being picked up. Kyle Ryde should be in GP now as Mcphee is, but he just isnt getting the breaks. Why is JD Beach still in teh US and not picked up?

And the only reason Cal and JT were picked up for GP is sponsorship mainly, if you looked at Cals WBS results, he was a risk compared to Spies or Toseland, at least they were champions. Yet Cal has succeeded where both JT and Spies have bailed spectacularly, just goes to show its not just about talent, its about hard work.

So how do we know that guys like I dont know, Byrne, Reynolds, Emmett, Mladin, Duhamel, Neukirchner, Schrotter, Kallio, Pitt, Talmacsi etc etc couldn't all be potential race winners in the top class if they were given time.

It's a cycle though for young rider development. Spain was the best for this because they invested heavily in their infrastructure and then it meant that to be seen and noticed a rider had to go to Spain. We didn't see that in lots of other countries and when you look at the state of the likes of British, Italian and German 125 and 250 championships five years ago it was clear to see that the Spanish were light years ahead of them.

I'd love to say that the Spanish centric nature of GPs will end soon but with almost all of the limited money in MotoGP coming from Spain that's not going to happen. For major change to take place there has to be serious investment from outside Spain

[chunder]

THe situation has been the same since the early 90's and the Ducados series.

Then it sort of went quiet for a few years and we had a major influx of Japanese, Italian and the like riders

But now it has gone back to mainly Spanish talent coming through.

Japan, UK, Germany, have always ahd talent, but the lack of throughput is based on national racing, Japanese national racing is pathetic right now and the sponsors just arent there as they were in the 90's.

Germany always had good riders, Oettl, Raudies, Waldmann, Bradl, Nohles, but they struggled in the early 90's in big classes as their Superbike championship was huge with massive manufacturer backing.

BSB is the same, but yu cant blamje it, all our talent left and is now in higher echelon racing, so it did its job

But Brits just dont get as much time as a SPaniard would who was well backed to learn, Cardoso, Criville, Pons, Bautista, all were average early on, Pons was pants on a 500 but still managed 2 years as did Garriga and Criville was pony for 3 years, that had been Mackenzie or Mcelnea or Whitham or Fogarty none of them would have lasted any more than one season unless they were heavily backed.

Different now, backing for talent is easier to find, just for avergage talent its not., unless you are Spanish! lol