Rossi to Honda mark my words

[anzacinexile]

Jeremy Burgess made the important point that MotoGP is essentially a summer sport. Rain races will always be the exception to the rule. A bike that is only competitive in the wet is not a competitive bike.


I would love to see Rossi back to challenging for every race win, but fear that is still some distance away.

The bike may not be competitive but this weekend showed that Rossie still is but Honda are far to arrogant and proud to even contemplate Rossie coming back after he rubbed their conglomerate nose in the shit

[sburns2421]

Having Pedrosa and Lorenzo on the same Repsol team, with Stoner retired and Rossi struggling on the Ducati will almost ensure that Honda wins the championship next year.

I don't see Rossi signing with Honda before one of the Spanish riders signs. If Rossi signs first, everyone knows Honda pretty much has to sign one of the two Spanish riders. IMO their preference would be Lorenzo as he has shown to be a better rider if not the best in thr world. But if Honda has to sign one of them, that gives a lot of leverage to both riders. IMO expect one to sign with Repsol earlier than normal (Pedrosa), and a fairly quick negotiation period to try to sign Lorenzo.

Yamaha would be fools to let him go, so they obviously are also going to try and sign him as quickly as possible.

Of the three possibilities of teammates next year:
1) Lorenzo & Pedrosa
2) Rossi & Pedrosa
3) Rossi & Lorenzo

#1 is most likely and #3 is bar far least likely. I really think Rossi stays at Ducati though.

[JedB]

Since we're into silly season

For Yamaha Factory
Lorenzo and
Ben if he gets his head/ride/pit/crew/mum sorted
Cal/Dovi depending on who finishes on top

For Tech 3
Cal/Dovi (depending on who get second)
and Bradley Smith (assuming he gets results)
Possibly Spies if he doesn't pick up the pace.

For Repsol
Pedrosa and ?
Rossi (Doubtful, as that bridge was burned a while ago)
Dovi (Doubtful, as that bridge was burned a while ago)
Cal (Maybe, but he's a Yamaha guy unless the deal's really good)
Bautista (Maybe, but Repsol doesn't want two spaniards)
Bradl (Depends on how well he does on the LCR. Seems to be doing well so far)

Factory Ducati:
Nicky Hayden: as he seems to like that looser = faster and he doesn't really have the results to go elsewhere.
Rossi (Maybe, as he still has something to prove about the Duc)

Suzuki with a GP return?
Unknown at this point

I don't think that Marquez will join Repsol on the big bikes for two reasons:
1) Dorna won't bend the rule again.
2) Repsol gets more exposure with Marquez in Moto2 and Pedrosa/Stoner in GP to their international audiences than would both on the GP team. Their return would be very diminished with Marquez there. It seems like they would want either Germany or UK as a market and it appears that they (Respol) get right of refusal on riders.

Just my $0.02

[duc slayer]

racers say a lot of things that don't mean shit

[evandewan]

racers say a lot of things that don't mean shit

...so do the collective "we"

[ape66]

The rookie rule will stand .
Suzuki made sure of that with Butista! Dorna made an exception with suzuki on the promise of staying in the game?
"Where are they"??? so theres your answer

[sburns2421]

And Lorenzo's multiply-stated wish to stay at Yamaha till he retires will make that nothing more than a pipe dream.

Did you not read the rest of this thread?

The three possibilities for next year are: Pedrosa and Bradl.

Oh wait, that's only one...

Lorenzo is well aware of the history of the sport. Winning multiple championships on one brand is nice but winning multiples on more than one manufacturer's machine ensures a very exclusive club of elite riders.

To think Lorenzo's manager isn't at least exploring the possibility of a huge contract with HRC is a bit shortsighted. If for nothing else than to play it off as leverage from Yamaha.

I also don't think Yamaha puts much weight into statements from Lorenzo professing his desire to stay with them. Untill his name is signed on the contract they have nothing but empty words.

[Candied Falco]

While I know this is a pipe dream, what are the chances that Ben ends up at Repsol? Everybody knows that Ben has talent, his consistent finished on the Tech 3 bike and his dominance of WSB proved that. He will need to show signs of improvement but, like was mentioned earlier in this thread, Yamaha is really not giving him the best support. There is more Motogp experience on any of the non-factory crews than what Ben has to work with and we all know that these prototype bikes need entirely different setups than production bikes.

[Tyler123]

I'm so sick of hearing about Marquez, and the possibility of him going to the factory Honda. The kid hasn't even won a secondary championship or consistently dominated in that championship. And not even that would justify breaking the rule.

Please come back when he wins the MOTO2 championship and let me know..

Last time I checked he crashed out of one race, and ran the guy off the track in Qatar who may have beat him that time as well.

[ape66]

While I know this is a pipe dream, what are the chances that Ben ends up at Repsol? Everybody knows that Ben has talent, his consistent finished on the Tech 3 bike and his dominance of WSB proved that. He will need to show signs of improvement but, like was mentioned earlier in this thread, Yamaha is really not giving him the best support. There is more Motogp experience on any of the non-factory crews than what Ben has to work with and we all know that these prototype bikes need entirely different setups than production bikes.

I think that's all it is" a dream"

I would assume the factory squads would be looking for better results than what he's showing at the moment .
It sort of doesn't make sense that YAMAHA are not giving him any support " it's a factory squad"
It could be the lack of expireance on the crews behalf but isn't the crew that spies had when he was in AMA.
So who do you point the finger at.
Don't read this the wrong way I like spies but at the moment he just hasn't cut the mustard?.You could say that bayliss had a little bit better short career than Ben but he soon become an not so ran and went back to wsbk.
So maybe that's where we mite see Ben?

[Brinks_2]

Hey Tyler 123 ,if ya looking at guy's that only win a championship to go thru to Gp, fuck it would be a thin field. And it's already thin enough, if ya sick of hearing stuff about riders don't get on a racing forum!

[cggunnersmate]

To be fair, he has had some shocking rides and managed to do OK on them. The only factory ride he has had was the Kawasaki and he shined on that, taking a 2nd place against the odds in Japan.

He had the god-awful Pramac Ducati last year, on which he finished better than Capirossi. His previous seasons were spent on Stoner's old ride at LCR - not too much money being spent, a broken ankle in 2009 and then broke his leg in 2010 - after a string of three consecutive front-row starts.

Outside of the factory riders, he's probably one of the best riders in the paddock. He lost his ride at LCR to Dorna shenanigans - a season of good-for-nothing Elias in exchange for a pot of gold and a bunch of factory support. Cecchinello should be ashamed.

I don't think De Puniet is hot and cold - I think he has performed against the odds. After his great mid-season in 2010, 2011 was going to be the season he really consolidated those gains - I mean, he was giving Pedrosa, Simoncelli, Dovisioso a run for their money - for not much money. The broken leg was a bad break, figuratively speaking, but he got back on as soon as he could and finished the rest of the season in the tens, for the most part.

If you look at who was ahead of him, the top ten is a good place to be on an uncompetitive, satellite, 2-year-old Honda. Factory Honda Repsol and Gresini, Factory Yamaha, Tech3 and Factory Ducati...

But he was screwed over and then this season all that was available was a CRT - and he is definitely the top rider in that class.

I think you are judging him too harshly. If he had a factory HRC, he would be showing Dovi some moves...

I don't think I'm judging him too harshly, I like Randy. I really do, I think he has gobs of talent. I coulnd't believe it when he lost his Honda ride after 2010. He had flashes of brilliance and had managed to run with the factory guys on occaision. Due to his performance he even got some updates from HRC that year and he did even better. Still, he had flashes of brilliance punctuated with lots of crashes. 09 and 10 were his best years, he only failed to finish in two races he started but his other seasons saw him crash plenty. Granted his season on the Pramac bike, lots of people crashed on the Ducati.

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve a ride on a prototype, he does. I just don't see how he'll make it back on one. The Factories are really fickle with any rider who isn't an instant standout star and at his best he managed 9th in the championship (if he hadn't had his injury he had a shot at gaining a couple more spots if he'd stayed consistent). I truly hope he can get his ART sorted enough where he can actually finish races, and then at least run with some of the satellite Ducs. That'll be an accomplishment for a 1st year CRT. Then next year if Ezplezeta can force more parity between the prototypes and CRT he can show what he's really capable of. Hell, if the factories pull out his ART could end up the best bike in the paddock.

[sburns2421]

Do we though? His predecessor was also a double world champion on Superbikes and he did shite.

His 'consistent' finishes on the T3 were what would be expected of the top privateer team. He also binned it - a lot. Last year, he binned it, a bit, and spent a bit of time on the bench.

So in a season +4 on the factory yamaha he has managed a win and three podiums out of twenty starts, edging Colin out of 5th place.

I'm not convinced. Lorenzo in his debut year was stunning, as was Pedro. Stoner had a better record after 20 races - including a bunch of poles.

Spies has been given every opportunity and has yet to show more than the odd flash of talent. He smells like another Toseland to me.

Harsh but I've thought the same thing. For all the consistency he showed in AMA and in WSBK (when he wasn't having bad luck), he now seems very streaky to me. Factories don't like streaky.

[Tifa]

Rossi (Doubtful, as that bridge was burned a while ago)
Dovi (Doubtful, as that bridge was burned a while ago)

It's amazing how quickly you can re-build a bridge when you have money

[duc slayer]