British MotoGP (Spoilers)

[Triple J]

Petrucci was the story of the race...what a ride!! 

Great ride by Vale. He set a pretty punishing pace given the conditions.

MM knows that he can't come in 2nd to him and have a chance at the championship, so he's doing whatever he can to stay close. It's bit him a couple times now this season.

JLo needs to dump HJC and go back to X-Lite. Or something. Fogging in a GP race?? They should have that crap figured out!

[OT]

Rossi is virtually unbeatable in the rain, and untouchable in a hurricane.

From MotoMatters re FogGate

" Lorenzo has had two issues this year which have cost him points, as well as previous problems with fogging. Some of that is down to Lorenzo himself, as at Silverstone, Lorenzo did not fit the breath deflector, which is part of the solution to keeping the visor from fogging."

Duh....

[m9hundo]

That was a weird fall from MM especially where it happened. He looked dumbfounded as to what happened. The front kicked out weird and off he went

[1.21GW]

(snip)

MM knows that he can't come in 2nd to him and have a chance at the championship, so he's doing whatever he can to stay close. It's bit him a couple times now this season.

(snip)

He really should take a lesson from Val about patience.  The only thing worse than crashing out of a race is repeatedly crashing out.  Not only do you get a big fat goose egg for pts, but you risk injury.  Rossi has missed how many races in his career?  It has to be a low % compared to JLo and the other top riders.  I think Ewan MacGregor made some comment on this fact as narrator of FASTEST, where he was talking about how JLo started his MotoGP career with a bang and then went on a crash fest that ruined his title chances, noting that Rossi only crashed out of one race that season.

[1.21GW]

Ok, so I looked this up.  I went to wikipedia pages of top riders and looked at how many MotoGP races (including 500cc for Rossi, the only one old enough to have ridden then), how many "retired" (cause not given, could be crash or mechanical, and even if a crash could be someone else's fault, like Miller/Crutchlow this weekend), and how many "did not start" (again, no reason given but the assumption would be 99% of the time, medical).  Here we go (total means total races not completed for whatever reason):

Rossi
Races: 268
Ret: 21 (7.8%)
DNS: 4 (1.5%)
Total: 25 (9.3%)

JLo
Races: 136
Ret: 13 (9.6%)
DNS: 4 (2.9%)
Total: 17 (12.5%)

Pedro
Races: 154
Ret: 15 (9.7%)
DNS: 11 (7.1%)
Total: 26 (16.9%)

Stoner
Races: 123
Ret: 15 (12.2%)
DNS: 8 (6.5%)
Total: 23 (18.7%)

Cal
Starts: 83
Ret: 25 (30.1%)
DNS: 2 (2.4%)
Total: 27 (32.5%)


Goes to show that you gotta be in it to win it.  Rossi is the lowest of the bunch with only 9.3% of races where he is getting no points.  I threw in Cal just to compare to a good rider that can't seem to break through, which appears obvious now that I see he is not finishing a third of his races!  Dani doesn't have a crashing problem, but geez his misses a lot of races.

Anyway, lots of assumptions in this data, so not perfect.  But I think MM could benefit from some wisdom on staying in the game by keeping the rubber side down.

[Speeddog]

MM
Races: 48
Ret: 6 (12.5%)
DNS: 0 (0%)
DQ 1 (2.1%)
Total: 7 (14.6%)

Geeking out a bit further, although a bit odd to calculate mid-season, so I did for end of 2015 too:

            WC's   Races per WC now    Races per WC end 2015
Rossi       7           38.3                        39.1/34.3
JLo         2           68                           71.0/47.3
Pedro      0            -                               -
Stoner    2           61.5                           -
Cal         0            -                               -
MM         2           24                              27.0

[ducpainter]

MM
Races: 48
Ret: 6 (12.5%)
DNS: 0 (0%)
DQ 1 (2.1%)
Total: 7 (14.6%)

Geeking out a bit further, although a bit odd to calculate mid-season, so I did for end of 2015 too:

            WC's   Races per WC now    Races per WC end 2015
Rossi       7           38.3                        39.1/34.3
JLo         2           68                           71.0/47.3
Pedro      0            -                               -
Stoner    2           61.5                           -
Cal         0            -                               -
MM         2           24                              27.0

Smoke and Mirrors...

[Triple J]

He really should take a lesson from Val about patience.  The only thing worse than crashing out of a race is repeatedly crashing out.  

IMO, patience is pointless at this point in the season. He could come in second to Rossi for every race, and not win the championship. Patience would have helped him earlier in the season though. He won the championship his 1st 2 seasons though...given that record, I can see how he finds (or found earlier in the season) it hard to just sit back and take what he can get.

The real issue though is the bike. It just isn't 100% with MM. He wasn't doing anything special this past weekend...just trying to stay close enough to Rossi to make it a race. The guys that win races are always right on the edge...and the Honda this year has a razor fine one.

Those stats are interesting, but there's a lot more to it. It's not just crashing, it's also being lucky enough to avoid injuries when you do crash. Something Rossi has been very good at (as has MM). Pedro has the worst luck in that regard. Stoner was on the Ducati that had a habit of the front just letting go for no reason.

...and Cal shouldn't even be mentioned with those other riders. 

[OT]

Marquez probably incapable of being patient for more than a few minutes; his 'style' is reflexive/reactive/aggressive.  When the heat/battle is on (as opposed to following another rider around the track for many laps before passing), he can't resist the temptation, his 'switches' are thrown and he's off to the races.

[Triple J]

That's not really true. He's followed people for quite a few races, passing them in the later laps.

[1.21GW]

Any follow up on why he crashed?  He looked bewildered himself and the stuff I saw on motogp.com didn't really give any insight.  Watching on-board with sound on it sounded like he hadn't come on the throttle yet when he lost it (i.e. still a decelerating noise), which is confusing because from the location of it I assumed he had gone heavy on the throttle as he exited the turn and the rear lost contact.

[Triple J]

He most likely crashed due to the engine braking locking the wheel long enough to cause a problem he couldn't ride through. It's been the bike's problem all year. Just look at how the bike reacts when he backs it in to a corner this season, compared to last.

I imagine he was surprised because he didn't feel he did anything different that lap than previous laps, but it doesn't take much in the rain.

[duccarlos]

I imagine he was surprised because he didn't feel he did anything different that lap than previous laps, but it doesn't take much in the rain.

The Honda this year is more similar to the GP13 and lower than the Honda from last year. It seems like it's on the knife's edge.