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Is Sete in denial? "The only mistake I made was to lead from the start."

Well apart from falling off that is.

So Rossi's luck holds again. He struggles a bit all weekend, starts from
the second row and still picks up second with his main rival getting a
DNF.

 

Indeed. Plan B was to try to put some distance between him and Rossi. Since
the latter is no turtle, the hare might be risking too much building up too
much of a lead. Time for plan C.

I would not call that luck. I cal it smart, just like I called last week's
showing questionable. He knew he couldn't run for number 1, he didn't push
it further. He also probably knows Barros is achieving his season goal by
scoring a win or two. At least that is the expectation for now, and based on
Barros' long history of doing so. This is not taking away from Barros'
showing - he was the best guy out there today, no doubt. Today may have been
a showcase for the weakness of Honda's "strength in numbers" approach,
because if different riders out of the Honda phallanx keep riding for the
top spot, all Rossi's got to do all year is to score podiums and an
occasional win, counting on the possibly equally matched Honda guys to
neutralize each other from week to week.

Biaggi - hurrah, a podium. Usual bullshit about machine and technology
problems being to blame for last week, rather than talking about today's
race. Shut up Max, you're top dog in the most successful team with the most
resources, and if you can't direct them it's squarely *you*. He gets on my
nerves with his constant and predictable excuse making, and his using his
successful moments to simply say why he didn't do better overall in other
races. Melandri - yikes, ahead of team leader Gibernau on points. Bound to
do well this year, I think, because with Gibernau as a team mate pressure
isn't high, and consistency will pay off. Rossi 20 points ahead of the guys
that were supposed his closest challengers for the title already... many
things are not going according to plan for Honda already. Barros being
closest to Rossi right now...

Excellent result for Checa, too. Edwards on an upward trend. Xaus too,
marginally. I would have expected Bayliss to do better given
conditions.Everything else rather unremarkable.

 

Everyone must read different quotes than I get to read. The ones
I read had Biaggi saying he was happy with the weekend, the
team did well, they found the solution to their electronics
problem and he is looking for ward to the next race. Where
is the complaining?

Biaggi:
"Definitely, today's third place leaves us satisfied. I'm happy
for me and especially for my team: finally I saw them smiling
and I thank them all. "

Sounds happy with bike to me.

I think this new rain rule is ridiculous. It will force riders and teams
to make difficult and dangerous decisions during the race.

Shane

 

As far as I could see, Biaggi was stalking Rossi the whole race, and I
was expecting some moves at the end of the race. Once the rain started
I couldn't see any sign that he even thought about challenging Rossi.
He just seemed happy trailing by a few seconds.

Given the events that befell others, perhaps a wise choice.

Cheers,

Ross-c

 

But what would have happened under the old rules? Even if the race
had been stopped (which, imo, is only 50/50), then all the teams would
have looked at the track, looked at the weather, and started the 2nd
part "wet race" on slicks, just like at Mugello last year. I don't
see that it would have been any safer.

Be able to judge marginal conditions is just another part of a racer's
toolkit.

 

Only since the advent of slicks. And all the systems in use since
then (half points, aggregate races based on time, two part races
without taking time into consideration) have been pretty poor for
riders and spectators both, imo.

Endurance racing (in which I have a vested interest) has to deal with
changing weather, so I don't really see why GPs can't do the same.

 

This is emotive nonsense.

There will always be a situation where a slick is the right tyre to
use, even tho the track is not entirely dry. This was the case
yesterday, as it was at Mugello last year. Given that we can't
legislate against the weather, the new rules seem to me to be at least
as good a way of doing things as any other method.

 

If people cross the boundary of fair sportsmanship on their quest to
win -i.e. if they cheat- then it's not politics if they get their fingers
slapped on or if they get banned from the sport. It depends on their
offense. But not "whatever it takes" is permissible. In sports where it's
only about taking steroids or such and athletes ruining their health and
lives for glory, as far as I am concerned it may as well be free choice. But
in a sport like motorcycling people have been and may be seriously hurt, and
I think it is imperative a very stern sanctioning body limits the risk of a
sport that by its very nature is dangerous.

Victory is not a vindication for any type of behavior...

....pablo

 

I agree that slicks were the right choice and the conditions wasn't that
bad. Gib ran into bad luck and must be terribly difficult to be in the front
in those conditions. My hat off to Barros for pulling it off.

On the other hand, race tracks and safety runoffs are build based on
experience. When you have a really wet surface and a few laps to go you will
see lots of riders trying to get through on slicks. Problem is that they may
slide off at places no one ever been off, and it might very well be right
into a wall.

I'm in doubt, before the season I was against the rule, but Estoril show
that it works, sort of.



/MBE

 

I agree, about 3 laps from the end you could see they were all being
very tentative, not getting their knees down as much so the track was
obviously very slippery in some parts so I think caution before
silliness always prevails in those conditions so close to the end.

Paul