No comments on Sete Gibernau quitting MotoGP rather than taking a ride with Kawasaki?
Yamaha superior, definitely. If you look at Nakano, this year he ended up 14th in points, finished in the top five only once, the 2nd at Assen, and a typical better result was 7th-8th. In '03 on a Yamaha he was pretty similar, 10th in points, a couple top fives, 7th-8th a lot. But that year he wasn't the focus of the factory the way that he was this year at Kawi, he was #2 behind Barros at Tech 3, and it was his first year racing a four-stroke. By the end of '02 Biaggi had gotten pretty competitive on the M1, but the big Yamaha problem in '03 was that they didn't have a rider of truly top caliber, and they were also down some on power compared to the Hondas and Ducatis. I think a top guy could have been on the box with some regularity on that bike, which I don't think was a possibility with the Kawi on Bridgestones this year. The question for Sete was the '07 Kawi, though, and I expect that they will lose some ground in the transition to 800cc. I also suspect they'll end up on Michelins, and it's hard to say how that will impact them. It should be an advantage if you look at this year overall and the addition of the Honda teams to the Bridgestone camp, but I really doubt that Jacque or even Sete would get the same treatment as Rossi, Hayden and Pedrosa, at best probably about what Checa and Roberts and maybe Edwards (in the races, anyway) will get. If they stay at Bridgestone, then they have to get in line with Capirossi, Stoner, Melandri, Nakano, Hopkins, Vermeulen, Barros, Elias... That's a long line. Anyway, my comment about Checa was connected to the way he was saying the Tech 3 ride on Dunlops wasn't good enough for him to consider a year ago, but he eventually backed down and took it when there wasn't anything else.
I don't think it's that disingenuous. I'm sure he wanted a lot of money and a good bike at first. He might have thought that he'd end up having to choose between a good bike and no money or a hopeless bike and some money, and he'd go with the good bike. But when it ended up that his only options were getting paid to ride the Kawasaki or the Ilmor, well... wrestling a piece of shit around the track in a battle for 15th place and hoping to avoid getting lapped by Rossi sounds a lot like "just riding for money" to me. Others might do that to stay in the game in hopes that a better ride would come along, but when you're already 34, the odds of that happening are kind of slim. Now that he's retired, I have to say I think I'm kind of going to miss the guy. -jake
sete announced his retirement today. supermodel so and parents in tow, in an emotional news conference. of course, it's from motogp.com, an untrustworthy news source according to a few paranoid users in here...
gibernau had offers on the table, among them one to continue with ducati, which he decided against. the money means nothing to gibernau, he said it in his retirement speech, and he was born into spanish industrial aristocracy - he's always been extremely rich without having to ever had to work for it. he didn't go for kaw or ilmor because he knew he could not win on them, and perhaps realized he would not win again on any other bike anyhow. time to hang em up. so gibernau did not end up without a seat - he declined them in later stages of the season as the cards were being remixed. i for one believe what he said - he discovered racing wasn't as much of a passion for him going forward, and he can afford to turn a page in his life without thinking about it for a second. criville -who is notoriusly publicity shy- made a very rare appearance to simply state gibernau is a class act, and told one story about the katoh aftermath in the gresini team i didn't know, and which reflects quite favorably on gibernau's principles and unwillingness to go by the book. ....pablo
