I've never known this place so quiet the day after a GP.

Anyway, Le Mans was the crap shoot we've come to expect from a 'flag
to flag' race where they changed bikes. I'll point up the following
things:

- Rossi is human (contrast Burgess's comments about some of the other
riders being 'little robots') - human enough to throw it away, and
despite not giving up, didn't get a point.
- Lorenzo really is pretty good. Didn't put a foot wrong
- Pedrosa appears to be a racer! The way he hunted down Dovi and
overtook him on the last lap was one of the few highpoints of an
otherwise fairly dull race
- Melandri is also a racer. A great result for him and his team. And
even tho they know they wouldn't have got on the podium in the dry,
underneath it they appear to be faster than everyone who isn't on a
works Yamaha, Honda or Ducati.
--
Champ

ZX10R (road), ZX10R (race; breaking), GPz750 turbo (classic) Hayabusa (touring)
To email me, neal at my domain should work.

Champ wrote:
> I've never known this place so quiet the day after a GP.
>
> Anyway, Le Mans was the crap shoot we've come to expect from a 'flag
> to flag' race where they changed bikes. *I'll point up the following
> things:
>
> - Rossi is human (contrast Burgess's comments about some of the other
> riders being 'little robots') - human enough to throw it away, and
> despite not giving up, didn't get a point.

Big mistake pulling in so early, and he was running 2nd and not losing
much ground to Lorenzo at the time. He went in after 5 laps, and
Lorenzo didn't go in until after 12 and was getting faster until then,
although Melandri bested his time on slicks the last couple laps - the
Bridgestone rains proved to be great in damp conditions.

And the cheats sent him out again on a rain front and slick rear, and
then slicks at both ends. But no penalty, apparently, and again
because the rules aren't entirely clear - nice to have your own
rulebook...

> - Lorenzo really is pretty good. *Didn't put a foot wrong

Outstanding really, although it's hard to say if he just guessed right
on setup, on both bikes. But he was easily the fastest on rain tires
on a drying track, and again on slicks on a damp track.

> - Pedrosa appears to be a racer! *The way he hunted down Dovi and
> overtook him on the last lap was one of the few highpoints of an
> otherwise fairly dull race

That was the only segment of the race when Lorenzo wasn't quickest,
but he didn't have to be, the race already won. And Dani faded in the
wet on rains, changed too early, and faded more on slicks - compare
Melandri's laps after the switch to Pedrosa's. I know the guy's
hurting, but his wet performance still seems to be an issue.

> - Melandri is also a racer. *A great result for him and his team. *And
> even tho they know they wouldn't have got on the podium in the dry,
> underneath it they appear to be faster than everyone who isn't on a
> works Yamaha, Honda or Ducati.

Where Melandri really stood out was on slicks in wet conditions. Once
again he's confirmed that he's one of the very best on a wet track.
Too bad he changed so early, might have had a shot if he'd waited
another 4-5 laps, but I guess he had to try something, wasn't going to
beat Lorenzo on the same strategy that day.

Otherwise, Edwards was very fast on slicks from the middle of the race
on, but screwed the pooch on rains. Hayden had his best stretch after
breaking through the second pack and just before switching to slicks,
running at the same pace as Vermeulen and just off of Stoner, but then
slicks on a drier track did it to him again. But it's one of Ducati's
worst tracks and definitely his worst, and he was only about a second
off Stoner's times. Stoner kinda mailed this one in, for him slow on
rains, slow on slicks in the wet, slow on slicks in the dry, 30
seconds back in the end. Also kind of middling results for Vermeulen,
Capirossi, Toseland.

On Tue, 19 May 2009 15:18:56 -0700 (PDT), Mark N
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>> - Rossi is human (contrast Burgess's comments about some of the other
>> riders being 'little robots') - human enough to throw it away, and
>> despite not giving up, didn't get a point.
>
>Big mistake pulling in so early, and he was running 2nd and not losing
>much ground to Lorenzo at the time. He went in after 5 laps, and
>Lorenzo didn't go in until after 12 and was getting faster until then,
>although Melandri bested his time on slicks the last couple laps - the
>Bridgestone rains proved to be great in damp conditions.
>
>And the cheats sent him out again on a rain front and slick rear, and
>then slicks at both ends. But no penalty, apparently, and again
>because the rules aren't entirely clear - nice to have your own
>rulebook...

Well, as you say, it seems the rules *aren't* clear - they don't say
whether both tyres have to be different. And if they don't say, then
it's not against the rules. That would be my interpretation, anyway,
and in Burgess shoes, with little to lose, I'd have done the same.
--
Champ

ZX10R (road), ZX10R (race; breaking), GPz750 turbo (classic) Hayabusa (touring)
To email me, neal at my domain should work.

Champ <(E-Mail Removed)> Wed, 20 May 2009 00:10:45
>Well, as you say, it seems the rules *aren't* clear - they don't say
>whether both tyres have to be different. And if they don't say, then
>it's not against the rules. That would be my interpretation, anyway,
>and in Burgess shoes, with little to lose, I'd have done the same.

Just to be truly bizarre, the French rules say Pneus (plural), the
English rules say Tyre[1] (singular). Allegedly Burgess-Rossi said "we
don't speak French".

[1]And not Tire (American)

--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog: http://www.voidstar.com/ skype:julian.bond?chat
No Bits Of Pulp

Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Tue, 19 May 2009 20:21:17
>So why the **** are the rules all written in French? Aren't the two centers
>of racing in Europe historically the UK and Italy? Did the French get the
>job because they sit right between the warring tribes, and aren't liked by
>either?

Because the FIM are based in French Switzerland and French has been the
international language of diplomacy (which explains a lot).

Which amounts to "yes, but, it's always been like this"

--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog: http://www.voidstar.com/ skype:julian.bond?chat
No Bits Of Pulp

Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Tue, 19 May 2009 15:18:56
>Otherwise, Edwards was very fast on slicks from the middle of the race
>on, but screwed the pooch on rains.

The usual moans about bike setup, traction control settings and so on.
Seems like the machine he started on was all wrong while the machine he
changed to was more like the one he'd gone fast on in practice. That'll
be the experienced Guy Coulon then and not Colin.

He put a hard pass on Toseland later pushing him out to the paint on the
Dunlop curve. Nice.

Was it a mistake by Rossi to come in early, since it worked for Marco?
Since Rossi fell but Marco didn't with slicks on a damp track, does that
make Marco better than Rossi on that day or just less unlucky? It was
actually kind of fun to see Rossi screw up in the biggest possible way,
including forgetting to turn on the pit lane limiter and getting a ride
through penalty to go with all the stops. It almost seems like Rossi has
one race each year where it all goes horribly wrong. So perhaps he's had
the bad race and will spend the rest of the year 1st or 2nd.

3 riders within one point and the next 9 behind. That'll do as we move
into the main phase of "the ground war" (c. W. Rainey)

--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog: http://www.voidstar.com/ skype:julian.bond?chat
No Bits Of Pulp

On Tue, 19 May 2009 20:21:17 -0700, "Mark N"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


>So if in French it's plural and that's what rules the day, then Team Rossi
>broke the rules. And I think it's stupid to read this in English and believe
>it really means you have to change the type of only one tire. At minimum you
>ask for clarification.


Only if you have reason to believe that the French and English (or
Italian?) versions are different. Until someone reads the regs in
both languages and compares it's reasonable to assume that whatever
version you're reading is accurate and valid.


> Given that, one has to believe that if they did this
>knowingly that they knew the outcome wouldn't be entirely clear, and in the
>end they'd probably get away with it


That's a leap. They followed the regs as they read them without any
reason to believe they were reading an inaccurate version of them.

Of course, I'm assuming that the English version is an official
publication from the FIM and not some roque translation by an
unofficial third party. I could be wrong on that.

Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Wed, 20 May 2009 07:41:48
>At least that's better than WSB, where the displacement-enhanced ship has
>clearly been righted, there is no longer much doubt Ducati will win their
>14th championship in 20 years, and the most absurd rule in racing again
>failed to add weight to those dominant twins...

The usual wonderful logic there. When Spies has finished and in practice
and qualifying the Yamaha has had the measure of the Ducati. But because
Haga has had better luck (so far) and Spies isn't leading the
championship it must be that the machine is dominant.

--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster: http://www.ecademy.com/ T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog: http://www.voidstar.com/ skype:julian.bond?chat
10 Items Or Less

Julian Bond wrote:
> Mark N
> >At least that's better than WSB, where the displacement-enhanced ship has
> >clearly been righted, there is no longer much doubt Ducati will win their
> >14th championship in 20 years, and the most absurd rule in racing again
> >failed to add weight to those dominant twins...
>
> The usual wonderful logic there. When Spies has finished and in practice
> and qualifying the Yamaha has had the measure of the Ducati. But because
> Haga has had better luck (so far) and Spies isn't leading the
> championship it must be that the machine is dominant.

And the usual Euro-view on things there. Spies has had very bad luck,
but that's hardly the entire issue. However you play it, Ducati is
dominating this championship, as they have so many others. By my
count, related to the amend-twins-rules-on-the-fly provision, better
known as the 2007 FIM European Protection Act, Ducati's top two
finishers now have totalled 445 points, compared to Honda's at 275 and
Yamaha's at 264. Specifically related to the rule, Ducati's 445 even
exceeds all six four-cylinder machines' total of 419. And of course
Haga leads the championship by 85 points, now over his Ducati
teammate, and the two of them have won 7 of the 12 races.

But that 26-point edge in the totals doesn't activate the weight
addition provision, because that requires a difference of over 5
points per round, right? And so that would take 31 points, which means
Ducati is off the hook for another three rounds. Now, had Spies won
the those races at Kayalami and Monza, his two machine failures while
leading, he's still be trailing Haga by 34 points. So let's say Spies
also won at Assen where he crashed while leading, and 3rd at Valencia,
where he was the lap before he crashed there. Then he'd have the
championship lead by 12 points over Haga, and there would be a 56-
point swing in the twins/fours points (I hope my math is right!),
which would put the fours up by 30 points, only a single point short
of the level which would allow Ducati to drop weight starting at
Miller.

So basically the FIM rule says the bookends on parity are Ducati
leading the championship by nearly a hundred points, having the
majorty of the wins and the top two riders in points, and Ducati
trailing in the championship by about ten points, also having the
rider 3rd in points, and having won a third of the races. More than
the former and they have to put on weight, less than the latter and
they get to take off weight. Even though five of the six fours
manufacturers haven't won a race or have anyone in the top three in
points.

Of course you just view it from the perspective that an American on a
Japanese bike winning some races must mean he's got the best bike...

Dave wrote:
> "Mark N" wrote:
> >So if in French it's plural and that's what rules the day, then Team Rossi
> >broke the rules. And I think it's stupid to read this in English and believe
> >it really means you have to change the type of only one tire. At minimumyou
> >ask for clarification.
>
> Only if you have reason to believe that the French and English (or
> Italian?) versions are different. *Until someone reads the regs in
> both languages and compares it's reasonable to assume that whatever
> version you're reading is accurate and valid.

Okay, say the English version is the one that counts. When you read
that rule do you think it's clear that you only need to change the
type of one tire when switching machines? I don't think it's clear at
all, and the common understanding has been that you have to change
both. The only out I can see at all is if American English is
materially different than British English in this regard. But I don't
see that as an aspect of this matter anywhere.

> > Given that, one has to believe that if they did this
> >knowingly that they knew the outcome wouldn't be entirely clear, and in the
> >end they'd probably get away with it
>
> That's a leap. *They followed the regs as they read them without any
> reason to believe they were reading an inaccurate version of them.

Again, that is not the common interpretation of the rule, not can I
see that as the even remotely obvious meaning from reading the rule.
And regarding Champ's comment, I cannot believe that team saw Rossi
crash on slicks, did the bike switch back to rains, decided it would
be better to run at least one slick, grabbed the rulebook and gave it
a read and decided that was okay, fixed the crashed bike, removed a
slick and replaced it with a rain and had it ready for his return a
couple laps later. It seems much more likely that they had read the
rulebook in gory detail, as every team should, saw the vagueness in
that rule, and put that in the back of their minds if there was ever a
circumstance where they could exploit that. That would only work if
they knew they had a very good chance of surviving a ruling or an
adverse ruling and appeal, and the one guy in that paddock who may be
bulletproof in that regard is Rossi. What they really should have done
is asked for a clarification, but that would have been giving away
their unfair advantage - the Rossi Rules...

> Of course, I'm assuming that the English version is an official
> publication from the FIM and not some roque translation by an
> unofficial third party. *I could be wrong on that.

What I posted was a copy-and-paste from the rulebook on the FIM
website, so I think we're fairly safe there.