MotoGP

+1 - especially with plans I have for next year.

 

Put me on the "interested" list.

 

I don't know how far from the circuit we'd have to stop but there must
be hotels that run a courtesy bus or we could just go all Blaney on it
and hire helicopters..

 

Sounds good... who's the keeper of the DFV#s these days?

 

Really? I quite enjoyed it!

<tries not to give the game away...>

So we know the leader ran away with it, but the whole wets/slicks
debate threw it all into disarray and there were some real good
scraps going on, including some surprise placings and some great
last-minute charges.

I don't see how you could call it boring at all!

 

I'm glad you posted that. I was going to delete it from the TiVo
without watching it but as a result of your post we just watched the
highlights and really enjoyed it. There was a lot going on![/QUOTE]

The 125s were fucking hilarious. I've never seen so many people fall
off, pick their bike up, stand it up vertical to drain the gravel out of
the bellypan, and then get back on and ride to the finish line, usually
falling off again once or twice on the way.

 

Ah. I had to divert to take a call for a few minutes so maybe I missed
the good bits.

 

The 125cc class is *always* the best one to watch, IMHO. A bunch of
hormonal teenagers who haven't yet learned ho to be afraid.

Years ago, I remember watching a 125cc GP (I think from Spain) years
ago, and there were six, count 'em, six bikes all in the leader pack,
all frantically scrapping and no more than a tenth of a second between
the first and the sixth. And then, on the final corner, four of them
went down. I laughed my socks off.

 

Not that different from the Frankfurt Run in places.

 

LOL! I'd forgotten about that. I did shout at the telly
when one of the riders went down as well! (he says, trying
not to give the results away again...)

 

I didn't see any indications from the pit boards to show it was the
team's decision, but that's not to say that there wasn't any. I did
see a few signals as they passed the pit walls from some riders which,
in the absence of bike-to-pit communications, was a signal that they
would be coming in the next lap to swap bikes.

I see what you mean about the team having more facts to hand, but
wouldn't you, as a rider, prefer to dictate when you come in and
change? What if your tyres were shot and you were sliding about
all over the place and would prefer slicks? What if you were doing
fine, out front, and still setting fast(est) laps? You'd know that
from your display and pit board, so you could make a call whether
or not to stay out and build up a lead? I think, given what happened
in the race, the guy at the front made the perfect decisions to
do what he did, and that's why the results ended up as they did.

I think *cough* got it wrong, big time, and only had himself to
blame for it, and the 2 incidents which happened as a result of
pitting too early. In the post-race interviews, *cough2* said
that he saw what happened to *cough* right in front of him and
decided he'd take it easy for a few more laps instead, iirc!

As an aside, do Bridgestone do an intermediate tyre for MotoGP,
as I'm sure the commentators on Eurosport said it was "wets or
full-on slicks only"?

But anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the race as it really could
have been any rider out of the top ten to win that, and the
various pit timings/strategies just made the suspense even
worse.

 

Get the pit crew to make the decision, every time. They know how
others are performing and what the weather is likely to do. They
can tell immediately how your performance is being affected, just
by examining your lap/sector times. If, for example, your tyre is
going off, they'll know about it as soon as (if not before) you.
They have the additional tactical view to help them to make the
correct decision. You as the rider, have one job. The less you have
to worry about, the better you'll be able to concentrate on your
primary task.

 

Having just read some articles on MotoGP.com, it seems that several
teams had a pitboard signal that would tell their rider when other
people were going well on slicks

The rule that we always used in endurance is that the rider only
decides to come in if he feels he's actually in danger. Pretty much
everything else you can cope with by slowing down. The team then
factors the lap times into its info; you're tyres are shot, you slow
down, the team calls you in for slicks. Of course, there's *many*
more laps in an endurance race, so you can afford a couple of the
wrong tyres.

In which case, the team would also decide to leave you out there if
your times were good. Crucially, the team knows the pace of
*everyone* else, and what tyres they are on, which the rider cannot
know.

Sorry, are we not allowed to say "Rossi" anymore?

I've heard that there's only slicks and wets available too.

I think at this level there never was a 'production' inter (I've
bought production inters at my level, tho) - the teams/tyre men just
used to cut a slick, to the level they wanted (more cuts = more heat).
The problem with this is "when is an inter an inter?" - you could play
games with it, and have a rider change bikes to one with 'inters' on
which consisted of just a single tiny cut in a slick. But this is
just a guess, really. I think they may find they have to create a
control-spec production inter.

 

Depends if you believe in spoilers 24 hours after the race.

 

Me neither. I was just coaxing Champ towards a slightly ashamed "oh,
bugger".

 

That was kind of the point, but I see what you're getting at. As
Alex said too, the team have a load of information to hand about
who else is doing what, so are in a better place to make the call.

I think you're right; an inter would have been a much better
bet yesterday rather than just wets or slicks.

 

The lead guy isn't much better either. He kept getting things wrong all
the time, to the point that we watched the BBC's coverage of the main
race, and it was actually less annoying. Go figure!

I wonder what Moody/Ryder are upto that they can't get out of it.

 

Not putting spoilers in subject titles I sort of understand.

But anyone reading a thread entitled "MotoGP" gets what they deserve.

 

Minimum weight of bike plus rider is 136kg; googling shows that most
machines weight about 80kg, which is very slightly less than me.

I don't mind Hayden at all, tho I find the main guy pretty crap.

Yebbut, those two have never done GPs. I do miss the Ryder/Moody
double act, and when they're not there I immediately miss all the
detailed background knowledge they usually supply.

 

There's a Pau-Arnos circuit

http://www.circuit-pau-arnos.com/

But the WTCC was held in town center.