Predictions for this weeks MGP

Does anyone care to pick the rostrum?

Supposedly Yamaha will be trying a new frame to get rid of the chatter
problems, will it end in tears, victory or somewhere in between?
Pedrosa won the 250's there last year and Rossi the MGP - just from
Gibernau.

It's hard to make a prediction until some practice laps are done, but I'm
going take a gamble and pick Rossi for the win, Pedrosa 2nd and Hayden 3rd
and possibly Stoner 4th.
If the "Stones" work at the track this year I guess the Ducati's of Gibs and
Cap could come into play but I'm dubious they will be competitive.

The Suzuki's don't have to do much to improve on last years results (13th
Roberts 1 min off the pace and 16th Hopkins who was lapped) but even with
the improved bike I'll be very surprised if they are consistently on the
pace.

Paul

 

Strange. I thought the Manx Grand Prix was in August? We haven't
even had the TT yet, surely?

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Without looking at yours (but I did look at past LM resutls) I came up with
almost the same:

Pedrosa
Hayden
Rossi

 

TheYams are certainly leading the charge although I wouldn't say the Hondas
are struggling, well not all of them, Stoner seems to be doing OK, fairly
consistant and not too far off the pole pace. Nakano often does good
practice and qual times but fades in the race so I'm not holding my breath
for him to be too much of a race threat, same with Hopkins although he was
more consistantly on the pace than Nakano. The Duc's are doing OK but
that's about all.

But tomorrows another day so we will see.

Paul

 

On the MotoGP video, Edwards comments his bike goes really well (for once).
He claims to be very comfortable, even though he also stated the chatter was
still there, but somehow seemed to imply it's not limiting the bike as much
on this particular circuit. He talked about the possibility to win, which
must mean he's been feeling great thus far, and that he still feel he has
something left. Of course, we won't know until he (and Rossi, too) is
forced to push some more come QP. Agreed that there may be a number of
reasons why the chatter hasn't reared it's ugly head as forcefully as in the
recent past, at least not yet.

....pablo

 

I doubt it's that complicated or filled with intigue. If anything,
Colin is too forthcoming in his public statements, so I would guess the
situation is exactly as he describes. The Yammies go good here, so they
are up early, Rossi probably took a slightly bad turn on setup in P2,
but he'll likely be faster tomorrow if it's dry.

Anyway, cool and pissy here at Sears, the sprinkles started about
halfway through SB practice, but not enough to effect anything. Feels a
lot like raceday at Istanbul, but clearer to the south, so a bit of
hope. F*ckin' weather...

 

Yeah, I saw that at Kawi hospitality - doesn't look good, and if only a
few miles farther to the east..

.. But not too horrible at the moment. Still, it's a bit like reliving a
bad dream, and like the other two rain disasters here, it probably
won't rain here again until November...

Anyway, I think there will be more action yet today, it's not too dark
and the surface isn't that wet, just a bit damp. But I don't know how
dry it needs to get - they pulled the trigger pretty quick this morning
during FX practice...

 

Rossi must be very upset he's been relegated to the role of development
rider and they force the last material upon him, eh? Edwards meanwhile gets
to ride the current bike with incremental improvements. Rossi and Hayden -
damned to the role of merely testing new material. Who would have thought
that at the start of the season that they'd fall out of grace with their
factories as quickly?

....pablo

PS: Yeah, the above is tongue in cheek. I still find the blatant double
standards that are regulalry applied in this group entertaining. Hayden
rides the newest bits and it's a disadvantage, because he is "developing
next year's bike". Pedrosa and the others are the clear beneficiaries of
that. Rossi gets the latest parts, just like Hayden, and in that particular
case it's clear indication he's the only one that matters, and he's getting
simply the best material, period. In that case, it's not called "developing
the bke for the benefit of Edwards as he gets the parts when they're sorted
out by Rossi's hard working attitude"...

 

I think the situations are different, Yamaha have chassi problems this year
and need to sort them to get themselves back into contention while Honda are
developing a new bike for next year . Yamaha needs a new chassis while Honda
are developing to get one step ahead and Hayden has been "blessed" with the
new bits for better or worse. Rossi is testing a new frame to solve
chattering issues.

Paul

 

Different spins on basically the same premise, in my opinion. I am pretty
sure Hayden isn't riding some prototype screw-up, because I don't believe he
has such a riding skill edge on the rest of the field that he can be ahead
on points while riding garbage. Quite the contrary, I think it's not
coincidental he leads on points as Honda finally focuses on him as lead
rider.

....pablo

 

Well, doesn't Yamaha think that their new chassis is better than their
old one now? After one practice session, Rossi described it as "I
like, because is possible go faster." Whereas the Honda folks say
things like "We certainly didn't expect Nicky to finish as high as
third on his bike" and talk about "important directions for the
future".

-jake

 

And Honda's public statements have always adhered to the strict facts and
truth, and have never conveniently spun anything.

....pablo

 

Certainly, Honda's PR statements have spun things. But when was the
last time they spun them to make the rider look good and the motorcycle
/ development process / overall strategy look bad?

If the new M1 chassis had ended up being much slower than the old one,
do you think Rossi would still be riding it, or would they pull the
Turkey chassis out of the truck and deal with the chatter?

-jake

 

Fair comment, but why is Pedrosa doing so well on the standard bike (mind
you why is Stoner doing so well on the er production bike), however the way
people see it is Rossi gets the "good new stuff" while Hayden gets
to"develop the bike", whether that gives him an advantage or disadvantage I
don't know, probably a bit of both but I feel Hayden would be happier with
Pedrosa's bike but it seems it's not an option for him. I would have
thought they would have used Pedrosa as the development rider because he is
the up and coming star and everything hinges around him so it seems.

Paul

 

Mark N misses the apex and hits the kitty litter:

Pedrosa is behind Hayden, just in case you forgot.

Pablo's saying that Honda is focusing on Hayden and
that is helping is correct on his part. How that is anti-amerikan
is unknown to all but you.

New stuff sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. But the top
guy has always gotten it. Always.

Talk about looking silly for taking a weird position. Did you
get that in the Kama Sutra?

Off to New Castle, DE for a vintage motocross.


Go fast. Take chances.
Mike S.

 

Are they? They're just taking pressure off themselves and Hayden. But since
when are the latest bike bits not developed for winning? Do you really think
they've stopped employing top level development riders in Japan and hayden
is getting raw unfinished parts?

And if the new bits wouldn't be faster, they would not make it onto Hayden's
bike come raceday either. Honda Repsol likes to win. They're not
participating in the 2006 championship to develop a bike that perhaps will
cut the mustard in '07 eventually. That's a pile of fecal matter spun to
make it look mlike there's no pressure anywhere. And up the pressure on
their opponents, as in "we're not even trying, and look how great our bike
and riders do". Crap.

....pablo

 

By saying that four races into the season, their new bike still isn't
as good as their old bike?

Where did anyone say than Hayden is getting raw, unfinished parts? I
think Honda made a bold development move that hasn't paid off. Like
with the NR750, or as happened many times with the NSR500. How long
did it take them to dump the underslung gas tank? Heck, how many times
did the "new NSR500 poorly handling pile of shit, big
mid-season/off-season changes turn it into something reasonable" play
out?

The difference being that this year their head rider doesn't have
enough political power to say "this thing sucks, give me the old one
back", and they have another good riderwho is riding last years bike on
the grounds that he doesn't have MotoGP development experience.

No? They've done it before.

-jake

 

Of course it takes the pressure off. It's some "we didn't come to win this
time around" crap.

Yeah, to judge by Hayden's results, he's fallen so behind his results in
prior years... It's new stuff. So it'll be better when Hayden and his team
figure out how to use it without reference points, and it'll be not an
advantage when they don't. Honda has good test riders and invests plenty
into the pre-testing. I don't believe the new bike is holding Hayden back.
Quite the contrary. And he's making the most of the opportunity. Good for
him. It's never been much of a coincidence that the best bikes and the best
riders come together.

Yeah, but how often were they totaly incompetitive? Try on extremely rare
occasions.

I think this is a pile of bull, honestly. Finally Hayden starts doing well,
is ahead n points, but of course some "oh, imagine how he'd do if he was on
last year's bike" stuff comes up. Only in RMR, really. I can only amusingly
imagine what the talk here would be if it was Pedrosa on the "protoype bike"
and he would be leading the championship... the uproar over favoritism, how
he needs such an unfair engineering advantage and enjoys all of Honda's
engineering might all by himself while everybody else is riding prehistoric
machinery... it'd be funny.

Examples? They've been rumored to do it before. You're starting to present
things as facts that no one has supporting evidence for. It's speculation.
On both our parts, I should note.

....pablo

 

Mark N reminds:

I hauled 'em. 1-1 in +50, 2-2 in 125 Sportsman.
And I figured out who is the competition for the
+50 championship. Good think my bike is faster
as he's faster than me.


Go fast. Take chances.
Mike S.