I'm looking forward to seeing Vale back on the Yamaha, I hope he can mix it at the front still. As others have said, I've no idea about Championships, but without doubt he'll get a few wins and should be fighting which will be nice.
I also want Ducati to get it fixed, and I think they're now going towards that. Having Ben, Nicky, Dovi and Ianonne gives them a fairly good pool of different styles. That should IMO give them the data to develop a decent all rounder. They'll still need a lot of help, and cash from Audi to speed things along mind.
As for the Stoner/Rossi thing, if you'd watched GP for two minutes, you'd realize that the bikes/tyres/rules change year by year, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. The GP7 that Stoner won the title on done it in VASTLY different circumstances to the GP11/12 that Vale had been riding. However, I still think that a Vale/Lorenzo/Pedrosa would have found it very hard to win on that GP7, I think they'd have been nearer the front no doubt, but win, I'm not so sure.
Without doubt, Ducati owe that Championship to Casey, and I think it's fair to say Casey these days gets recognition for his riding, but sometimes he shouts off about things in what seems a rude or jealous way, and doesn't bother to sign things for fans often, because it's not his job.
I'll miss his riding, but I wont overly miss him as a person.
As for the Ducati, there really is only one man that truly knows, and that's Loris Capirossi rode the GP3 through to GP7, after his Suzuki stint, he then also rode the GP11 at Pramac.
From the Mouth of Loris;
"Valentino is right: they would talk about numbers, technical analysis, tables, without listening to the guy on the bike. For too long they had thought the problem was the rider, but it wasn't."
"[Stoner's] was a different bike. The year he won the title I won a race too and got on the podium twice," he said. "I'd really like to see what Stoner would do with today's Ducati."
So, when you look at the GP7, it was something Loris managed to win and podium on, I think it's reasonable to state that the GP11/12 haven't really been competing on the same terms. Lets face it, Casey didn't set the world on fire with the GP9/GP10, sure he won races but he crashed a lot, the bike was crap and Casey flattered it.
I also wonder about what Pyndman has said, going from a bike with poor feel, back to a bike with good feel, perhaps he's learned something and can push harder now, I guess we'll start to have an idea from November. Perhaps it's worse and Dovi will drop like a stone? Perhaps it's better and Dovi will surprise.
But anyway, I couldn't really care, as Pagik has said, lets come back to this in 12 months and see where we are.
I for one am hoping we'll have our Alien back at the front mixing it up and adding another element of surprise to the races.
Posted: 13/09/2012 at 09:30
