2024 MotoGP Discussion Thread (No Links - May Contain Spoilers | Page 4 | GTAMotorcycle.com

2024 MotoGP Discussion Thread (No Links - May Contain Spoilers

The horribly named World Women's Championship Racing ((World WCR) kicked off at Misano, and the first round was nuts. Race 1 was red flagged with a Swedish rider medevac'ed out and still in hospital with severe brain trauma. But the finish was insane, with last lap passing, and a near photo finish. Just like the men, Spanish riders seem to be the ones to beat. They're racing on lightly modified R7's:


Also, as the silly season spins on, it seems Vinales is joining Bastianini at KTM, and Bezzecchi is the most likely to take the second seat with the factory Aprilia. If so, you have to say that the winners so far have been Marquez and Aprilia, kind of for the same reason. There's lots of rumours that Mir is in early talks to relive the good old days with Davide Brivio at Trackhouse, and that Rins may end up retiring with his injury more severe than originally thought. It's possible that Aprilia goes into next year with four entirely new riders, which is definitely a gamble. At least they know Martin is motivated with black hatred for Ducati!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ash
s-l1600.jpg
 
When's the last time a satellite team rider won the championship?
 
Of course he will have the #1 on the Ape if He wins the WC
Tbh i don't think it will happen i truly wish for him to win, but after that big mistake in Misano, FBagnaia will be leading the Wc soon.
 
sempre1 said:
Of course he will have the #1 on the Ape if He wins the WC
Tbh i don't think it will happen i truly wish for him to win, but after that big mistake in Misano, FBagnaia will be leading the Wc soon.
Click to expand...

In a way I really hope he wins the championship. I've never been a fan of MM93, and Ducati really seemed to screw JM89 over with the way the contracts were signed.

This is just a personal opinion based on what I've read on several different sites, so I could very well be out in left field. All I know is that I would have a very bitter taste in my mouth if something like what happened to JM89 happened to me.
 
BigEvilDoer said:
This is just a personal opinion based on what I've read on several different sites, so I could very well be out in left field. All I know is that I would have a very bitter taste in my mouth if something like what happened to JM89 happened to me.
Click to expand...

And what is that something exactly?

I think Martin, having followed him since his Moto 3 days, has been an exceptional talent and was being mentored by Lorenzo at one point given his meteoric rise to GP... but the guy simply lacks the ability to be consistent in order to win a GP title. His only consistency was in the last string of 2nd places.

Pragmatic? Sure, damage limitation and all that, but when you make such a blatantly poor mistake in the rain and lose your lead like he did it does make you think Valencia '23 was not an outlier. It's who he is at this stag of his career, and until he address this lack of foresight he simply will always be a #2 rider who will be passed on wherever he goes--Marco won' be much a challenge in terms of talent but he is Italian on an Italian Manufacturer with no real sponsorship behind it when it was two Spanish riders.

I sincerely wish him well at Aprillia, but truthfully other than a handful of tracks where he might win or get on a podium i don't think he will do much because the bike needs much further refinement as it has such a narrow operating window where it excels enough to take on the Ducati.

Furthermore, neither Martin nor Pecco combined have the marketing prowess that Marc does, I envision that on sales alone (merchandise, tickets and motorcycles) Marc was the obvious choice for the brass at Ducati not just in talent but in overall Marketability of their product(s). And since MotoGP is essentially just a large advertisement campaign, Martin is just simply not good enough in any capacity to turn the tide in his favour even if he were to by sm emiracle to win the title this year.

Professional motorsports is an incredibly cruel mistress, filled with a great deal of injustices, but at the end of the day what really matters most is what you bring to the table that converts to actual ROI (financial or otherwise) to the sport, manufacturers, and sponsors: a Martin title will be a modest blip of the aforementioned categories at best. And with the sell to Liberty pretty much a sure thing I simply don't see that changing, if anything it will intensify even more.

Hot-take: Anyone watch that RedBull Rookies Cup documentary recently? It's kind of telling what they're forced to adapt to from such a young age with the underlying understanding of what the series really is filtering for is for riders from various under-represented nations in order to attract new untapped markets and sponsorships, rather than the actual development of new promising talent: Italian and Spanish talent is a saturated Market with fewer opprtunities for those not affilaited to the incumbents; thus, it seeks to expand into less represented markets even with the talent doesn't exist (see: John McPhee's career) in order to extract as much value as it can in the process.

Call me jaded if you must but it's Capitalism in it's most transparent self-interested image repackaged and sold as a docu-series.
 
Last edited:
Anti-Rossi mode activated? :unsure:
(He really needs to just move on already)
 
Last edited:
I am sure this has been reported elsewhere but servus.tv has all the top level motorcycle races for free for a month within airing.
BB
 
I just can't bring myself to care about the championship this year. All the fears about Ducati utterly dominating the grid have been realised, so it comes down to whether you prefer the nice blandness of Pecco, the fiery inconsistency of Martin, or the dirty but brilliant Marquez. Frankly, for me, I could not give a sh*t about the Ducati Cup. I still absolutely hate the sprint races, too. They've ruined the balance of a race weekend and detract from the main race.

Maybe next year will bring some intrigue with Acosta and Martin advancing the KTM and Aprilia respectively into some kind of consistent competitor, but until I see it, my subscription has been cancelled and I'll be a casual checker of results...
 
Priller said:
I just can't bring myself to care about the championship this year. All the fears about Ducati utterly dominating the grid have been realised, so it comes down to whether you prefer the nice blandness of Pecco, the fiery inconsistency of Martin, or the dirty but brilliant Marquez. Frankly, for me, I could not give a sh*t about the Ducati Cup. I still absolutely hate the sprint races, too. They've ruined the balance of a race weekend and detract from the main race.

Maybe next year will bring some intrigue with Acosta and Martin advancing the KTM and Aprilia respectively into some kind of consistent competitor, but until I see it, my subscription has been cancelled and I'll be a casual checker of results...
Click to expand...
I couldn't disagree more on the sprint races, I think it brings a different dynamic to the show and is often more entertaining than the Sunday race, I used to love watching them in WSBK and always thought it was odd they didn't have them in MotoGp.

If you take out the Ducati domination out of the equation the racing is still great IMO, case in point is yesterdays race.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fmp
mbroyda said:
I couldn't disagree more on the sprint races, I think it brings a different dynamic to the show and is often more entertaining than the Sunday race, I used to love watching them in WSBK and always thought it was odd they didn't have them in MotoGp.

If you take out the Ducati domination out of the equation the racing is still great IMO, case in point is yesterdays race.
Click to expand...
If the sideshow is more entertaining than the main attraction, then the main attraction is broken. If the aero rules are busted and tire development so stunted that the excitement mostly only happens in the first five laps, why bother with having a main race then? Just turn it into speedway, with heats of five laps to decide the final...

The top non-Ducati rider is Binder, who hasn't finished on the podium since the opening round. He is fifth, and a hilarious 116 points behind fourth and 176 points behind the championship leader. Over 2/3rds of the way through the season, and only five podiums and one win are from non-Ducati bikes. Even more telling, the worst Ducati is Morbidelli, and he is ahead of all but four non-Ducatis, and ahead of all of the Yamaha and Honda riders. And if recent history at the upcoming Asian rounds is any indication, that gap is only going to get far wider.

Not taking anything away from their incredible achievements, but I have very little interest in watching spec racing. Dorna sh*t the bed in letting the series get to this point, and Ducati have taken full advantage of the mountains of data now at their disposal with AI to leverage near total control. It's impressive, but it sure as heck ain't entertaining...
 
Priller said:
If the sideshow is more entertaining than the main attraction, then the main attraction is broken. If the aero rules are busted and tire development so stunted that the excitement mostly only happens in the first five laps, why bother with having a main race then? Just turn it into speedway, with heats of five laps to decide the final...

The top non-Ducati rider is Binder, who hasn't finished on the podium since the opening round. He is fifth, and a hilarious 116 points behind fourth and 176 points behind the championship leader. Over 2/3rds of the way through the season, and only five podiums and one win are from non-Ducati bikes. Even more telling, the worst Ducati is Morbidelli, and he is ahead of all but four non-Ducatis, and ahead of all of the Yamaha and Honda riders. And if recent history at the upcoming Asian rounds is any indication, that gap is only going to get far wider.

Not taking anything away from their incredible achievements, but I have very little interest in watching spec racing. Dorna sh*t the bed in letting the series get to this point, and Ducati have taken full advantage of the mountains of data now at their disposal with AI to leverage near total control. It's impressive, but it sure as heck ain't entertaining...
Click to expand...
ok, tell us how you REALLY feel about Ducati lol

Ducati has only been dominating in the past few seasons, they celebrated their 100th GP victory last weekend which still leaves them several dozen victories behind MV Agusta that hasn't competed in GP since before I was born, and HUNDREDS of victories behind Yamaha and Honda, they are not really the goliath you paint them to be.

have a bone to pick with Dorna? there's a long line ahead of you. Don't like MotoGP? that's cool, there's a TON of awesome racing out there
 
6 more rounds to go with 4 potential title contenders. Chance are some enjoyment will be had as long as you don't target fixate on the manufactures and just want to see some good racing.
 
mbroyda said:
ok, tell us how you REALLY feel about Ducati lol

Ducati has only been dominating in the past few seasons, they celebrated their 100th GP victory last weekend which still leaves them several dozen victories behind MV Agusta that hasn't competed in GP since before I was born, and HUNDREDS of victories behind Yamaha and Honda, they are not really the goliath you paint them to be.

have a bone to pick with Dorna? there's a long line ahead of you. Don't like MotoGP? that's cool, there's a TON of awesome racing out there
Click to expand...
Absolutely nothing to do with Ducati in particular, that's an odd take (though I do find those least bothered by the current situation often have a Ducati in the garage). It's all about the series having evolved to become functionally a one-make class. If Honda or KTM had achieved this level of domination, I'd feel exactly the same way. (If Aprilia did it, I'd be absolutely dumbfounded considering how much smaller they are than everyone else...)

I've been following GP's since the days of Doohan's domination. For most of that time, it's been a seesaw between Honda and Yamaha, usually dictated by whoever had the best rider. Some of the racing has been awful, some of it incredible. The days of CRT bikes clogging up the grids were a real low point.

But while individual riders have dominated in that time, it's never been as controlled by one factory as it is now. GP's are way more interesting to me than something like WSBK specifically because it's prototype racing, as much about the machine development as the rider or the racing. To have one factory so large and in charge sucks all the fun out of it for me. I don't care if it's Honda/Yamaha or Ducati/KTM or any other combo, I want to see different machines trading strengths and weaknesses to find an advantage. 2022 was the last fun season, with Ducati finally putting all the pieces together to take it. Last year wasn't great, and this year has been even worse.

I'm not stupid enough to think this is a permanent scenario. Liberty Media will put a stop to the current mess toot sweet if Dorna can't sort it out. Nor am I self-involved enough to think that just because I hate the current hierarchy that everyone else should too. If you're a Ducati fan who suffered through endless iterations of a fast but deeply flawed motorcycle, now is the time for sweet rewards. But for me, I struggled to care last year, and this year I can't even be arsed to watch, despite paying for the stupid subscription (races on REV, idiot move). I check the results when I get the alert from the MotoGP app, shrug, and move on. The only very minor stakes for me are wanting Marquez not to win (mostly because I think he's a dangerously selfish rider, nothing to do with Rossi who was also a dirty rider).

Anyway, didn't mean to p*ss in anyone's Corn Flakes. If you're enjoying the racing, I'm jealous. I wish I was too.
 
I wish Ducati was as successful as they are now with less bikes on the grid. If only they can get BMW and Kawasaki in. Have one factory and satellite team for each manufacturer.
Even though I am a Peco supporter , I wouldn't mind seeing Martin win the championship. He is a good rider and should of been offered the factory seat. Agree that Marc brings in more sponsors so it was purely a financial decision. But I think MM is just going to create more problems for the factory team than its worth. I don't think Martin is going to do much next year.
 
250R-ICE said:
That last lap move was definitely interesting......
Click to expand...

What's more interesting is how the stewards have such an inconsistent judging system on when they dole out penalties.

"Is it the last lap?"
"Who was involved?"

MM93 punting the rider in front of him on the final corner? Well, that's okay then. That's just what he does...

Anyone else during the middle of the race: long lap penalty.
 
Priller said:
Absolutely nothing to do with Ducati in particular, that's an odd take (though I do find those least bothered by the current situation often have a Ducati in the garage). It's all about the series having evolved to become functionally a one-make class. If Honda or KTM had achieved this level of domination, I'd feel exactly the same way. (If Aprilia did it, I'd be absolutely dumbfounded considering how much smaller they are than everyone else...)

I've been following GP's since the days of Doohan's domination. For most of that time, it's been a seesaw between Honda and Yamaha, usually dictated by whoever had the best rider. Some of the racing has been awful, some of it incredible. The days of CRT bikes clogging up the grids were a real low point.

But while individual riders have dominated in that time, it's never been as controlled by one factory as it is now. GP's are way more interesting to me than something like WSBK specifically because it's prototype racing, as much about the machine development as the rider or the racing. To have one factory so large and in charge sucks all the fun out of it for me. I don't care if it's Honda/Yamaha or Ducati/KTM or any other combo, I want to see different machines trading strengths and weaknesses to find an advantage. 2022 was the last fun season, with Ducati finally putting all the pieces together to take it. Last year wasn't great, and this year has been even worse.

I'm not stupid enough to think this is a permanent scenario. Liberty Media will put a stop to the current mess toot sweet if Dorna can't sort it out. Nor am I self-involved enough to think that just because I hate the current hierarchy that everyone else should too. If you're a Ducati fan who suffered through endless iterations of a fast but deeply flawed motorcycle, now is the time for sweet rewards. But for me, I struggled to care last year, and this year I can't even be arsed to watch, despite paying for the stupid subscription (races on REV, idiot move). I check the results when I get the alert from the MotoGP app, shrug, and move on. The only very minor stakes for me are wanting Marquez not to win (mostly because I think he's a dangerously selfish rider, nothing to do with Rossi who was also a dirty rider).

Anyway, didn't mean to p*ss in anyone's Corn Flakes. If you're enjoying the racing, I'm jealous. I wish I was too.
Click to expand...
I actually have more KTM's in the garage than Ducati's ;-) but even if I didn't I couldn't care less about manufacturer, teams, politics or Dorna, I enjoy the racing and the different riding styles. I also happen to be a MM93 fan so i'm glad to see him do better and cant wait to see what he does on a factory Ducati in 25.

in either case, you not enjoying MotoGP is no skin off my back, and I don't eat cornflakes
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom