As somebody who has been following bike racing very closely now for some 40 years, and being particularly passionate about the sport, I find it impossible not to provide some more in depth analysis and comments on what has gone down this season in MotoGP. I should add that I often discuss racing events with a number of friends who are former or current racers, as well as others involved in the sport both as regulators and team managers/members, and so I do get a fair amount of “inside” feedback that can be quite pertinent at times.
This season, as some have mentioned, started out as being one of the best in history. The level of talent in this year’s line-up was simply amazing including probably the two fastest riders ever with Lorenzo and Marquez, as well as the one referred to by many as the greatest of all time. Granted, Rossi is much closer to the end of his career than the beginning, and even if he may not possess the outright speed of the other two, he certainly can equal them on a regular basis. With his immense experience and race-craft, he has what it takes to make the difference whenever the situation becomes a bit tricky, and so approaching the last part of the season he was leading in the points. Realizing that his quest for a 10th title was becoming a possible reality, I have no doubt that he began to really feel the pressure. Getting on in the years, beyond what many riders consider retirement age, it was clear to him that this was probably the last proper chance he would have for this.
Going in to Phillip Island, Rossi was really feeling the pressure. The gap to Lorenzo was not big enough to relax in any way, and so a good result here was crucial. Now Phillip Island is a track that, like most proper riders, he really loves. It is a rider’s track, with many fast sweeping corners. Along with Assen it is one of the last old-school tracks on the agenda. He knew that it was here, and possibly Sepang, that he needed to ensure his title as Valencia has never been his track. Lorenzo obviously knew all this, and he had but one goal which was to do what he does best; get out in front and keep that lead until the end. Well, at the end of that race I found myself exhausted, and I qualified it as probably the best race I have ever seen. It was intense, with the top four guys going at it in a way rarely seen, and I absolutely loved it. In a way, it was for me the crowning of the 2015 season as being the best season ever.
Then the following week at the Thursday press conference things turned weird. Rossi came out accusing Marquez of having hindered him in Australia, favouring Lorenzo. According to Rossi, Marquez did not want him to win another title as it would make all the more difficult to beat this achievement, and he preferred it would be a Spaniard who would win the title. My first reaction at the time was that this was a joke. Rossi is known for being a master at mind games, and it seemed almost like a trick he had worked on together with Marquez to destabilize Lorenzo. I had always thought there was a proper respect between Rossi and Marquez, even if things had soured a bit earlier in the year in Argentina and particularly Assen. As this whole thing then evolved it became apparent that I had been completely wrong.
We know now that Rossi was deadly serious about his accusations against Marquez, and there was certainly no more camaraderie between the two of them. In speaking with some of my friends in the paddock, it became clear that Marquez had been more than a bit upset with Rossi earlier in the year, especially at Assen. He was furious that Rossi had beat him to the victory there, and had tried to invalidate it. For most observers at the time, it was more of an overly optimistic passing attempt up the inside of Rossi that backfired. There have been similar passes completed successfully by Rossi in the past, as well as by Marquez on Lorenzo, but this time Rossi sort of out-foxed the fox. A feeling had been building in Marquez that ultimately it was Rossi’s fault that he was no longer in contention for the title. So, the tension between the two had been building for some time even if it had not been obvious to an outsider.
I mentioned before that I thought the Phillip Island race to be probably the best race I have ever seen, and I would not have said that if I thought there was some foul play going on. I have re-watched the race since Rossi’s accusations to see if there was something there, and although there were some close moments, it all looked like pure racing incidents. However, there is a huge difference between watching a race and actually being part of it. Racing that closely to one another, at such speeds, there must be a huge amount of trust between the riders. This was probably best expressed by Haga, as he would always race extremely close to his opponents, having a complete trust in that they would not do something stupid. It is therefore very possible that Marquez did indeed interfere with Rossi, and that we just didn’t see it. If this is the case, then he probably just wanted to annoy him rather than really favour Lorenzo, especially given that he then went on to win the race and take 5 points from Jorge. If we have a look at a chart showing the lap times of the three, it does seem as if Marquez did indeed mess with Rossi:
![[Image: 8414c664385e4420d726a4d55cecd850.png]](https://cb1100forum.net/forum/uploads/imp/201511/8414c664385e4420d726a4d55cecd850.png)
The chart potentially shows two main things. First of all, around mid-way and at the end, Marquez showed an incredible pace producing by far the two fastest laps. The fact that he could do this mid way, and at the end would show that he could have gone faster overall, conclusively being ahead Lorenzo for much longer. The second thing is that there are regular sharp drops in the lap times where Rossi and Marquez are together, which very well could indicate hindering. Oh, and finally, the chart shows that Lorenzo is a freak managing to almost all his laps in the high 1.29’s!
I could then go on and show some statistics on Sepang, but I believe that the race there was visually quite obvious. In spite of who was at fault for the fall, I doubt anybody can dispute the fact that Marquez was messing with Rossi up until that corner on lap 7.
Moving on now to the race yesterday. In one of my earlier posts I mentioned that Rossi never had the pace to be on the podium, and I think other have come to the same conclusion. I will not post his lap times, but even if he had to contend with traffic in the early laps, he never got below 1.32 whereas the top three completed most laps in the 1.31’s. So, I am here just focusing on the top three comparing their laptimes throughout the race.
![[Image: c8d23c984b5c71be6810d2e7349b740a.png]](https://cb1100forum.net/forum/uploads/imp/201511/c8d23c984b5c71be6810d2e7349b740a.png)
It certainly seems to me as if this chart does show a very different behavior from Marquez to that we are used to. The comparison with Pedrosa is also very telling in that it shows a general improvement in laptimes near the end, whereas Marquez continues to match Lorenzo completely. As of lap 20 Lorenzo’s, and subsequently Marc’s, laptimes begin to go off a bit all the while Pedrosa begins to faster. It is not that farfetched to imagine that Marc would also have been able to up the pace at that point making an attack on Lorenzo. Instead he slows, to the point where Pedrosa passes him, and he then sets about right away passing Pedrosa back. This gives some breathing room to Lorenzo, and in spite of faster lap times Pedrosa is not able to launch another attack on Marquez.
I know that nothing is definite, and we simply can’t base a judgement of a race result purely on lap statistics, but with all that we know and the obvious stats, it does at least seem plausible that Marquez did not ride like his usual self, and chose not to attack Lorenzo for the win. So, yes, I can fully understand that Rossi is bitter about the outcome, a feeling that certainly is shared by a number of people within the sport. However there will always be people on both sides. It’s like they say, opinions, we all have them… (well, you know the real saying!).
