Motorcycle Forums

What to do?

I'm not in favour of team orders but in these days of 'corporate this and corporate that' it seems to be part of the game. Factories want to be as high as possible and sponsors want a return on their investment.

If i was in with a chance of the WC (however small) and my team mate, who had no chance, didn't help me then i guess i'd feel pissed. If i was Ben then i'd help Jorge and would expect similar in the future should it happen. I'm sure Jorge has helped Ben this season so would it be too much to ask..............?

The prob i have 'glider' is that if you've been working as 'a team' for most of the year then that should carry through until the season's end.

Should JL have given Ben some info earlier in the season that improved Bens results then i'd expect a 'favour' in return. It's a tough one that i'm not particularly happy with but equally it's 'swings and roundabouts' to a degree. Or, run a two man factory team but with no info shared. That would give each rider the individuality they'd like but i can't see any factory willing to follow this road. The factory want to win, period.

how can someone claim to be world champion after skitching there team mate onto the real challenger while he rides of into the fanfair and false praise is beyond me , its all a fantasy , especially when the other challenger is battling full on against his own team mates as well as the others...if stoner wins the title this year it will be a double deserved one...but that probly won't shut the stoner slagers up , he's riding in another sport , a completely new level of speed racing , sure it can be a little boring in a race sense , but if others were riding at his pace it would be the greatest racing on earth , so don't complain that he just rides off , complain the the others don't speed up.

@Aquarius....thanks very much. I'm very impressed by yr comments and memory...heck these are just blurs for me at this point. The Rossi drama has echoes of Lawson/Cagiva but the fall from grace is really disturbing for VR. JB used to say that GP was 20/80 driver/machine but that MotoGP was 80/20. I wonder what he feels now. Ducati really seemed to have lost it. On a macro economy scale, Italy is headlong into an economic funk....austerity, debt and slow growth. I doubt if Ducati even has the will, yet alone financial fire power to do much more. The Japanese companies can continue to do what they have always done best: slow plodding engineering improvements. Either way, looks like we're in for a period of low rider turnout, little meaningful sponsorship (crisps and soft porn come to mind in 2011), processional racing and PR attacks on competing riders. Oh, wait....

Two riders, fairly close on points going into the last round. Rider A has had the upper hand most of the season over rider B and is the one leading the title.

In the last race rider A gets taken out by someone else, he's entirely blameless. Rider B was way behind him with no chance of the title. However, with Rider A now out rider B has his team mate up ahead by say 15 seconds or so, on course to win the race with a couple of laps to go. If team mate slows down and lets Rider B through, he wins the title.

If you were rider B, would you stand up with your head held high,  happy that you'd 'won' the title on merit. Or is it just having your name on the trophy that counts? Not how it's won.

There is no merit in team orders or beating someone by unfair means. Everyone is in the race and your job is to beat everyone, team mate or not.

If it's a team sport there should be an open book between rider's data, sharing of new parts, development upgrades etc etc.