Motorcycle Forums

2 cents

I'd have to say the first and foremost, VR made a epically stupid decision to leave an established team if his goal was Ago's record. His choice!,,, his ego!,,and that can't be forgotten.
I've always written that I don't think that the Duc is THAT bad. whether one one rider can ride it fast or 20 riders could ride it fast,,, It has always been, and currently is a fast bike. And it doesn't matter if it's Rossi or anyone else, it looks like you have to unlearn what you do on any other bike and learn how to ride the Duc, differently, to be fast Stoner is not fast because he is super human, he's fast because he can get the most out of the bike,, adapt. I beleive that if Rossi made this move 5 years ago, he could have "adapted" and gotten any version of the GP.XX to win, but (and I know that no one agrees) VR is too old to re-invent his riding style. In a nutshell VR/Ducati will never see the top step of a dry race, non -DNF podium,, ever.

To me, WSBK is not a step down and it is not full of has-beens. Aside from the three aliens, you could replace some of the current gp grid with 5 of the current best SBK riders and they would finish the same or better than most of the non aliens. What SBK lacks in speed and technology, it makes up with a grid filled with "almost" all competitive bikes. That kind of parity is missing in gp and will cause it's demise (another story). My opinion ? sure, but it can't be dis proved because gp today, is too much about the bike, Stoner isn't winning on Bradle's bike, (but I'm not saying that Bradle would win on Stoner's bike.) And that's the point about Rossi, there is no other winnable bike option for him,, ever. He's wasting his time in gp and It will get worse next year. If he still LOVES to race motorcycles (he should learn from Edwards's attitude), then go race motorcycles,,,  and right now, the best racing is World Superbike ! ! !

hmm

He's too old to stick with Ducati, he needs to move to a Tech 3 team and let one of them come to Ducati like Cal. However if he does move from Ducati and cannot race the Yamaha he then looks like the fool and Ducati doesn't.

???????????

Good question and hard to answer , first i like to see him and Ducati back going for wins , but how much more money can they spend on the bike there over budget these year already as for moving to another team , well where with the way the daft motogp rules work , if you got the money you should be able to lease a works bike ,

his private life is a little shady with male friends which do not help in the retirement decision area.

Pretty bewildering as to what that is supposed to mean, let alone what relevance it is to anything, never mind retirement

If Vale can turn the Duke around this season then all well and good, but if not I think its time to move on.  Imagine how good he'd be on a repsol Honda!  However if all else fails its better to retire a competitive racer near the top of your game like Agostini than to carry on until you're pretty much forced into retirement like poor  Loris Capirossi.  To be a multiple champion and finish your career struggling off the back of the field must be awful!  He'd be a great Italian motogp commentator!