British Motorcycle history in the making

[MatsP]

Yesterday, a young lad called Scott Redding set a new world record: The youngest rider to win a Motorcycle Grand Prix, at 15 years and 170 days. He's also the first British rider for 22 years to stand on the top of the podium in a British Grand Prix, and the first in 35 years in the 125cc class (the one 22 years ago was a 80cc class rider).

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Mats

[andywoolloo]

Wow! That's cool!

[Richard B]

Good for him - where was it ? Donnigton perhaps?

[MatsP]

Good for him - where was it ? Donnigton perhaps?

Yes, at Donnington this weekend.

More info on Scott here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Redding

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Mats

[Leucosticta]

i' ve seen it! congrats to this guy! I also enjoied GP race: finally ducati's staff seems to work in the right direction

[MatsP]

i' ve seen it! congrats to this guy! I also enjoied GP race: finally ducati's staff seems to work in the right direction

I personally would have preferred a Yamaha rider (Toseland, Edwards, Rossi, Lorenzo in that order) [or Kawasaki rider - that's what I've got in the garage - but chances of that is about 0% (on a dry track, at least)] on the top of the podium in the big GP class, but that's a personal preference, and I'm fully aware that not everyone agrees with that view. Casey is apparently the only current Ducati rider that can make that bike go fast (ok, so he may also get the best bits first being the World champion, but I doubt that's the ONLY reason he is faster by a large margin than the other Ducati riders). Just like last year, Rossi was the only one that could make a Yamaha go really well, whilst recent races have shown that the Yamaha is quite a competitive bike, with all of the four riders placing in the top 6 in many races (not at the same time, necessarily).

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Mats

[Carp37]

I also watched this on Sunday- congrats to Scott (finally found the TV link on BBC's website, but missed the 250s as I was watching the French GP)- it's amazing how full the 125 class (40-odd riders??) is when they can only muster 18 (or 17 if anyone falls off in practice) in MotoGP. I was pleased to see Ducati win the MotoGP race as they're a small company compared to the Japanese factories- I just don't want them to start dominating totally like Stoner did last year.

[MatsP]

I also watched this on Sunday- congrats to Scott (finally found the TV link on BBC's website, but missed the 250s as I was watching the French GP)- it's amazing how full the 125 class (40-odd riders??) is when they can only muster 18 (or 17 if anyone falls off in practice) in MotoGP. I was pleased to see Ducati win the MotoGP race as they're a small company compared to the Japanese factories- I just don't want them to start dominating totally like Stoner did last year.

The "low attendance" in the MotoGP class is proportional to the expense of developing/maintainig a (competive) machine for that class - it's signficanly more high-tech compared to the 125/250 classes where you essentially just buy an Aprillia {125,250} bike and spend several thousand pounds replacing selected components with the "tuned" parts that you get from either Aprillia or some other tuning company. Getting a competive bike (for one race - it will cost more to have the necessary replacements for crashing and mainenance) is probably under £25K - a MotoGP bike (for one race) will cost a whole lot more than that - and it runs more tires, wheels are more expensive, etc, etc. (I just looked up some Marchesini wheels on the web, and they are listed at $3500 - about £1700 - and you need at least two sets for dry tyres and two sets for wet/intermediate PER BIKE. Most teams probably have more than ten sets of wheels. That's just wheels, and we're at over half the budget for the 125 racers! [but those are not custom made 16.5"/16" like the ones used in MotoGP!]). Everything is titanium, magnesium or carbon fibre.

There is talk about a second (satelite) Suzuki team for next year, so there will probably be another 2 bikes on the grid next year.

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Mats

[Leucosticta]

I'd like to see more competition, but the fact is that as always things in Italy are done in the famous italian way. Most of the people are Rossi's fans (i personally don't like his as person, not talking of ability but of image and personality) and all the speaker always hopes he wins, i hate following the race and hearing every 5 seconds "rossi the best, rossi will win"... where is sport sense?
Italians mind think that if ducati+stoner win, ducati is the winner, while if rossi+yamaha win, rossi is the champion.
I am a little displeased cause i wanter to see more Lorenzo.

[Carp37]

In sport I generally go for the talented underdogs; I think Rossi is the only favourite that I support, and that's mainly because although he's been the best for getting on for a decade, his starts suck, so he always has to race through to the front. Lorenzo looks mega-talented when he's not throwing himself at the scenery; Pedrosa is sometimes super-quick but not really a racer in a wheel-to-wheel sense; Stoner is a true racer on the bike but whines too much when he's off it.... so that leaves Rossi, who in addition to being super-quick is also the best wheel-to-wheel racer.

With bike racing only recently being available on terrestrial TV over here it's been more difficult to follow than car racing over the last 30 years, but everyone I've supported in car racing have gone bust or died-

teams:
Lotus- supported 1977-1994 then went bust
Jordan- 1995 onwards- sold up 2005

drivers:
Ronnie Peterson- died '78 Italian GP
Stefan Bellof- died sportscars ('85/'86?)
Ayrton Senna (started as an underdog because was driving a Toleman, then a Lotus!)- died '94 San Marino GP
Kimi Raikkonen- went to Ferrari (worse than dying?)

[worton[pl]]

Hey,

and that's me cleaning my baby



Show your bike guys!

[MatsP]

I'd like to see more competition, but the fact is that as always things in Italy are done in the famous italian way. Most of the people are Rossi's fans (i personally don't like his as person, not talking of ability but of image and personality) and all the speaker always hopes he wins, i hate following the race and hearing every 5 seconds "rossi the best, rossi will win"... where is sport sense?
Italians mind think that if ducati+stoner win, ducati is the winner, while if rossi+yamaha win, rossi is the champion.
I am a little displeased cause i wanter to see more Lorenzo.

The british eurosport presenters are certainly not Rossi biased - of course he gets mentioned quite often, but not more so than any other of the top two-three riders in the championship.

As for the skill of Rossi, you can't deny the skill of someone that can ride around Assen at 0.5-1s off the race-winners pace with a gearshift that is essentially not there. I have on the odd occassion ridden my bike with a bent gear-shift (no, don't ask me how that happened ), and that makes it hard - I can not imagine how difficult it is with the peg that you put your food on/under missing almost completely. [For those not familiar with motorcycle gear shifts, the gear lever is shaped like an L, and on Rossis bike, it was more like a lower-case l after his first-lap crash].

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Mats