#'can you IMAGINE the discourse if valentino knocked marc off' said a younger less jaded me. an innocent soul just looking for mess

[batsplat]

Do you have any thoughts on the people saying that Marc is interfering with the championship. Like what do they want he’s doing his job. Also where has this thing come from where people are saying it’s an unspoken rule to not get involved in the championship fight like if you can’t beat someone without team orders then idk maybe you shouldn’t have the title. Cause when Ducati tried team orders at 2017 Valencia all the journalists where like this is a bad look for our sport we don’t do team orders. But know because Marc isn’t backing off he’s interfering and I think that’s such a stupid take to have because by that logic every single person entering a race is interfering because any of them could pass Jorge or Pecco in fact a lot of the academy riders tried to at Philip island but I haven’t seen anything about them interfering.

idk man, this isn't a serious argument being had by serious people. obviously marc isn't interfering with the title fight. there will be fans who genuinely believe this, but the journalists asking about it are generally just fishing for some drama to write about. which, like, to some extent I get, but I sort of feel like maybe we could invent some new drama unrelated to the same old stuff. as a treat. it's been long enough for someone to come up with something fun... this is just dumb. sometimes discourse is so stupid that it's simply not worth engaging with. but, sure, lemme have a crack at it

I will say 'not getting involved in a title fight' is something different from 'team orders'. sometimes riders are a little more... restrained in racing title contenders in the latter stage of the season, which often isn't as much about like. respect for the title contenders or anything as it is self-preservation instinct - as we've already seen this season, tipping off a title contender can just be a lot of bother. the archetypal example of this is obviously estoril 2006, which was a horrendous experience for dani and very nearly made him some lifelong enemies... and even though hayden won the title, there were still plenty of american fans who continued to vocally despise him years and years later. also, the vibes in honda for the next two seasons were infamously not great, which wasn't primarily about estoril 2006 but it was not not about that either. just makes things awkward! and when it comes down to it, nobody wants something like this to be the first line of their legacy... some riders are warier of this than others - with some you feel like (if anything) they're even more aggressive because they know the other party has more to lose lol. that's really a risk/reward decision each rider has to make for themselves. I've already made my feelings clear about how much fans scrutinise every word by every rider and look for the worst faith interpretation. it makes the sport worse and it's also kinda annoying. basically my take on sports is that athletes should have insane opinions but fans need to not be so irritating about them that the athletes stop voicing those opinions. like I just sort of think fans suck idk

and on the team orders thing - there were definitely people, including journalists, who thought it was sensible in 2017!! I mean mostly I think the journalists were on the same page as I was back then, aka 'massively enjoying how messy it got'. but if anything, as I remember it there were also people who felt ducati should've been firmer with jorge! they looked like idiots because it didn't WORK, not necessarily because they tried it. I mean,,, look, it was a controversial thing, but there certainly wasn't a consensus anti-team orders stance within the commentariat. likewise, the commentariat is decidedly NOT pro team orders in 2024 - as a whole they were probably more pro the concept in 2017 because it at least theoretically made sense in that situation. a lot of discourse that goes 'why does everybody hate x when they loved y' doesn't account for how it's often not the same people holding those two opinions. being virulently anti-team orders in 2017 but pro in 2024 is... well. I mean I'm sure a person exists who simultaneously holds those opinions, but it's not exactly a majority take. it's not even a sensibly partisan anti-marquez take, because otherwise you would've been pro-ducati team orders in 2017 to try and deny him the title

(you can tell that team orders just won't ever meaningfully be a thing in motogp by how, in 2017, you might have thought both jorge and valentino would be motivated to stop marc's title count from ticking up... but they were both spectacularly disinclined to actually do much to prevent it. jorge rather infamously so, but shout out to valentino for mathematically eliminating any remaining hope for his teammate vinales to be champion by finishing in pee two behind marc and ahead of vinales by .027s at phillip island. what a real one)

since 2017, there haven't really been any team orders (which made the diggia qatar thing last year so funny of course). pecco's never publicly asked for them - yeah, he got snippy about bastianini in that one clip from 2022... but again, see above, call me crazy but I think it's okay and indeed Good for athletes to occasionally get snippy about their competitors. nobody serious has asked for team orders this year, it's just not been a thing. I suppose ducati might have a chat with bastianini before the last couple of races, but generally this stuff doesn't go beyond 'please don't knock your teammate off', which oddly enough is something teams like to avoid even outside of title battles. also don't think it's a clear cut thing to say the academy riders have raced pecco all that much more kindly than they would anyone else - at the very least they've repeatedly held him up in the last few races. and if fans feel like the academy riders have just been ushering pecco through... well, everyone's entitled to their opinions. I suppose. you tell your occipital lobe what's what! ends up just being a bunch of different fanbases being conspiratorial in each other's directions, and it's not even the riders themselves saying weird shit so it's just fucking boring. but also... who cares. it's some random fans doing discourse and then some journalists asking about it to feebly try to find some actual drama to write about, but it's not going to materially change how anyone races or how anyone thinks about any of the riders involved. it's the definition of a non-issue. nobody's opinion on marc marquez was changed at the 2024 race at phillip island. he's rich and famous and has a gp25 next year, he'll be fine I reckon

and, y'know, obviously ducati would prefer for bagnaia to retain the title, though it's now too late to meaningfully interfere. that being said, if team orders get you a title, then to me this is just part of the game in motorsports and doesn't make said title any less deserved. it's basically part of the team package, right - like the bike or the mechanics or the guys crunching your data, maybe you have a teammate who can provide meaningful assistance or (as is far more likely) you don't. but at the end of the day, team orders is one of those things that gets discussed exponentially more than their actual impact on title fights ever seems to be. they just don't even really work in motogp, like ultimately even 2017 was much ado about nothing - fun in the moment, but the only way jorge could've won dovi that title was by catalunya 2019'ing the field. at least that one was less about 'should there be team orders' (boring, idc) and more about 'will the teammate LISTEN to team orders' (camp, funny, allows you to show off your knowledge about ten year old beef). and if they actually listen and it makes a difference, great - you do what you can do win... I've never understood the hand wringing about this. if you want to get rid of outside influence, scrap the bikes and just have them run around the circuit a few times