#heartbreaking: local blogger might not be getting their first born son out of honda after all

[batsplat]

On the one hand I definitely agree that Marc’s absence doesn’t take anything away from titles won but on the other I would absolutely understand if Joan and Fabio especially (Pecco less, I think… the bike… they all know about Honda beginning to fail, right? At some point ig you could say even a pre-Jerez Marc Marquez wouldn’t have ridden that to a championship and it is in Pecco’s best interest to put that point into 2022) would forever consider their titles borrowed off “luck” because I also think everyone ASSUMING if Jerez didn’t happen, Marc would have won 2020 and likely also 2021 isn’t exactly wrong. He won 3 whole races in 2021 (however he did that), that’s more than anyone else but Pecco and Fabio who finished second and first… as Max said, if is a stupid concept in sport, but the if in question is not a regular “if”, and the whole grid knows it. Hell, we are all aware that had Jerez been simply milder instead of the horror it became, Marc’s achievements would look different at this time… So that’s definitely very interesting to me, that any winning done in Marc’s continued absence from the top seems asterisked by the riders’ own attitudes. That him being on that Ducati this year helps, even a little, to alleviate a bitterness that seemed settled whenever he missed a race. It’s a true win only if you beat Marquez, because Marquez is the one to beat. I wonder if that’s what 2010 felt like to the then-grid, when Vale broke his leg… that winning didn’t even count properly, bc Valentino was not there to make it real.

yeah, listen, if marc had been uninjured in 2020, he would have won the title. I'm not arguing that bit, I'm saying it doesn't matter. marc's injury wasn't some kind of freak accident... it was unfortunate, but it was also unsurprising, and his comeback going wrong even more so. this is what you have to remember about sports but especially motorcycle racing: you are placing heavy demands on your body, and sometimes the excess demands are directly correlated to your success. in this post, there's some quotes from 2019 about how 'lucky' marc is... because he was crashing so so much outside of races to find the limit of the bike - and yet it didn't hurt his results (obviously he was still injured a lot, yearly off-season surgeries and all that). this was part of his approach and it was obviously a very successful one. and in some ways it is also one that was necessitated by the characteristics of that honda, which at this stage only he could tame... but it is true that if a lot of other riders crashed at that rate, they would've been considerably worse off, and it was a part of the process that allowed him to be so successful. and it did already make a lot of people very uneasy at the time, because it felt like eventually it just... had to go wrong. it's also worth noting that... yes, marc's achievements would look different if the injury hadn't been that bad. but the initial injury wasn't 'that bad' relatively speaking - it was his decision to come back that really fucked him over. I strongly believe he shouldn't have been allowed to race, but it was still his decision, and it was part of a tradition of ridiculously fast injury comebacks that had also helped make him so successful in past years (though fwiw this one immediately felt like a bad idea, zero hindsight needed I promise you). so let's put it like this: if you keep putting your body under incredible strain even by motogp standards to reach the level of success you do, and eventually your luck runs out, eventually you land badly on the wrong side of the risk/reward calculation... then how is it fair to say your competitors should be handed asterisks in your absence?

in 2018-19 everybody (including valentino) expected that marc would surpass valentino's titles. few expected him to last at the top of the sport for as long as valentino did. valentino during his prime crashed far far more rarely than marc did and was battering his body considerably less... for marc, there was always the question of how long this could last. he was punishing his body for his particular brand of brilliance, but this always had to be a trade-off. it wouldn't have been surprising if his career had ended through injury, though of course how 2020 played out still ended up being a shock. but!! at the end of the day, even without marc's particularly risky style of racing, you wouldn't need an asterisk. the comparison to 2010 is an interesting one, because you can tell that jorge was at times extremely eager and determined to stress that he wasn't just benefiting from valentino's absence. in the dorna-produced docu for his title, he emphasises that he was already leading the points when valentino broke his leg at the fourth race of the season... which is true, but a) valentino also wasn't leading the championship in the early stages of the two previous years either, and b) valentino was already managing injury. the eruption of that icelandic volcano meant motegi had to be rescheduled, which gave valentino the opportunity to go and get his shoulder injured in a motocross accident (again, for the question of training risk/reward see the post I linked to above). it was this injury that quite probably caused the next one... and troubled him more in late 2010 and early 2011 than the leg did. it also set off the chain of events that allowed jorge to gain ascendancy internally in yamaha, which is part of the reason why valentino decided to go to ducati and essentially took himself out of title contention for... well, two ducati years, and another year where he still wasn't quite up to speed on the yamaha. stop the volcano from erupting and motogp quite plausibly looks very different for the next few years

the question of whether valentino wins the 2010 title without injury is far more open than whether marc would've won 2020, but at worst you have to call it about 50/50 - and even with the troublesome shoulder valentino was getting the better of their actual wheel-to-wheel fights in late 2010. so that title fight too was severely influenced by one rider's bad luck, one that you can't even trace back to a particularly risky riding style... but on the other hand, eventually everyone's luck runs out, and valentino had been relatively lucky for a long time. he was also getting older, which in itself will affect recovery time. this is how athletes' competitive life cycles go, right - yes, you might lose your physical edge, yes, you might struggle to find the same fire, but you have also demanded a lot from your body for a very long time and eventually you pay the price. eventually, every athlete's era has to end... and unfortunately in grand prix motorcycle racing, a lot of the time that era ends with injury. schwantz and rainey were long-time rivals, with rainey winning three consecutive titles at the start of the nineties. in 1993, they were again locked in a title fight - until rainey crashed and was left in a wheelchair, his career ended and the title handed to schwantz. that was schwantz's only title, but he's still considered one of the greats of the sport. doohan and criville were teammates when doohan was dominant, and it took doohan's career-ending injury during the third race of the 1999 season for crivi to finally win the title. kenny roberts jr won the title in the following season in what was a chaotic year not dissimilar to 2020... from the young star who wasn't quite ready to put together a title charge to the underdogs at suzuki eventually claiming the big prize. this is how it goes... what a champion needs on their side as much as anything else is luck. jorge wasn't crashing as much as marc was in 2013, and yet somehow he ended up with the broken collarbone at assen that severely damaged his title chances - because sometimes, it only takes one crash for it all to go wrong. does that mean marc is an undeserving title winner in 2013? of course it doesn't!

in the case of 2020, when it became increasingly clear marc would not be winning this title, it's not like everyone's minds immediately went to mir. the favourites were dovi, fabio, vinales... the thing is, right, it was an absolute mess of a season (that was also of course seriously impacted by the pandemic), but someone had to be the one to take advantage. the suzuki was a well-settled package and mir after a strong rookie season was the one to put in the consistent results to claim the title. he was already highly rated going into motogp, and he was absolutely seen as a potential star of the future. for his sake and his reputation within the sport, of course it would've been preferable to win a more emphatic title... and in some ways, his 2021 on a lagging suzuki is more impressive than the 2020 title. it's an incredible shame how his career has gone since then, mostly not through his own fault, and you still want to hope he'll have the opportunity to dispel a few more doubts - both from the fans and quite possibly himself. then again, hayden won two races in 2006, kenny roberts jr three in 2000... at the end of the day, the main thing new fans know now is that they were champions, and so it will one day be for mir too. moving on to 2021, it's worth remembering that by then the honda was already a bad bike. yes, marc would undoubtedly have been the title favourite - but two of his three wins that year were at his specialist circuits that also still suited the honda, basically the places where he could win with his eyes closed. at the very least, you have to believe 2021 would have had a proper title fight and wouldn't just have been a stroll in the park for marc - yes, quite probably he would have prevailed anyway, but it's really not so cut and dry

THAT BEING SAID. I do agree with much of this ask! it is interesting that it's asterisked in the riders' minds! but it shouldn't be - that's the devil talking, you need to stand up for yourself and ignore all the doubters and get on with it. jorge had enough self confidence and stubborn belief in his own ability that this discourse in 2010 did nothing but piss him off. in 2007, casey was incredibly sick of people talking down his title because of how good the ducati was that year and the tyre difference between him and valentino. yes, casey was on the better package that year, and valentino did clearly benefit from switching tyres in 2008. does that in any way detract from casey's title? no! it doesn't!! he was right to be annoyed - imbalances are part of the game, and casey was very good that year. he deserved that title! valentino also faced the bike merchant allegations in spades of course, but young champions are particularly vulnerable to this kind of discourse. they're less established in the sport, more likely to attract detractors who are determined to prove they can't live up to the legends of the past... after 2006, everybody more or less agreed that it was a bit of a lucky title, but hayden was so popular and people were so pleased for him that it was just treated as a feel-good story - which it wasn't in the same way with surly young casey. no matter! who cares what people think! if your opponent has a bad day, you need to take the opportunity presented to you and press home the advantage. if your opponent has a bad year, even better. no sitting around worrying whether history is going to take your accomplishments seriously... it's like hayden said at assen 2006 when valentino broke his right hand and left ankle. from the oxley reference book: '[valentino] finished the race in eighth, which put him 46 points behind hayden. "when that rossi guy is down, you gotta jump on him!" he grinned'. brutal, but that's the game

also, I'll say it: I reckon both joan and fabio have probably had their fair share of bad luck to compensate by now. enough