#my apologies to el pais ffs.... idk why my brain went marca. probably 'spanish paper with strong editorial line on Certain Issues'

[batsplat]

hello dr. batsplat! in your gossip post you listed the post-aragón 2015 rumor that vale went on to interrogate dani about why he raced him so hard, and how that is at the same time wildly unlikely but also would be fascinating from the character standpoint. i watched aragón a couple of times for my own purposes, but there were some bits along the way that made me think of it

first, it's the pre-race comment made by jorge's team manager wilko zeelenberg: "one: one never writes off valentino rossi, and two: we'll need some help from dani pedrosa". the british comms then milked it for all its worth. and after the race, in parc fermé, vale says in his interview, "i needed those five points more!" which is like. not a particularly outrageous thing to say, especially combined with vale's joking/self-deprecating tone, but, as you rightfully pointed out, marca is not a reliable source (don't trust them farther than you can throw their print copy...) you also said there was a second story they combined with the first one, about vale crashing a honda party in phillip island - so did the article come out after the australian race - or even after sepang? because then marca's implication would be that vale counted dani into the spanish conspiracy even if he didn't verbalize it

which overall tells us nothing in terms of like. Did It Actually Happen, HOWEVER. i, personally, think it would be fun and juicy if it DID and kind of marked the start of vale's descent. because, as you've also said, vale excels in one-on-ones, and always had dani covered... but not in aragón. is that the point where doubt starts creeping into his mind, that it's not the same as it was before, that he's not the same as he was? (i may be wildly misreading and dramatizing everything). and a LOT of people commented on how hard dani raced there, which is- first of all, why wouldn't he. but this, combined with his interactions with jorge (that podium is a pedrenzo shipper's paradise), maybe seemed... a touch suspicious.

yeah the story was published after sepang! but... uh, I'm gonna be honest, I wrote that gossip post quite quickly, did not check any of my sources and, well, I'm very sorry to the writers at el pais because I accidentally got my spanish papers mixed up. so, um, my sincere apologies to el pais for calling you marca, it will NOT happen again. here's the article which I'd copy pasted into my actual, y'know, notes (it was behind a paywall):

even though the dani rumour to the best of my knowledge originated here, I've seen only that one spread elsewhere - not the marc one. which isn't really surprising. getting mad at dani feels kinda newsworthy, kinda quirky, who gets mad at dani right. plus, the marc story really isn't all that believable. look, we won't ever know for sure.... but valentino interrupting a honda party to interrogate marc fits in with quite literally nothing we've heard from any involved parties, ever? marc has repeatedly said the sepang thing took him by surprise, that valentino had his phone number and didn't use it and all that, valentino has never made reference to this conversation, nobody at honda has ever mentioned anything like this... you watch the sepang presser and you just don't buy marc went into that with forewarning, right? how would his emotional reaction work in this hypothetical scenario? 'wow, valentino already complained to me directly about the stuff he's now accusing me of during a party a few days ago, but I guess I'm still surprised because I didn't think he'd talk about it in a presser'? like... it just doesn't feel right, does it

and, yeah, if you're reading an article and most of the paragraph you're on kinda sounds like bullshit, then you're going to treat the first two sentences with some scepticism too. the dani one is more plausible in that it hasn't been repeatedly directly contradicted by both major parties, but it does also feel. odd. this isn't how valentino handles his conflicts. if you want to know how valentino handles his conflicts, it's quite literally sepang 2015 - that weekend feels completely in-keeping with his conflict management (and escalation) in a way this aragon story just..... doesn't? he actively evades a private conversation with biaggi, he conducts his warfare with sete completely in the open (cf sepang 2004), same with casey, with jorge, with marc... I think what I wrote in the gossip post is that it'd be interesting because it would feel out of character, in a way that I don't really think anything else in 2015 is really does for valentino? again, I don't want to dismiss the article out of hand, but it does read more like an op-ed than actual reporting. and just to clarify, the piece isn't exactly trying to argue that valentino thought dani was involved with any conspiracy. it's more a general argument that valentino that year was unravelling, that he was demanding some distance from fans, that he'd manage to silence iannone (?) and so on. which, there's some truth to that - but even if everything in the piece is factually correct, the whole thing is pretty shoddy journalism. the aragon story has never to my knowledge been corroborated by another source - and the outlets I usually treat as reputable for motogp news didn't even report on it. could be true, might not be true, but it is very much a rumour spread around by a source with skin in the game

that being said! I do completely buy valentino was more frustrated by that race than he let on in public - and yes, his joking about how he would have really needed those points does encourage that impression. and yes, it is also pretty noteworthy as basically the only time dani bests him in extended combat. it's some very sturdy defending by dani's standards, a bit of a one-off performance in his career. by that point in the championship, every race felt extremely significant... you could say that race bears some surface level similarity to estoril 2006, where valentino lost a very close race to toni elias who really wasn't getting the better off him all that much (well, I suppose that one time he shoved valentino off-track at turkey 2007 lol). maybe also a little phillip island 2009, come to think of it, just a different championship picture. though those two are a little different - and in both estoril and phillip island I reckon it's fair to say valnetino was motivated to be more cautious than he was at aragon. I think it's... hm. I don't hate the interpretation it's the beginning of the end - honestly it is fun for narrative reasons! it's fun to look at turning points! but the way I personally read the 2015 season, I kinda think once you pass assen, pretty much every race contributes to that downfall? in one way or another

let's quickly go through them. *takes deep breath* in sachsenring, you've got a version of marc who is still clearly hung up about assen and shows as much in his presser answers. he does more or less manage to get over it during the summer break, which is the chance for a bit of a reset for everyone, but by that point the damage has already been done. from then on, there's several moments in these pressers where marc is getting asked about the title fight, is saying that 'well valentino is slower but he's been very consistent!!' again and again, is being constantly asked about his potential role as kingmaker and it's all very sword of damocles given valentino is sitting Right There... indy and brno work as this duo of races that make the title feel like it's slipping away from valentino, and at brno valentino relinquishes the championship lead for the first time (if only on countback). at brno, marc also decides to kinda harass him during qualifying (he'd already done his last flying lap so wasn't just catching a tow) - and they're asked about it in press, they joke about it, but it's just another moment where once again.... if that's one of the things valentino remembers from that weekend? not ideal. silverstone is just stress, and yes it massively helps valentino in the championship, the rain was a gift from god... but also you've got this niggling sensation of 'wow marc really is harassing valentino around that track, he kinda wasn't in control of that bike', and then marc crashes - and you end that weekend with a sense that jorge actually got a lucky break of his own to limit the points damage. misano is again helpful for valentino's championship, again is heightened stress due to the flag-to-flag conditions, again there's a sliding doors moment or two where you feel valentino should have gotten more of a points buffer out it, it's also the heightened stress of his home race and how the fans Just Will Not Leave Him Alone... plus silverstone and misano are on-track confrontations with marc that valentino has explicitly referred back to as moments where his suspicions were aroused. aragon, never been one of his favourite tracks where he was already in damage limitation mode but then would have expected to get past dani in direct combat... not the easiest of tracks for making overtakes stick and gets repeatedly cut back and frustrated (just ask marc about that kind of aragon experience lol). the fact that motegi/phillip island/sepang is a flyaway triple header, exhausting and away from home and already so very late into the season... everything about motegi was extremely stressful - that moment in the race when it looked like valentino might be proper fucked when dani got past until it became clear he actually could follow dani past jorge on his slightly healthier tyres in that kinda odd race. after the race, reporters commented that this was as physically exhausted as they'd ever seen valentino - who had worked so hard on his fitness for this season but, y'know, age comes for us all... this was taking so much more out of him than it ever had. and then you get to phillip island!! a mere week later! where he never quite looked like he had the pace for the victory, but kept himself in that lead fight through sheer intransigence and could take advantage of the other riders getting in each others' ways - before ultimately coming away with a disappointing result. and then sepang is a mere week after that, but I've heard that one at least was a quiet one

the point here is that it's a cumulative effect. I think aragon does stand out a little bit in that it's arguably the first of only two times that season valentino actually gets bested in wheel-to-wheel combat. but... I mean, his issue that year definitely wasn't the w2w stuff and all in all he would've LOVED to Actually Fight Jorge. it's a lot harder to fuck with a rival when they're always ten seconds up or down the road. I also don't think he really needed a moment of realisation that season about his waning abilities as a rider. he'd had four years worth of realisation that he wasn't the rider he was in his prime any more! stuff like aragon may have served as a brutal reminder, but at the end of the day 2015 was quite explicitly a campaign of relentless maximisation, a title charge built on podium rather than victories (see here). 2015 is such a defensive title campaign that his prevailing mode isn't cockiness... it's creeping desperation. he was also constantly being reminded by literally everyone that jorge was faster than him (including by marc, repeatedly), which he never complained about but like... how could that not piss you off? or maybe not even piss you off as much as it just... makes your resolve even greater, makes the stakes even higher to you. nobody thought you could do this after valencia 2013, everyone thought it was over for you, now they still won't trust in your abilities and you have to prove them wrong... the worst thing about aragon imo was that it comes just... as a reminder, as a way of twisting in the knife a little further. one more frustration in a season that felt full of them

the fun thing about 2015 narratively is that it's like,, custom-built to gradually chip away at valentino's sanity, at a time when he'd mostly ditched all his old tricks. he's reserved in his race-by-race celebrations (watch catalunya 2009/assen 2015 side by side and this might as well be a different person), he's not massively attempting to fuck with jorge in the press, he shows uncharacteristic restraint every time marc gets a wee bit weird towards him... he's just keeping his head down, working to get his tenth. but, well, in an odd way I do think that probably... didn't help? like, the reason why sepang is so fucked is because valentino didn't just have a normal fight with marc after assen. this entire season was a pressure cooker, and valentino just didn't use any of his usual outlets to blow off some steam. which is dramatically fun and juicy in itself - if valentino had just been kinda normal 2009 levels of bitchy towards jorge throughout the course of the season, if he'd had a go at marc after assen, hell, even if he'd insinuated dani was pursuing a pro-jorge agenda during aragon... I'm not saying bickering with your rivals is a healthy way of dealing with stress, but kinda a little bit? if that's how you've been doing your title fights historically, minus 2006 (which does in itself maybe go to show a little bit of feuding did help him), then if you're just going cold turkey... suddenly you get a sepang 2015 coming out of nowhere. because you have all this stuff festering inside valentino and he didn't just have a go at a rival to clear his head a bit

here's my 'pro aragon 2015 as a turning point' case: I was mentally going through his title-winning years and trying to think of him actually losing this type of duel and... well, he doesn't really do a lot of it? nothing in 2001 I don't think, then you have those two barros wins in 2002 (the streets won't forget) but the title is already extremely wrapped up by then, maybe ukawa at welkom, 2003... okay, that one's the outlier - arguably welkom and catalunya, definitely le mans and sachsenring - but crucially the sachsenring defeat pissed him off so bad it sent him into a bit of an existential crisis... which does go to show that repeated w2w defeats can and will get to him. 2004... I mean, maybe le mans at a stretch. 2005 there isn't really anything. (2006 has estoril and 2007 has qatar + catalunya.) 2008 has... well, depends on whether you count estoril has a prolonged duel, same with what you call 2009 phillip island. but especially like,, this second half of the season 'ooh gotta be sensible with the title fight' type duel he only very, very rarely lost. when you consider that plus his direct w2w record against dani... from that pov, I think you can say that aragon 2015 certainly didn't HELP his flagging confidence levels - and neither did having to perceive his teammate throwing himself onto dani in parc fermé right in front of his salad. that season is death by a thousand cuts, but some cuts will always sting particularly badly. aragon was right before the triple header... perhaps you can call it a tipping point for the ruin to come