#not to sound like a broken record but his actual jorge lorenzo tactics were way more interesting...

[batsplat]

someone on some motogp podcast said that 2025 was gonna be the 2015 season 10th anniversary tribute year and afffgghhjjkk they’re right. can’t wait for it

yeah I heard that! I mean, before this season, I was thinking this season might be the repeat - I'm sure others have pointed this out too, but if you want to map the three protagonists of that season onto this season... which, hey, let's see how it'll all turn out, but it's not not headed that way. next season won't be like 2015 in that I would be *taps on wood* shocked if marc weren't one of the main title contenders, but it will be the tribute act in that you've locked two guys who are valentino rossi successors in very different ways into an enclosed space. it's fantastic! there's not really any possible outcome of next year that isn't narratively fascinating (though obviously as a viewer I'm very much hoping for some kind of tight title fight, preferably between those two). whether marc is going for his ninth or his tenth at that point, of course they'll all be very much caught up in the legacy implications of it all... massive massive stakes for the both of them and bare minimum they're trapped in that partnership for two seasons now

obviously another way in which it will be like 2015 is the teammate element. in a way it's surprising how rare it is that teammates fight for the title and it's not really happened since 2015 - not quite the same when it's just two riders housed within the same factory. the closest otherwise is 2017 where both marc and dani were in the championship fight until fairly late in the season (as well as mathematically pecco and jack miller in 2022), but it's different when the expectation was never that it'd be between those two guys specifically... it's rarer than you'd think really given motogp teams generally aren't shy when it comes to signing two strong riders. obviously been a lot of discussion of the jorge/valentino parallels recently and I'm still working on that particular post, I do have opinions on a lot of those... but it's always worth remembering overt hostilities really only started in their third season together which is when they started openly insulting each other.... the partnership survived a whole title fight in a relatively outwardly civil manner. even in 2015, both sides were trying so so hard to keep things pretty low on drama... until the very end when they very much both did Not stick to that (and look, yes, valentino was the one to actually blow it up, but jorge's the bloke who was planting friendly presser questions to attempt to unsettle valentino, like that partnership was always all about locking two nutters into a confined space)

anyway yeah wouldn't really expecting anything more dramatic initially from these two... plenty of subtle indirect bitching from both camps, more tension over the course of the season in the context of a title fight, hopefully a few on-track clashes. (obviously that was one big big thing that missing in 2015, and even in 2009 both parties kept it pretty clean. 2010 is the nasty one in the jorge/valentino on-track rivalry, also that time in 2016 when jorge randomly started beef in a presser over a pass that was...? fine? but ofc that was more about other stuff lol.) sometimes you get through one season all right, but it's the second one where things get really sticky... but hey, if they do ever decide to throw subtlety out of the window and have at it, please, sign me up. we'll see!! much to look forward to