#usually my immediate takes in response to stuff remain between me and god (google doc/whatsapp) but here. have a free hot take

[batsplat]

29/6 - valentino

11/7 - marc

both 'pecco doesn't have to prove that he earned those titles by beating the marc marquez' and 'pecco should embrace the challenge of testing himself against the marc marquez' are takes I fundamentally agree with, but of course there's still something fun about how it's basically mind games by proxy from these two. neither of them are wrong! but the contrast is still pleasing. it stems from their fundamentally oppositional relationships wrt pecco, where valentino functions as The Mentor and marc functions as The Rival. valentino is emphasising pecco's existing status in the sport by offering a reminder of the world championships he already has, in order to minimise the importance of next year's battle and the pressure on his protege. marc is emphasising the status imbalance between himself and pecco by offering a reminder of how marc has more titles than pecco, in order to heighten the importance of next year's battle and increase the pressure on his rival. the two statements end up mirroring each other quite nicely, right?

you see it in how valentino positions the battle as something that's been hyped as the press, as something that's more illusory than 'real', versus marc implicitly challenging pecco by saying pecco should surely be seeking to challenge him. valentino will not go so far as to suggest pecco will beat marc - all he's saying is the outcome does not reflect on the fact that pecco WAS already the strongest (past tense). valentino's removed from the action, he can't make any promises on behalf of another rider, he deliberately refrains from placing more pressure on pecco by engaging in any way with his chances of winning next year... whereas marc very much argue his own case, saying that he believes he will win at least one more title (which would most likely involve beating pecco). valentino says pecco doesn't need this challenge, whereas marc suggests pecco should want it. and more than that - what marc is saying the challenge isn't just facing marc on the same bike, it's the fact that pecco's team decided to put him there. that they invited marc into pecco's house. marc speaks of all that pecco has to lose, while valentino speaks of all that pecco cannot have taken away from him

I don't want to read too much into the phrasing here since I'm aware the translation may be imperfect... but valentino both explicitly ("he will have a very uncomfortable teammate") AND implicitly "[pecco] has everything he needs to keep up with [marc]") acknowledges just how big a challenge this will be. uncomfortable - not just because marc is hard to beat but because he is a bastard of a teammate. keep up - not even beat, because just matching marc isn't going to be easy. and marc isn't being shy either about how hard defeating him will be for pecco, pointing out they will be on equal machinery for the first time, that marc still has more titles, that pecco still hasn't shown he has what it takes to match marc under those circumstnaces. still, marc is coming for pecco because right now pecco's on top of the mountain - pecco is the one with the results, the momentum, the "mental stability" (jorge martin girl stand up)

I don't know. I'm really fond of how pecco has ended up being positioned between the two of them. pecco's unique narrative role is such that if anything, the marc/valentino axis is de-emphasised. it still matters, but it's very much the hypotenuse. this isn't just a continuation of an old feud, it's not just two legacies facing off or the title race or any of that - because it's pecco's legacy that's being litigated as much as anything else. pecco's primary objective is not protecting valentino's title count, and valentino's advisory role is centred around pecco's objectives rather than his own... his desires and hopes in that capacity are subservient to pecco's. marc isn't there primarily to match/overtake valentino, he's there to beat the current king in his own castle and to win titles for himself. they mirror each other and oppose each other... but ultimately, it's still pecco who currently sits at the centre of that triangle. he's the one who the other two are primarily focused on. quite a unique position, especially for a rider who has been so publicly wrestled with how he compares to those particular legends of the sport. quite the task ahead of him. quite the challenge