#yamaha riders

[febookworm]

He really said: I'M COMING BACK BITCHES

[febookworm]

Fabio and Franco are practically divorced teammate in the same garage

fabio not knowing franky's number who's basically been his teammate for 4 years now is the most fabio thing 💀

[repsolhonda]

Izan Guevara during Moto2 Practice 2 session at Indonesian Grand Prix 2024.

[batsplat]

kind of recently clocked that marc took caseys honda seat coming into 2013 (not saying he didn’t deserve a factory seat immediately bc he obviously did, kid went and podiumed his first and won his second ever race on that bike but it somehow never crossed my mind and it’s kind of insane to imagine now that a rookie would get it) and i was wondering if there was something To Know about that mid to end 2012 season, about vale back to yamaha and casey retiring and casey and danis teammateship and how dani reacted to marc getting that seat etc i love love love your rambles so if you got thoughts please share?

y'know what. let's do this one with bullet points

at the start of 2012, retirement rumours were swirling around two riders. one was casey stoner.... the other was valentino rossi

valentino was entering year two of a miserable stint at ducati, trapped on a bike that was *checks notes* shit and that was still several years away from making the kinds of improvements that could make it championship-winning machinery in anyone's hands (remember, even casey wasn't anywhere close to fighting for the title in 2010). it had also been a rough couple of years injury-wise for valentino, with 2010 bringing the shoulder injury courtesy of a motocross accident, followed by him breaking the leg at mugello. the painful shoulder problems persisted even upon his return from the leg injury, not exactly helped by his decision to delay shoulder surgery until the end of the year, and he remained hampered in 2011 while he was trying to adapt to the new bike

probably the main reason for the retirement rumours, however, was the death of simoncelli in an accident valentino had been involved in. the rumours basically started the day after the accident, and did not stop even when he showed up at valencia and raced (for about one corner until he was caught up in an ugly multi-rider pile up... kinda set off by dovi but anyways)

the rumours persisted in 2012. valentino became increasingly irritable about them.... meant that both valentino and casey were going into round three at estoril having to address the retirement talk. casey denied that he was planning to retire in the estoril pre-event presser (and he'd already kinda hinted to honda he was ready to sign a new contract)

this all led to some pretty silly drama, where the journalists were less than impressed when casey did announce his retirement two weeks later at le mans and casey went 'well I hadn't decided to retire yet back then!'

anyway, more important is the retirement announcement itself. casey made a statement at the very start of the le mans presser. here's the text:

he was the championship leader at this point, and the favourite to defend his title. of course he took a bunch of questions at the presser about the announcement, and cited several other reasons for his decision to retire, like people's reactions to his mystery illness in 2009, or too many people criticising the current racing being boring, or how they let CRT riders into parc fermé (let's not get into that)

now it's important to note that this was round four. which meant that the entire rider market was about to be spiced up... so let's backtrack a bit and talk silly season: historical edition!

okay, so marc could have feasibly moved up to motogp a year earlier, and for a large chunk of 2011 there was pretty frenzied speculation he was going to do exactly that. in october, between the phillip island and sepang rounds (where he had the crash that gave him diplopia and prematurely ended both his season and his championship bid), he finally announced he was going to stay in moto2

so, in late 2011, speculation was already of course starting for what the grid would look like in 2013, with a lot of big name contracts expiring at the end of 2012. both factory yamahas, hondas, ducatis, amongst others... you know how it goes. the expectation was broadly that casey would stick with honda and dani would be protected for at least another year by the rookie rule (more on that in a second), that jorge would stick with yamaha and... well. at this point, it was plausible valentino might sign at least a one year contract extension with ducati, with just enough glimmers of progress and signs that things might be headed in the right direction for him to want to continue building that project up

early 2012, around the time of the first race, and actually it's looking plausible that none of the six big factory seats are going to be changing hands. jorge and casey seemed the most certain ones, valentino too committed to ducati, and dani likely to sign a one year deal until marc swoops in at the end of 2013 to take his place

then casey announces his retirement, and silly season properly kicks off

first order of priority is of course the vacant repsol honda seat. now, the main thing stopping marc from getting that repsol honda seat was never actually going to be a lack of space - it was the 'rookie rule'. in 2010, a rule was introduced to stop rookies from joining the factory team. the idea was basically to help out satellite teams by giving them the chance to house a young star rider, give them publicity and results and so on (face it, how much would any of us be talking about tech3 this year without the pedro acosta factor?)

this was likely never to really work like it was supposed to, because if you're one of the factories, you can basically set up... teams that are only very theoretically 'independent'. another factory team in all but name. remember how valentino technically won his first title at a satellite team? well, that was essentially a shell team set up as a way to have somewhere to put valentino for two years while repsol honda was full. not the same team (and indeed, valentino and jb did sometimes look over at the chaos at repsol and go. good lord. what's going on there) but full factory support

in spring 2012, dorna was still adamant this rule would remain in place:

should also help explain why the general reaction to suzuki suddenly pulling out in 2022 was 'shocked but not that shocked' lol

but of course by mid-2012 this rule was facing another serious test: where do you put marc marquez, especially with this vacant repsol honda seat just sitting there? now, the valentino model did seem like a reasonable one in this situation, where you put him into an existing satellite team with heavy factory backing or even just create a new one to house him. which is something valentino himself talked about:

except, it wasn't quite that straightforward, because from 2013 onward manufacturers were limited to supplying bikes for four riders, two in a factory team and two in satellites - so you'd have to take away one of the bikes from the existing two honda satellite teams, gresini or lcr

one of the reasons why putting him in one of the existing satellite teams was a bit of an issue was that he was already backed by repsol, which could have caused sponsorship conflicts if he'd been housed with one of those other teams. but also, by this point ezpeleta was sounding rather less committed to the whole thing. from june 2012:

which.

my man

if you KNOW that the most prominent rookies can be put into shell satellites anyway and you are openly joking about it then WHAT was the POINT of any of this

by the end of the month, they gave up on the whole thing. as it happens, it wasn't even repsol honda who asked for the rule to be dropped - it was the satellite honda teams who were like 'yeah we don't actually want this kid for our team, way too stressful to make this all work for a single year before losing him anyway'

not a universally popular decision, it has to be said

it's quite likely that if casey had stayed and the rookie rule had still been dropped that hrc would have immediately taken in marc and not renewed dani's contract, which would have been a wee bit awkward given dani's late season form, but. you know. so it goes. anyway honda didn't end up having to make any tough calls

about two weeks after the rookie rule is dropped, hrc announces the two year contract with marc

by this point, valentino has had another miserable start to the season with ducati, save for a fun little wet podium at le mans - you know, the race where casey announced his retirement... they had their last ever duel there, with valentino snatching second place from casey on the last lap

photo abbove not representative of the general tone they used to discuss each other in that time period

anyhow, these rare bright spots weren't going to be enough for valentino

"There was a lot of expectation from me and from Ducati to win, but unfortunately I didn't have a good feeling with the bike, especially with the front," he said some years later. "When you are in that situation it's very difficult because you lose motivation and you lose the joy of going racing. When you start the weekend you are already in a negative way, so it's difficult, because if you don't have fun on the bike everything becomes heavier: leaving your home, all the travelling, speaking with journalists, everything. Also it becomes difficult to sleep. You are in a tunnel. When I was with Ducati I thought about stopping many times, but in the end it was a very good decision not to give up. Because if you stop and you don't have a bike then it's very easy to find yourself out of the business." - from Oxley's 'Valentino Rossi: All His Races'

he began openly talking about a return to yamaha in 2012 to replace the underperforming ben spies (though as late as july, publicly he was still talking up the chances of him sticking with ducati)... which was not a prospect welcomed by all in the factory - who saw his initial move to ducati as displaying a lack of loyalty. there was also of course the issue of yamaha wanting to avoid a repeat in the dramatics with jorge, which was certainly a topic in the negotiations. valentino's new deal with yamaha was eventually announced in august

so yes, obviously pretty qualified enthusiasm from jorge's side. it helped that it was made clear that, at the start of 2013, this was very much jorge's team, something which valentino had to work to change as a result of his level of performance (after 2013)

which left dovi to take the ducati factory seat. though he too maybe had to do a little bit of... smoothing over past comments in the negotiation process:

and that's that! there was a brief period in which honda and valentino rumours were a thing... always unlikely, given the long-standing mutual animosity there, and valentino claims he was never in contact with them. dani's contract was signed when marc's was, so that put an end to that. there was also serious speculation jorge would take casey's seat at honda, which was ended by him signing for another two years at yamaha in june. everyone sorted

dani and casey had a pretty cordial teammate relationship - though of course by this point it was already no longer really a team organised around dani as it had been in the late noughties. from late 2011 (shortly before simoncelli's passing):

and from the mind games post:

he also says the following in that passage: "some days [dani] beat us but to be honest I always felt like I had the measure of him over the course of a season"

more to be said about that relationship, of course, but it was basically harmonious on both sides, and they parted on good terms. as for dani's response to marc's signing, it wasn't like he was in a place within the team to complain too much - though his position was strengthened by his late 2012 form, where he won six of the last eight races. both of them mostly just stick to saying the standard respectful pr stuff about each other

though this is pretty funny in retrospect:

"I know nothing about pedrosa's goals" my man I think you can probably guess

[bikefuckersoftheworldunite]

Wayne Rainey’s interview with Cycle News, 1997

When I'm watching a race, or when I'm watching qualifying, and I'll see a look on a rider's face, I'm analyzing a situation to what I think it is. I'll watch a corner and I'll say, "That guy's off-line there. Did you see that?" I'll see that stuff. It's all so clear to me how it needs to be done. But most of the people that I have to be around don't see what I see. So sometimes it's frustrating to me that I can't be out there doing it and sometimes I'm pulling that in because, it's just like if you just did it like this the people, riders can't comprehend or understand that. There's a lot to this analyzing that would take all day. It's just that I'm different, I guess.

This is the truth.

This is Wayne Rainey's life the past few years in his own words, what he's been through, how he's coping. Being in a wheelchair hasn't slowed him down as much as it should have. He still puts in 17-hour days and most of those hours are devoted to racing. Making his team better, making his riders better, making himself better. It isn't easy being Wayne Rainey, it never was, it never will be. He possesses that defect in his personality known as perfectionism. It must be viewed as a defect only because he lives in an imper- fect world that he can no longer control as he did when he was winning three 500cc World Championships in a row, and nearly four. "Riding for me is both a blessing and curse," he believes, and he means it. He asks of others what he asked of himself and cannot understand why you would want to give less. "He's the most amazing person I've ever met," says his team manager and good friend Tim O'Sullivan, whose previous vocation involved dealing on a regular basis with brain surgeons. No one ever beat Wayne Rainey by outworking him and they never will.

Every year brings a new challenge. First it was winning championships as a rider. Next it was winning championships as a team owner. He started slowly, but soon found himself in a very high-stakes rivalry with Kenny Roberts, a friend he considers a brother. Now that Roberts has moved on to his own project, Rainey is the standard- bearer for Yamaha and his job is to restore the factory to the glory that he afforded it as a rider. It won't be easy. But for Wayne Rainey, it never is.

Let's start with Marlboro. What happened to the sponsorship?

There's a few different stories I've heard from each different guy, three different Marlboro guys. But the one I think I have to rely on is that there was a budget cut, because that was the most senior guy that told me that. That came on the 20th of January. The 20th was a Mon- day. They said there was a budget cut on Friday.

And they called you up and said...

No, I was just making my weekly call. I usually make one on Monday, one on Wednesday, and one on Friday. And that was my Monday call. And it was like 6 o'clock their time in the evening. I guess they weren't even going to tell me that day either.

When they called, did they tell you at the time that it was a budget thing?

The guy who told me didn't know why. He was just told that there's nothing there for you. And so I called the higherups and asked what happened. They said, "Well, we had a budget cut." "You guys just recently had one?" "Yeah, we're sorry." So I didn't have much time to think about it. I had a team to put together so I was on an airplane the next day to Japan.

What did Yamaha say?

They, officially, I don't think have ever been told by Marlboro that there's been a separation. They were pretty upset about it because I had told them all along that Norick (Abe) looks good and there was never any question about that. That budget for Norick always came from (Phillip Morris) Lausanne (Switzerland). Because that was my (Tetsuya) Harada budget that was there the year before and that budget didn't change, the numbers on that. The only thing that we were trying to put togeth- er was the second rider. And I believe that what Marlboro was trying to do was get the second-rider program sorted out. Kenny (Roberts) and I just didn't know all the way through if we were going to have sponsorship. We were talking weekly too. So they started throwing (Jean-Michel) Bayle's name around with me and a proposal with Bayle at the beginning of January. I didn't like that so much because I thought that was Kenny's only leverage he had to keep his sponsorship. So I refused to speak to Bayle about it. When they made the decision, Kenny didn't know either if he was going to have it or not. I think Yamaha coming on board just shows that they're serious about Grand Prix racing. It was a big push on their part to keep the team going and just get on with it.

Was there any chance that they could have just said, 'No, we can't afford it."

They could have very easily, I think, if they would have had some more teams to choose from. We had never ever geared up for NO from Marlboro. We just kept planning like the Marlboro thing was going to happen. And when it didn't happen they were pretty much in a corner. It was either do it or we have to stay home. Within 15 minutes of me being there they did it.

When did you decide on the second rider?

About half an hour after that meeting. I had told them, being so late, we need a second rider. And they weren't really gung-ho on a second rider. And then I told them the problem that I've been having for the last couple of years is having one rider and not having a back- up for the riders to have some kind of rivalry in the team to push each other. And I said the only guy I'd really want to put in there would be Sete (Gibernau) because of the job he did for us on the 250, and he's a good-size kid and he speaks very good English and we'll bring him on to test. They agreed with that philosophy and so far it works well.

Did your money last year come from Marlboro Italy?

Loris's (Capirossi) money did, not Harada's. Harada's came from Lausanne, which was (Norick) Abe's budget.

What do you think the team has to offer to Marlboro?

The Yamaha factory effort. Abe, myself. It's a good image.

What is it they get by sponsoring you? Do they want to win races or do they want to sell cigarettes?

I don't know. I think when I raced for them they wanted to be on TV. Okay, after my accident they haven't been on TV much and I think that's the philoso- phy behind Phillip Morris, they want to be racing for the top three and that's what we were hoping to do with Abe this year is to get him up on the podium because this is his third year. Abe's a young kid, he's flashy, he's fun to watch, he's exciting. If you look at Mick Doohan, he's not real exciting, but he wins. But you can pretty much write down what he's going to say each time and with these young guys coming up it's exciting and it's a good image for Marlboro to get in behind. You've got the factory effort and you've got my experience and you have these young guys. I think there was quite a lot to offer. I don't know what else you can offer.

Maybe someone who speaks English?

(Abe) does speak English. In Malaysia we did a Marlboro press conference and he spoke English there. I told him if you're going to do this thing, if you want to have a better chance for your career, you have to speak English. He did it. He was nervous. When I asked him, his first comments were in Japanese, then he changed them to English. He's making an effort at it.

There was also a story that Marlboro came back to you at some point.

Well, it wasn't Lausanne, it wasn't Switzerland that came back. They've always been in charge of sponsorship, they've always been the center of the world. It's getting a bit tougher for the Europeans now. The Asian people came back, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan. They still wanted to keep the relationship with Yamaha and myself and Norick. So we did a deal with them.

But it wasn't for full sponsorship for this year. Lausanne didn't want to sponsor the whole team for this year and next?

I don't know where Lausanne stood on the whole thing. All I know is that I said no to them because they came to us two weeks before the first race. They made a decision January 20th and I haven't looked back. I've gotten trucks painted, everything's done.

What did they offer you two weeks before the first race?

It was the Asian group that came to us. And they said, 'Hey, we want you.' You guys were involved in the decision.

They were?

That's what I thought. They didn't know about it. Not at all. They still want to keep that going. They're enthusiastic, they want me to work on their Indone- sian program. Right now they like what they're hearing and they like what we're doing.

So that's why they're sponsoring you in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Right.

Any reason why they're not here (at Suzuka)?

Japan is its own market. There's a European branch that does worldwide sponsorship. And so then Malaysia and Indonesia are out of Hong Kong and they wanted that relationship. They didn't say no, they wanted it. And Japan is its own market. It's not part of anything else. It's like a third party.

Let's go back to last year. When the year started it was full of promise. You spent the winter with Loris Capirossi. It didn't work out as well as everyone had hoped. What went wrong?

I think there was a variety of things. One, Loris, he was World Champion in his first two years. He went from being a working man every day to being World Champion status and he missed a few years of labor, what the real world's really like, and the team catered to him before and pretty much took care of everything. Coming to my team, being with me, I was used to doing my own program. I trained my way, I developed a certain way, and it made me really strong. And when he came to my team it all worked really good, he understood the whole thing. But then he had a few accidents. I think he fell off nine times and some weren't his fault, some were. I think when he went home the star status wasn't as strong as it used to be and he started lashing out. I wasn't used to that. I was used to bearing down and reaching inside myself to find a little extra to pull out, but one thing that I've learned since my accident is that I did it my way and nobody else does and I see why I was successful. Most of these young guys come up, they get paid a lot of money and they don't want to work at it. And he had to reach inside to go find out what was wrong, and that's something I'm not going to push. I want a guy that's going to come to the team and wants to work at it. And that's what I've got with my two riders now - I feel that they're working hard. I think Loris just...he was worried about his career. Second or third year not thinking that he was going to be as sought out after as he was before. The beginning of the year was great, everything was on a roll. We had some good results. But in the end you could just see the fire going down. I wasn't used to that. I didn't really know how to respond to that because me being a racer was always wide open or nothing. It was completely different for me to do this.

He wasn't happy with the way the team was run?

I don't know if it was so much the way it was run as what he felt he needed out of the team as far as bike setup. He didn't really lash out at me so much. Every time I was hearing rumors about him being unhappy, he'd say, 'No Wayne, everything is fine.' But he was afraid to confront me, I guess. And then we'd read in the press, especially after he left, that the team didn't do what he wanted. It's hard to get the team to do what you want if you don't tell the guy who can make the changes. So, he wasn't honest with me at all.

What did he want? Anything specific?

All I know is that he wasn't happy with his mechanics. I went over each guy and he said, 'No problem, no problem.' I didn't know at that time that he'd already made a decision to leave. This was a couple of races towards the end of the year. I'd seen that there was a change and I was trying to get out of him what he needed. He had a deal with Aprilia that was a certain amount of money for three years and he wanted to go back to doing it his way, I guess.

Would you do anything differently?

No.

How about with Tetsuya Harada?

With Harada I could sense the frustration in him because of the tire problem. Yamaha didn't push that 250 thing real hard and I saw that. I could understand that, but I didn't understand some of the things he was doing on the race track by just riding around. I've been in those situations and I pushed hard, no matter how bad it was. And there were times that I rode my stuff that it was just impossible. But that's me. I can't expect that out of everybody. Especially the results that I had, from the outside they probably look like Wayne's thing was pretty good most of the time. But a lot of the times on Sunday morning, man, I had to suck it up and go after it.

Do you think that since Harada wasn't in the championship he wasn't willing to try as hard?

I was explaining to Harada, we could have a tire advantage and we could really make Max (Biaggi) upset if we keep pushing that advantage. I said, 'Hey, we're on a tire nobody else has.' But, again, I was thinking that was an ideal situation. I was trying to sell it to him and it worked, it worked for a while. In Indonesia, we won. He just flat out out- rode them. Here (at Suzuka), the Michelin should have been terrible here. He was pole position and he was a second behind and in three corners he caught right up, but Max sucked him in there and he fell off. And as soon as he fell off and he hurt himself a little bit, he was just like, some of the stuff that he was telling me is that "Wayne, I've already been World Champion. I don't need to go out there and prove myself anymore." And I said: "Yeah, you do, you do. When you're World Champion you've got to keep proving to everybody that you're World Champion no matter what situation you're in. If it's bad, you've got to do the best you can. But if you're going to ride around in 18th, I'm not used to that." I said, "All you're doing is hurting your career riding around in 18th."

But the tire choice was a bit controversial. You tested at Shah Alam, back to back, the Dunlops and the Michelins. They tested Dunlop in November and in December they tested Michelin. I wasn't there for that test. He was sold on it. Isn't that a track that favors Michelins over Dunlops, generally?

Probably. It's temperature. But 250s aren't hard on tires. It's more of a profile thing. Dunlop has always been quicker than Michelin in the 250 class, even in Malaysia. So, after the Malaysian test he liked the way the bike turned and he thought that there was a lot of promise there.

And he made the choice?

He didn't have the choice. Yamaha was pushing hard for Michelin. And Marlboro and Yamaha were tired of hearing about tire problems. Put the same tire on as everybody else, and to make everything smooth we went with the 250 tire. But Harada wasn't happy with it, honestly wasn't happy with it. But again, he could have been. The philosophy was working for a while until it threw him off. Then he wasn't willing to work anymore.

What was the final straw that caused him to leave the team?

He never said, "I'm leaving." I said: "Hey, Tetsuya you're riding around. I bring all these guys here and we need you to put the effort in." And he just couldn't do it. And I just said, "Hey, it's okay. Why don't you just stay home and I'll put somebody else on the bike. I know you're not going to push." I said "You've worked hard to get where you're at and we'll put somebody else on it." I think he was quite happy with that.

You knew at Barcelona that he wouldn't be back.

We had Sete (Gibernau) testing at Czecho. His (Harada's) last race was Imola. With Tetsuya there was no effort left. I had to fulfill the contract, but I didn't want a guy out there riding around. Especially when we had done some tests and I was talking to him and I could see that he just gave up and it just wasn't worth it to me to watch all that. I needed to give somebody a chance that was willing to ride it and do the best they could and Sete was the guy.

So the season ends, and you start thinking about this year. When did you make your rider choices?

Abe was always there. Everybody knew that, Marlboro, Yamaha, myself, Kenny knew that, that Abe was coming two, three races from the end of the year. We won the last race, but I knew something was up because Loris was just so distant there. He tested the '97 bike on Monday and I could just tell he maybe needed a break. He just wasn't the same kid; he was real distant. Then I got a fax saying he left the team. That kind of surprised me because Loris and I were pretty good friends and we'd worked good together. He and I never had a problem, but then he left. I had Abe and we were just wondering who the second rider was.

Who else did you talk to?

At that stage, the first people Marlboro had me talking to was Max (Biaggi). But I kind of got in the same position with Marlboro with Max as I did with Mick (Doohan) and Marlboro. With Mick, Kenny had a contract (with Marlboro in 1995). So I was talking to Mick, and Marlboro said we need a letter of intent so I got that. I was talking to Mick in '95 and Kenny had a contract with Marl- boro in '96 already done. It was already done. That's why I chased Mick because I wasn't taking nothing away from Kenny. And Marlboro said you need a letter of intent from Mick because he's done this a lot to us before. I'm thinking, well, that's news to me. So I got a letter of intent signed, everything was done. I did everything that Marlboro had asked.

Then Marlboro went to Kenny at the very next race and said, "You need Mick Doohan." After they had already seen everything that I had done. They knew that I had him. So that's when they were going to give me Loris. And Mick stayed at Honda because it got real cloudy after that and I just said, "Hey I don't want no part of that." It was kind of like what happened with Max. They said talk to Max. And Max was going: "You know Wayne, I hear you talking to me and stuff and Marlboro, they're also telling me to go race a 250. I'd like to ride a 500 but they want to keep me in 250." They had talked for a month. I felt like they were doing the same thing to me with Max. They'd say, talk to Max. As soon as you hang up the phone, they'd say, "No, no, you're going to ride a 250." So I said, "Well, what do you want me to talk to Max for?" That was the thing that was going on that just didn't make sense. And they said Max is not an option, talk to Luca (Cadalora). So at the end of November, beginning of December I was talking to Luca. Through this, Marlboro comes up and Luca wanted a lot of money to ride for Marlboro. He figured that there was a lot of money there for him, but there wasn't. I tried to tell him that.

You were always critical of Luca, both as a teammate and afterward. How could you hire him?

Well, I was talking to him and I was telling him why I was critical, which was pulling in when things weren't right. Or Luca, "What's it going to take for you to beat Mick Doohan?" With Luca, I don't hide that fact at all. I wasn't real high on Luca. I was really excited about Abe. But if it helped to sell sponsorship maybe I could work with Luca. This was all going to be up front with Luca and the stuff I was talking to him about, he knew I was critical of that stuff. I'm not afraid to tell people. The thing is, that I'm a racer still, I can't race no more. When I go to a race track I'm there to race. And I let everybody around me know that we're not here to make money and say hi to the crowd, we're here to win and everyone's got to do their job. And maybe that's where I'm different than other people. Maybe I push hard and stuff, but I don't think I push that hard. But looking back on what I did and how I pushed and how I got the team to do it a certain way, maybe it's a little bit hard on these guys. I don't know.

So how do you change that?

By example I guess. When I fell off at Donington, I had a concussion. I figured out a way to race the race and make something happen. But most people aren't like that. Most people are going to go out there and race and go, "Well, if I get a good start maybe somebody will make a mistake and I'll take advantage of it." That's just the way I thought about racing. It consumed me and there was never any compromise.

But you can't teach that, can you?

No you can't, you can't. It's hard. It's different now. I was never satisfied. I see a lot of young guys coming up and their salaries have to be there. For me to get motivated by money, I don't need it. I enjoy coming to the race track and I enjoy trying to help the riders and com- ing up with possible scenarios that could happen in the race and seeing it pan out. I was just talking to Ralf Waldmann yesterday and he was talking about his hand and stuff. I said, "Hey, Max can make a mistake this year," and he made one the very next day. That's the way you've got to think. With some people you get done talking to them and they say, "What's that Rainey talking about?" I don't know. I just look at it a lot different than everybody, I guess. I've had to tone down some things, and some things I'm not willing to.

Like what?

When I'm watching a race, or when I'm watching qualifying, and I'll see a look on a rider's face, I'm analyzing a situation to what I think it is. I'll watch a corner and I'll say, "That guy's off-line there. Did you see that?" I'll see that stuff. It's all so clear to me how it needs to be done. But most of the people that I have to be around don't see what I see. So sometimes it's frustrating to me that I can't be out there doing it and sometimes I'm pulling that in because, it's just like if you just did it like this the people, riders can't comprehend or understand that. There's a lot to this analyzing that would take all day. It's just that I'm different, I guess.

Can you accept what you have to accept? And for how long?

Yes and no. I accept the way I am now as far as what my life is because this is the way it is and I can accept that. But there are some things that happened in my life that I'll never accept. Some of it's personal and some of it is right here in front of me. Some of it's complicated, some of it's black and white. Sometimes I got to the race track... For instance I was in Phillip Island this year and I got very emotional because I just miss being out there on a motorcycle. I didn't miss the pressure of racing for a championship, that I'm over. But I do miss the physical thrill of riding a 500. I was watching Mick (Doohan) and I thought, "I know exactly what he's doing out there." It was nice to be able to watch Mick and relive that moment again. It was tough to sit in a wheelchair and watch it for sure.

But there are other times when you don't want to be out there.

Yeah, I have to be very, very patient right now, much more than I ever was when I rode because live got to realize that I raced for 28 years, or whatever it was, and how I did it, I was successful doing it all the way until the very end. I've got young guys now that if I tell them to change their line two inches, they're going, "How do you change two inches, Wayne?" I think, yeah, well, that's true. They wouldn't understand two inches because they're riding within 12 inches. I was so precise in what I needed that sometimes I showed up at a race track and I couldn't use the line I wanted until Sunday morning because the track wasn't clean enough yet. And that line I wanted to get to wasn't there until I kept chipping away at it for two days. Most people don't understand that, but that's how I thought about it.

And you haven't been able to find anybody that will go about it the same way?

I thought with Loris I got a guy that's wanting to do it and I was showing him some training stuff and I thought, "Wow, this is great." But, then reality set in and it really came time and he had to dig in on his own without me, it just wasn't there for him. That hurt me a bit because I was kind of trying to live through Loris a bit, and I did for a while. But when it stopped happening it was a real reality check for me that I have to be more patient. It wasn't like I was out there screaming and yelling. I was just like, "You should try that, you should try this." When it came down to it he just didn't understand and most people don't.

There are times that you're not even 100 percent sure that the way you did it was the right way. You didn't know when to back off.

That's true. You can get riders and most guys to a certain level pretty quick. You can show them the basics and they'll excel. But to really go past what I can feel or say they have to be willing to go out and search for it themselves. That's something you can't teach and that's desire. And that was my strong point. Not having it good all the time and trying to make something happen. But when I lined up to go out to race or out to qualifying I knew that I was going to be trying. I just feel that I was at a certain level in my life that consumed me that I can't get right now and it is frustrating, it really is. And I think the only way that I can get that is by riding again. And sometimes I just have to watch and stay back and let it happen and sometimes it's no fun at all.

Is there anyone out there who you see who's as committed as you are?

Mick's (Doohan) the only guy. The only guy I see that I can see is doing it right is Mick. And, I think he's doing a great job staying motivated and having fun and he's the only you can say, "You're doing it right." Because the other guys are just waiting for Mick to make a mistake instead of trying to push him into a mistake.

Do you ever point that out to your riders? Do they know?

I think the general thought when it comes to Mick is that we're racing for second. That includes (Alex) Criville. They're not racing Mick, they're racing everybody else. (My riders) see Mick doing it. He's flicking it a certain way and he's keeping it on line. And my guys say, "Well, I can't keep it on line." I say, "Mick does it right there." They say: "Yeah, but Mick's stronger. He's physically tuned his brain and muscles just to ride that 500." Well, you're not going to get there. You're not strong enough and it's going to take you a few years to get strong enough. They want the result now, they don't look it as a race by race thing. It's like if they don't have it today then we've got to change something else. I don't know what you're going to change.

What about after Mick? When he retires, what happens then?

I think it becomes exciting again. I think with Mick out of there I'd get new life. There's a lot of guys who are a couple of levels away from Mick. Everybody I think just races for second, but with Mick out of there it's exciting for them to talk on TV again and for us to go, "Hey, maybe we've got a chance this weekend." Mick's talking about racing another year. I said, "Why don't you race the 250 class or something?"

That's another change this year. How much different is it being able to concentrate on just one class this year?

It's wonderful. I can sleep in a little more because I don't have to get up. My day starts at 6 and ends at 11 every day. And most of that is just getting prepared to get up and getting prepared to go to bed. That 250 thing was a completely different set of circumstances, problems. The team was completely separate from the 500 team, the engineers, their particular problems, completely different than the 500s. There was no camaraderie between the two teams. And so I'd put on my red hat over here and mess with the 250 team and then I'd go out in the garage and come back in and change teams and go work with the other team. It was a lot of work on my end. You're trying to keep everybody motivated, because that's what it was - it was work. Keeping everybody motivated. And when I rode it wasn't work, it was just, this is the way it is. And, again, it's me understanding how everybody does it.

You've said that Tetsuya and Loris were completely different to deal with. Tetsuya could motivate himself more, at least in the beginning.

Tetsuya is really, really strong mentally when things are right. But when it's not right he's three-quarters throttle. I believe you have to be even more full throttle is when things are off a bit because the rider is going to have make up 70 percent of the deficit that we have. And Loris, he rides all on lap time. If the lap time's good, he's happy. But if it's not, it's like, fix it. I can't do it. If I could fix it, I'd be in my leathers.

Was that 250 Yamaha as bad as it was made out to be?

Yeah. It was electrical failures and seizing up on the warmup lap. I think at the end there Yamaha just gave up on the 250 thing and when they saw the effort Harada was giving they just went: "Hey, he's not trying, we're not going to try." Let's work more on this 500 thing. Kenny beating up on Yamaha in the press was hurting me and my sponsorship thing with Yamaha and Marlboro. I'm trying to do a good job in the 250 class and trying to protect the interest in the 500 class and I think both of my efforts suffered because of the effort Yamaha was giving.

But Kenny's always beat up on Yamaha.

Kenny's always beat up on Yamaha, but we were winning. Kenny said, "You know Wayne, we keep winning on that thing we're not going to get a better bike," and he was right. But I'm the one riding it and I didn't have a choice. And we would get in some huge arguments over there's no way that we can win on this thing and then we'd go out on Sunday and win. Kenny would go, "Wayne, how are we going to get a better bike?" But I didn't have a choice. But, now, the situation that he was in, and I was in, is that we could beat up on Yamaha all we wanted, we weren't going to win. I think Kenny convinced some people that that was the case and I knew all along that we needed the riders, the riders had to suck it up. Because. the Yamaha got so much better because they weren't winning the last couple of years. You can ask Mike Sinclair on Kenny's team about the Yamahas, a good rider could win the World Championship on it. Kenny's own guy would say that.

How's Yamaha's position changed from last year to this as far as development?

The problem we were having with Kenny last year, Yamaha and myself, was Yamaha wanted Kenny to stop all of his development. And there was some friction with Yamaha and Kenny. So then Yamaha was in a delicate position because they had Rainey Marlboro and Roberts Marlboro and if they showed more favoritism to me, they'd say Kenny's got this big team and you need to support him so Yamaha had to hold back. Whatever they give me they didn't want Kenny to have because I think they believed Kenny was doing something else. So, my effort suffered from Yamaha because they were trying to protect their sponsorship with me. It was really difficult with what Kenny was saying with Yamaha and the way things really were.

How does that translate to development?

For instance we showed up at a test and as soon as we started the bike Kenny's guys come over and said: "What's this? Oh, you guys got differ- ent cylinders on it, where's ours?" Kenny'd make a phone call to Marlboro and Marlboro would say: "Hey, what are you guys doing? You're helping Wayne, you're not helping Kenny." That's what I mean. We could develop, but with Kenny in there we couldn't do it.

So this year how's it different?

I tell you, it's been a joy. The way Team Rainey is now with Yamaha is a lot better for me because I don't have any controversy with taking something away from Kenny or Marlboro jumping in with, "How come the bikes are no good?" Now Yamaha has been able to develop stuff on Sete's bike, which is why he came, to develop. And it's really good, really good. Yamaha's putting a lot of money into it so we've got make sure it's right when they build it. We don't want to go off in some direction that's wrong. Right now we've got some new stuff that going to be really good when we get to Jerez.

[apr1lias]

Reading from certain reliable journalists that Pramac Yamaha might pick Jack Miller over Sergio Garcia because of the whole passport debacle again and I’m annoyed for so many reasons if it’s true. Like I’m sorry if this is an unpopular opinion but if you’re fast enough to be wanted on the MotoGP grid, it really should not matter where you are from or which passport you have and i don’t really care if that means a full grid of Spanish-Italian riders.

[boanerges20]

Eddie Lawson Photo: Mick Woollett & Peter Clifford [From Book] "The Grand Prix Riders"

[prens--pamukses]

This is one of the a few pictures that I'm not wearing my Iron Man helmet 😅😅

[boygeniusgirlidiot]

at least he won something this year! 😕😕

[smandmoree]

Happy birthday, Fabio Quartararo! 🎉🥳🎂

Your determination and resilience are truly admirable, and we have no doubt that you will continue to achieve great things in the coming year. Wishing you all the best on your special day and beyond!

[burirammin]

hiii🤍 do you reckon it will rain tomorrow during the race? i hope you still enjoy it (+i hope you get to witness a marc podium)🫶

the answer got a bit long sorry heheh. I hope the same as you do and in addition I hope Fabio can do something in the race. His starting grid is great and he likes the circuit afaik 👊👀

About the weather, there will be rain (if the forecast can be trusted that is) but I’m not certain it would fall during the race. Would spice things up if it does tho, that I am quite certain of.

First things first, I do enjoy the gp. The atmosphere and the people more than made up for it. Not even mentioning that all the other sessions were great to watch. Marc’s beautiful entries in turn 3. Somkiat’s gorgeous home livery. Fabio’s hot lap so good it got him straight through to q2 from q1, and in p1 no less???? Dudeee. I would never ever regret attending it. These bikes are hypnotizing to observe.

On other note : it’s so nice to see visible improvement on some of the bikes. On friday, the hondas got wheelie problems accelerating into the long straight out of turn 3 (especially joan) but it’s almost entirely gone on Saturday! Small victory!!

As for the sprint. I’m just a bit sad that no other bike could compete with the top three and the gaps just got pulled farther and farther every lap, even marc stops pushing so hard in the latter part of the race (which is understandable). But the saddest thing I’ve witnessed might be savadori. I know he’s a replacement rider but the gap was so horrendous, I fear that he might actually get lapped in the full race. I probably would not know this from the broadcast so I’m a bit surprised to see it. (He did run out of fuel in the out lap and have to be taxi back to the pit. Might have something to do with that. Maybe aprillia is experimenting, who knows) Bezz, diggia and binder did swap places quite a bit at turn 12 tho and it was awesome to see. It ain’t much but that was my highlight of the sprint.

I might sound a bit negative but the gp is fun! Don’t let my disappointment from the sprint sway it the wrong way :)

[topnotchquark]

Is Valentino switching his team to Yamaha in the coming years?

Rumours are definitely circulating. Apparently they are slated to make the switch to Yamaha in 2025 and become their main satellite operation with access to factory bikes. Yamaha needs a satellite team after RNF abandoned them for Aprilia and Tech3 abandoned them for KTM. I think Uccio said somewhere that they are trying their best to get a factory bike for Bezz in order to give him a better shot. Which makes sense because Bezz gave up a Pramac seat to be with them.

Unfortunately Yamaha is squeamish about making the switch from an in line engine to a V4 engine. Their argument being that they have used these engines forever and the other teams that use V4 have years of advantage on them. Which again, fair because engineering at the highest level is about how familiar you are with every little last detail and that experience only comes with time. Not likely that Yamaha will make big tech changes before 2027 and that's some time away. Interesting to witness for the VR46 operation because they have been incredibly lucky with a rider like Bezz who brings this massive wave of talent, and Luca who is sharp and great at communicating with engineers. Add to that the fact that Ducati has the most sophisticated simulation tools of any factory team. So you know, even though they were at par with Gresini, they were still able to furnish far better results.

Fingers crossed for their Yamaha years because Fabio Q has spoken extensively about how Yamahas just don't have the engine power. But I suppose the Rossi connect would get them more favour from the factory operation than they get currently. All in all, fingers crossed.

[blackoutcustomdesign]

2015 Yamaha XVS1300 Street Bobber BCD #yamaha #yamahaxvs1300 #xvs1300 #yamahabobber #xvs1300bobber #bobber #builtnotbought #makelifearide #custombike #custommotorcycle #love #custom #custommade #customworld #wheelie #motorcycle #motorbike #bike #biker #rider #bikebuild #bobbersofinstagram #photography #blackoutcustomdesign #instagood #picoftheday #czech #karvina (v místě Dolní oblast Vítkovice) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqUn74JIaqH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[42bakery]

Some track action for the girls (5/4/2024). From Eva Blanquez's Instagram.

[batsplat]

this all makes me think—how much would casey have disliked racing against marc do you think? i wonder if vale would have gone even harder on the marc praise knowing it’d annoy casey + been even more disgruntled in 2015 when the consequences hit even harder in turn… and maybe we would have gotten a casey ranch visit even earlier had they had a Common Enemy in marc or something

yeah lol casey would've hated it, i've talked about this a few times before but the tldr is that this wouldn't have gone well at all. i mean honestly the intra-team shenanigans are the real killer more even than the aggressive riding, like back in the day plenty of people thought marc would get better as he aged and i think casey would've wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. something like the towing would've also made casey want to strangle marc but that wasn't as bad yet in marc's early years. but the sabotaging your teammate by trying to ensure they don't get the best parts thing..... pheww very very very very low tolerance for that kind of behaviour. and if casey did in fact have to regularly race against marc, it would really only take one or two proper scraps after which marc is completely unapologetic for casey to start souring towards the kid

also, obviously this is just guesswork, but i wouldn't be surprised if casey would've been... honestly, a little bit resentful of young marc. i mean it kinda sneaks in there anyway, he's pretty firm in dismissing the idea he's going to be paying attention to what marc does with his bike at the post-season 2012 test for instance. but... y'know, just a bit of the early dani vibe where dani was the golden boy in 2006 and casey was the satellite rider getting spare parts, feeling unacknowledged, invisible. casey emphasising the machinery disadvantage to dani in 250cc and said it did him good because HE learned how to deal with shitty machinery :)), casey FURIOUS when he's beaten by dani at assen 2006... how you read those little moments in later years where casey is a wee bit patronising towards dani... or there's casey's rather, uh, interesting reaction to jorge's arrival on the scene in 2008, which you can read as displeasure about how well jorge was received and also this tinge of real satisfaction at jorge's fall from grace... plus ofc various facets of the relationship with valentino... the thing about how casey won his first grand prix valencia 2003 and then went 'happy to beat someone sponsored by the circuit :))'.... like yeah obviously casey feels resentful and bitter a lot of the time more at seven, but the point is it can be aimed quite easily at specific rivals. teensy bit of jealousy there, envy feeding back into bitterness. i don't think casey LIKES this impulse and would deny he has it at gunpoint. he really really wants to be magnanimous and wants to see himself and present himself as someone who isn't bothered by the success of others!! which, listen, i'm not saying that's completely FALSE but it's also obviously not the full picture. and idk, marc is another honda golden boy who everyone just cannot stop praising even though he's had the path paved for him unlike CASEY who didn't have particularly competitive machinery at any point until he stumbled onto that ducati seat and now everyone's so excited just because marc is immediately fast even though casey was fast immediately too until michelin started sabotaging him and... you get the point. i don't think this is the main reason their relationship would go downhill but imo it would feed into it

and yeah lol. the thing about valentino's animosity towards casey is that he basically cuts himself off the moment that rivalry formally ends - since then it's been exceedingly one-sided on the insults front. the short reason for that is that valentino never particularly HATED casey, that if anything he did his best (valentino standards) to keep that relationship friendly for a pretty long time, and then a combination of casey figuring out how to get under his skin and prolonged competitive malaise pushed them into this weird cycle where they just kind of got a kick out of hissing and scratching at each other every other week. kind of like a stress relief tactic. but once casey's gone, valentino isn't going to do that anymore and the ill will fades REASONABLY quickly, where there's really only the occasional lapse in 2013 and then basically none after that. but if casey were still on the grid? well! laguna is a big one here, because it features one of vale's very rare 2013 lapses where he does do the little *cracks knuckles* well :)) casey minded when i overtook him at the corkscrew :)) but EYE don't mind because EYE have no problem with real racing :)) unlike casey :) routine. if valentino knows casey is still around and a rival and he can get whatever bizarre kick he used to get out of trading insults with casey, he would just be like. ten times more annoying about this. given what a massive massive massive sore spot laguna is for casey on fifty different levels, i cannot for the life of me imagine he reacts particularly well to this particular chain of events. this is something he feels very strongly about, he feels wronged, it is tied to an event where he felt humiliated....... and now he feels like it's being made a joke of. again. at his expense. one that marc is actively participating in. this is one of those things where casey might not actually push back too strongly at the time but he will not forget about it until the day he dies

and if you have a few too many things like that... casey said at some point in 2013 that he didn't appreciate how marc tries to not just beat but 'humiliate' his opponents. they actually asked marc about this in a press conference but the reporter made such a hash of asking the question that marc responds to something barely related and really not what casey was getting at in any way. but if you watch that presser... well, one of the three people in shot DEFINITELY got what casey was saying about marc and thought it was VERY funny. easy enough to extrapolate from that. ofc valentino was never going to enjoy any version of 2013 that involves him being pretty uncompetitive, but idk, it's not exactly a stretch to believe he would have massively enjoyed marc driving casey insane, kind of the next best thing. (even if only in secret - one interesting thing about casey's presence is that it makes valentino's whole 'humbled fun-loving guy fighting to get back to the top but just having a laff :)' gig of 2013-14 a bit trickier to sustain. super dignified response to jerez 2013 from vale for instance where i would politely question if this completely chimes with his internal monologue. casey's truly unparalleled ability to use his words to get under valentino's skin would come through for us once again.) which is something else that i suspect doesn't massively endear either of them to casey. AND because it's casey and you get a paranoia bonus, valentino doesn't even HAVE to be showing he's enjoying it or even enjoying it at all for casey to believe he is. so that's perfect

anyway, once the vale/marc honeymoon ends... tbh i kind of conceptually struggle to imagine casey managing to stick around past 2014, like it just feels by then he'd be so so sick of this shit. however many titles he wins during that time period (i'd put my money on at least one but who knows). but sure, for the sake of speculation, let's say he sticks around at least a little longer, without being directly involved in the 2015 title fight for whatever reason. now, tbh, i think by this point his stance on the vale/marc situation broadly amounts to 'they deserve each other', and it's perfectly possible that at this stage his active animosity towards marc outstrips even his hostility towards valentino. (short term thing, over the arcs of their careers obviously valentino has the power to hurt casey in a way marc does not.) i think it's also plausible that once valentino gets his act together again competitively in 2014, there's a bit of a detente in the casey relationship and they do slip back into their early slightly edgy camaraderie. but. but. sepang 2015 presents SUCH an open goal for casey that there is no version of him that's going to be able to resist that one. it's too easy. we see this in real life too, of course casey is going to use that to have a go at valentino, how could he possibly stop himself

(one more thought here: going off the resentment and bitterness angle................................................. i mean. hear me out. it's not IMPOSSIBLE that some of this resentment towards marc ends up being quite valentino-specific. the idea is that casey looks at the 2013-14 marc/valentino dynamic and goes 'where the fuck was that energy for me'. for which there are completely rational non-casey-related reasons like 'valentino wasn't washed back in 2007', but that doesn't change the fact that marc is getting distinctly more head pats in 2013 than casey was in 2007. two full years of uninterrupted head pats. casey was being laguna'd in year two of his rivalry with valentino. how is this fair. so actually i do reckon that late 2015 would also be accompanied with just immense amounts of schadenfreude aimed specifically at this relationship completely falling apart. this real marriage of 'huh you thought you were different did you' with 'well valentino does do this to his rivals :)) what a shame that poor marc has had to discover that :))'. quite honestly i'm unconvinced irl!casey doesn't feel that way. the point is that this too manages to further decrease casey's sympathy levels towards all parties involved, though i'm sure he'd do his best to pretend he's feeling ever so sorry for poor marc. in that same super convincing tone he uses in his autobiography to describe jorge in 2008 starting to smash his body up immediately after being arrogant towards casey)

but also i don't really think valentino,, like, cares necessarily when casey does this - certainly not for more than a couple weeks - because going by real life he does seem to be able to filter out a fair bit of vitriol coming from casey's end. casey and valentino reached that really cute point of being enemies where they'd kind of already said so much shit about each other that there's basically no insult that could really make things WORSE. with some of valentino's oeuvre, if anyone else said that about casey he would still be bringing it up and be extremely not over it, but given all the other stuff valentino's said it's kind of... whatever. with some of the stuff casey said, with some guys that would be valentino's primary association with them and he'd still quietly loathe them for it. but casey was saying that stuff every other week and also aren't passionate rivalries great so. who cares! which is what gave the nadir of their relationship this real charm because they knew how to provoke each other, regularly did that, had a bit of a go at each other and then moved on. and then did it all again. something quite funny to how when casey's providing his framing of that relationship, he never even brings up any of the more wildly out of pocket things valentino said about him towards the tail end of casey's time in motogp, the stuff i think you could justifiably still be mad at!! it's really just valentino not being nice enough to him in 2007 that TRULY bothers casey... which suggests that 2012 at latest really was a bit of a free pass for both of them. like i said, cute! but anyway, the point is there's probably nothing casey could have feasibly said after sepang 2015 that would have burnt that bridge forever, and also casey wouldn't even harp on about it for TOO long once he's gotten it out of his system. doesn't care enough about marc irl, let alone in a world where they're probably enemies by this point. and there's a decent chance marc has chased casey out of honda, which can't help

anyway i don't think casey gets invited to like,, bitching sessions with valentino at the ranch because that's not really how either of them operate. i do think it'd be funny if you have this vibe in 2016 similar to how valentino rediscovered how much he loves chatting to dani in pressers, but an even wilder version of that with CASEY. and broadly both of them would probably be inclined to allow that relationship to get a bit less chilly again. feuding with three top riders at once is just unfeasible for valentino, who tf is he supposed to yap at in social settings. so i think you might naturally get to a place where casey is more venomous towards marc than towards valentino and where valentino is more *gestures* bleh towards marc and just kind of uses the good old 2007 charm on casey. AND where valentino already starts editorialising the casey rivalry as good old-fashioned honest hatred, not like this backstabbing nonsense. so no front against marc - casey CAN be pushed into that sort of behaviour cf the 2011-12 dynamic of trying to establish anti-valentino age-based solidarity with jorge + dani, but doing that with valentino is a step too far tbh. BUT implicitly a realignment is certainly possible, even though casey still semi-regularly gets overtaken by fits of schadenfreude over 2015 and valentino just filters this out or whatever. charming in its own way

[carmyprosecco]

istg they got something on him that prevents him from leaving