MotoGP - rider/bike/tyres/team ?

McArmalite

Was wondering as I am new to MotoGP, out of a 100%, what proportion would you give in determining the winner of a race divided up between the rider, the bike, the tyres and team ? And does these percentages differ much if it is wet or dry or are they basically the same ?

Kali

Rider is easily the biggest % then bike, tyres and team.

Lot of talk this season about bridgestone vs michelin, but personally I just think Ducati have upped their game, and with Stoner finally have a fantastic rider.

In the wet, it's anyones game...

The track always plays a good part though as historically the Ducatis were always up on power and therefore quicker on tracks with longer straights and slower on the tighter circuits. You can still see the difference: they'll power by Hondas easily and the Hondas power by the Yamahas.

Edwardius

I'll have to disagree on that one and you only have to look at the performance of the other bridgestone shod machines this year to see why. Ducati also have a very strong package as evidenced by Hoffmann featuring regularly in the top 10 on the satellite machine and if you ally that to the fact that last year stoner was nowhere on a machine very similar to the title-winning RC211V (using michelins) then everything starts to become a lot less clear-cut. Also, electronics are playing a a bigger part than ever in how the motorcycles work this year and if the rider plays as big a part as you think in how a package performs then therre's something wrong somewhere. I say this because there's no way in hell that Valentino Rossi is a seventh place finisher. If anyone doubts this, have a look at the man racing in 2001 on the 500, the 2003 australian Gp, all of 2004&2005 on the yam and don't tell me you can lose that godlike ability overnight. Now I'm not taking anything away from stoner because he's been flawless on and off the bike but the engine management on that ducati coupled with the new tyre rules this season may well be flattering him somewhat.

McArmalite

Well, thanks for the replies lads, both were informative. I know this may appear to be asking something like - why are Brazilians good soccer players - but why do most of the riders seem to come from hot countries, Italy, Spain, Aussies etc. Why not more from Germany, Holland, UK, Canada whatever. I know people may say tradition etc, but Formula one has a good mix of nationalities compared to Motogp ?

Edwardius

It's to do with sponsorship and support classes. If you look at italy, there's minibikes and all manner of other national racing series and academies in which GP team owners can see talent displayed at a young age and the situation is similar in spain. Given the audience for the sport in these countries, it's useful for teams to keep hiring these kids as they speak the language and it's not unusual for riders to bring much needed sponsorship dollars to a team (think telefonica and gibernau, Fortuna and Jorge Lorenzo in 250 and wonder why a sponsor-friendly Carlos Checa still gets work despite not having won a race or finished consistently in the top-ten in recent years.). Britain is also possessed of many of these racing series but the emphasis is geared more towards big four-stroke machines and riders end up in superbikes or on uncompetetive motogp machines as british sponsors aren't really fussed with motorcycles. The yanks that come over to race were usually ex dirt-track racers and ridiculously hard bastards (Schwanz, Rainey, Lawson, Russel from back in the day) but these days they tend to come from the AMA superbike series. Regarding australians: Traditionally, these guys were all brought up hammering motocross bikes around the bush and headbutting each other in the national superbike series until they got noticed (Mick Doohan for one). Nowadays, with the declining importance of the australian superbike series a lot of australians pack up their motocrossers and head to the uk to start their road-racing careers. Casey stoner did just this (after his family sold their house and farm to finance the move and spent the next few years living in motorhomes and going from race to race) and kicked ass in the British 125 series at 15. Chris Vermeulen had done this previously on the advice of barry sheene and Troy Bayliss followed a similar route some years previous, so with that level of sacrifice you can see why the aussies tend to be hardasses with chips on their shoulders. A lot of it is to do with corporate image as well, which is probably why a washed-up makoto tamada is still racing on that there Japanese yamaha