2018 MOTOGP Season ****SPOILER ALERT*** *****WARNING - SPOILER *******

[The Black Knight]

Same here, I don't foresee anyone having a sniff at Marquez tomorrow.

They might as well start handing out trophies for 1st loser... excuse me, I mean 2nd place finisher and just let Marquez have the day off tomorrow.

Here's how tomorrow's roster will look:
1st Place - Marc Marquez
Also Ran's - everyone else...

Ahem.....

[madvlad]

There are rumors that the German round may be off for good after this year

[madvlad]

Not a bad result for Yamaha considering but yeah Marquez has that shit on lockdown. Seems like engineers at Yamaha are slowly finding answers. Very important points there to stay in the fight and keep the pressure on.

[madvlad]

Stoner on the money during that interview, luck won’t last forever for Marquez and sure hope he figures out a way to test the limit without having to crash all the time:

http://www.motogp.com/en/videos/2018...crashes/264677

[Mr2GQ]

"In the space of 24 hours, beIN SPORTS has beenremoved from Comcast Xfinity and Verizon Fios in carriage disputes between the TV providers"

Soooooo... anyone doing a viewing party? Lol.

[The Black Knight]

"In the space of 24 hours, beIN SPORTS has beenremoved from Comcast Xfinity and Verizon Fios in carriage disputes between the TV providers"

Soooooo... anyone doing a viewing party? Lol.

I'm starting to think that this is something inherent to BeIN sports channel and not the TV providers. At first I thought it was typical tv providers being greedy. But, now Comcast is dropping them, Verizon and way back probably last year, Playstation Vue dropped them. DirectTV streaming, has BeIN sports but it's Spanish only.

I loved having it on Playstation Vue, as I could watch WSBK. Have had the MotoGP subscription for awhile, so that wasn't an issue.

Honestly, can't say I feel bad for BeIN sports. Love their motorcycle racing coverage but can't stand all the Soccer BS they constantly shove down your throat. I get it, it's the world's sport and that's fine. Let the rest of the world watch a crappy sport that has guys kicking around a round ball, features little to no scoring and worst acting than B movies. As much as I think the NFL can be a setup, I'll take American Football over Soccer any day of the week. At least we still get some vicious hits in the NFL, and not the drama queens that get bumped in the shoulder and drop to the ground holding their shin in soccer.

My advice is same as Vlad's. Get the season pass for half off on MotoGP.com

[madvlad]

The season pass is half off right now

[The Black Knight]

Good Q2 session, but is anyone else having issues with MotoGP.com's site taking forever to load the video player?? My first attempt at Q2 this morning timed out and then I finally got in. Now trying to watch the Press Conference and it's doing it again. Slow as hell are their servers this morning..

[madvlad]

Yeah their severs were overloaded for sure, couldn’t get the Q2 session at all without buffering and was very choppy

[The Black Knight]

Good race and congrats to Dovi.

MotoGP.com is sucking it up though. Took me 5 minutes to connect this morning. The race was already in progress when I finally got the video player to load. Have to say, I'm not impressed with their servers at all.

[madvlad]

Man just when you think Yamaha have things somewhat figured out, they bomb out when they shouldn’t have. Today was crucial for points limitation mainly coming into Austria since Yamaha isn’t a contender at that track, good thing he was able to make that pass on Cal stick and salvage a few more points. Good seeing Dovi back at the top, pretty good little scrap there at the end from those 3. Bit of a boring race but well onto the next one.

Yeah that’s the reason why I logged on kind of earlier than usual was to secure a spot into the non buffering bullshit side

[The Black Knight]

Man just when you think Yamaha have things somewhat figured out, they bomb out when they shouldn’t have. Today was crucial for points limitation mainly coming into Austria since Yamaha isn’t a contender at that track, good thing he was able to make that pass on Cal stick and salvage a few more points. Good seeing Dovi back at the top, pretty good little scrap there at the end from those 3. Bit of a boring race but well onto the next one.

Yeah that’s the reason why I logged on kind of earlier than usual was to secure a spot into the non buffering bullshit side

Normally I just jump on right before the race starts. But this morning really sucked trying to get in. Just stared at a blue background while the video player loaded.

I think Yamaha's biggest issue is tire management, which in turn means electronics. Rossi did well most of the race and was able to stay close. Yamaha are just missing that extra ability to ask more from the bike and tires that Honda and Ducati have. Where I was seeing it was on the big acceleration. Rossi would close up on the front group in Sector 2 but once he'd get to a straight, whether small or large they would pull on him just a bit. Do that over several laps and that's how you lose touch.

And then once the front three turned up the pace, he really couldn't match it as they were just launching from one corner to the next with better grip.

In a way, I'm really glad and smile a bit when Yamaha suffer this much. Because clearly they haven't gotten the message from their riders to fix the problem. Rossi even said it yesterday. The mechanical side of setting the bike up is fairly cut and dry. Doesn't take long to dial the mechanical/physical parts in. Then the fine tuning and where they really find the extra "tenths" that sets them apart from everyone else, is down to the electronics. Rossi said, that's where they seem to take longer and struggle more is with the electronic set ups. So while everyone else is fine tuning their rig, Yamaha spends more time dicking around with their software because they can't manipulate it the way the other manufactures do.

I've said it already, but Yamaha need to figure out what is the problem and fast(and devote all their time to it). They can still salvage the season and finish strong but this deer in the headlights look when it comes to the electronics needs to get solved.

As far as the riders go, I know Yamaha always looks at their younger rider to advance the team. But old man Rossi seems to be the only one at the front race after race. So start throwing him some more support and get some wins. Vinales pace waved bye-bye long ago and he only gets sniffs of brilliance every now and then. Though I'm sure if they sort the problem out, he'll make a return to the front as well.

[salsashark]

Was riding back from Sturgis yesterday, so didn't get to watch the race til last night. I will say that normally, I struggle to get quality HD from their feeds, but I switched over to the HTML5 instead of the flash player and the quality and speed has been top notch... even on my crappy chrome book.

[The Black Knight]

Was riding back from Sturgis yesterday, so didn't get to watch the race til last night. I will say that normally, I struggle to get quality HD from their feeds, but I switched over to the HTML5 instead of the flash player and the quality and speed has been top notch... even on my crappy chrome book.

Yeah, I use the new one as well and it's worked really well and seems to not have any issues. But for some reason since Sachsenring the new HTML5 player has ran like ass for me. So I'm not sure what is causing the problem.

[madvlad]

Well there goes Yamaha’s hope for a championship.... fucking idiots

[The Black Knight]

Well there goes Yamaha’s hope for a championship.... fucking idiots

LOL!!

Yeah, they look terrible at the Red Bull Ring. Rossi even said it at Brno, that they would suffer in Austria. Zarco is the best in Q2 and he's .6s off of Marquez.

Yamaha in general have completely lost the plot of what's going on. You can see it in their eyes when the camera scans the garage. All of them have the"deer in headlights" look. You can tell they have absolutely no clue how to fix whatever is the problem. Commentators even said it, it's starting to get embarrassing for Yamaha at this point.

Oh well, they'll figure it out in the end lol!!

Tomorrow's podium, Dovi, Marquez and Lorenzo

[madvlad]

Yeah I mean it was obvious they would struggle as they always do but damn, shit went south in the most colossal of ways and at the worst of times

[The Black Knight]

Yeah I mean it was obvious they would struggle as they always do but damn, shit went south in the most colossal of ways and at the worst of times

I agree, a weekend to forget for Yamaha.

[madvlad]

About season and half now for them to forget... they just came out publicly and apologized to their riders but still doesn’t fix shit

[The Black Knight]

About season and half now for them to forget... they just came out publicly and apologized to their riders but still doesn’t fix shit

Yeah, just got home and have seen all of this. I'm a little surprised by all of this. Either something is very, very wrong with the Yamaha or this is address something else. I think it's a little of both. I think the bike is having problems that are only magnified at this track. I also think something is wrong within Yamaha.

Rossi and Vinales have both said they like the bike, but would like to see more attention paid to the electronics as they feel that is the area that needs the improvement. And up until now, Rossi has been riding it as hard as possible to achieve the best results. Even Vinales was starting to come around after Assen.

I'm thinking that behind the scenes some heads are going to roll for all of this at Yamaha. But this is very odd for a manufacture to issue an open public apology to its riders. Something stinks about all of this.

If they really want to fix all of this, they need to go and get Furusawa(retired) back and have him work the bike over. That guy was amazing with the M1 back in 2004-2005 and I think that's what Rossi hinted at in his response to the Yamaha Apology.

[madvlad]

Yeah it’s going to take some serious changes to be able to bring this back to page one, it sucks too cause man they have two quality riders that can bring it to Ducati and Honda and man if Yamaha has resources too and what’s funny is that Ducati has been the brand on financial limbo for a while and they’re as successful as ever.

[The Black Knight]

Yeah it’s going to take some serious changes to be able to bring this back to page one, it sucks too cause man they have two quality riders that can bring it to Ducati and Honda and man if Yamaha has resources too and what’s funny is that Ducati has been the brand on financial limbo for a while and they’re as successful as ever.

I think that's what Rossi was pointing out in his response to the apology. He mentioned that back in 2004-2005 Yamaha went all out in terms of developing a bike that would win the championship. They did well in 2004 and then Rossi crushed everyone in 2005(similar to Marquez in 2014). Yamaha was hungry back then and they were willing to do what ever was needed to achieve results.

I remember back in 2004 when Rossi tested several bikes and chose the M1 with the least powerful motor. He felt it was the best overall package though, super agile chassis, a motor that was powerful but still able to put that power to the ground. Rossi went out and won the first race(Welkom) on that 2004 bike and forever changed Yamaha.

Now, Yamaha still have a very good handling bike but it's as though they forgot how to get the power to the back wheel in a smooth and tire saving manner. Again, I blame the compulsory software that everyone now run. It's not as user friendly and easy to use as the factory bespoke software was.

It does speak volumes for just how good the factory teams had their own software. 2015 for instance, factory teams were allowed 5 engines and 20L of fuel but were able to run their own custom software. Now, everyone get 7 engines(yes KTM, Aprilia, etc. get 9) and 22L of fuel and everyone run the same software and are only able to tune it lightly, with zero customization.

What we are seeing since 2016, is that yes it's helped to level the playing field. It's brought Ducati and Suzuki(this year) into contention for race wins and podiums. And it's brought KTM and Aprilia closer to top 10 results. Surely it has helped to offer more race winners and better racing. Which honestly is very good and something that was needed.

That's the pros, so what are the cons??

Well I think we've seen it also stifle the development of Yamaha considerably(and to some degree Suzuki, last year mainly). Yamaha opted to not do what Honda and Ducati have done(poach former Magnetti Marelli employees) to help work on the current software. They are now seeing come around and bite the them in the rear in a big way.

If it was completely up to me to run things. This is how I would have handled the compulsory ECU nonsense. For all factories that were made to run the 2016 and beyond(Ducati and everyone else that hadnt' won from 2015 were already starting to use it) compulsory software, would have been to supply each manufacture with a tech/engineer/software designer from Magnetti Marellli.

That's how I see things. If DORNA was going to straight dick everyone by making them run the compulsory ECU, then they should have made it mandatory that the manufacture of the ECU(MM in this case) should supply at least one person to each manufacture, that worked on that ECU software to teach them how to work with it. It's the only way to be fair and just. If you're going to make everyone run the same software. Then nip it in the butt quick and make the software supplier have a person go work with each manufacture. Would have prevented other teams from hiring former employees away to work for them.

None of all this matters though. As Yamaha have dug their own hole and now they need to get themselves out of it. I really think they need to just shelve the 2018 season altogether. And plan on making a massive breakthrough on their 2019 machine. I mean, yeah keep trying to get results and data for the rest of the year, because somebody has to fill up those 4th through 12th places. Not to mention the great data gained from not making it through Q1 and getting stuck in 11th for the other guy in Q2 has got to be paying big dividends. So big, that Yamaha have to issue an apology about it.

In short, it's going to be a painful race tomorrow for team Yamaha.

[The Black Knight]

Just finished watching the race and it wasn't a bad one. The duel to the end was good. Had hope that Dovi would have been able to get into the fight as well. Congrats to Lorenzo, he was fast and made it all count.

Rossi did a great salvage job. I think it's a testament to his commitment to get the bike working. At one point in the race, the commentators said the only three faster riders on the track than Rossi were the front three. So he had good pace and was chewing his way back through the pack. Vinales went backwards again and then came back. So he's got his own problems to figure out.

[madvlad]

http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2018/0...-yamaha/268587