Originally Posted by
Drano
This doesn't make much sense to me. Not only do the riders compete for championships, but manufacturers do as well. Why would a manufacturer put Rossi, a 9-times World Champion, on an uncompetitive machine so as to prevent him from battling for podiums? I'm sure any manufacturer is happy when their rider wins a championship on their machine, but what company doesn't also want to claim bragging rights that their machines consistently placed more podiums than their competitors? That's completely backwards to any marketing strategy I can think of. Not to mention, Yamaha (381 points) was extremely close to Honda (389 points), which likely translated to them putting more pressure on Rossi to close the gap and hang with the top three. Am I misinterpreting what you are saying? If not, it sounds like major conspiracy theory stuff to me.