Quote:
Originally Posted by mrgrn
it is not MY opinion it was articles written by writers and riders who rode the bikes. pleeze let's keep this non personal BS as i never implied anything and stop trying to say it said it, i said i read it in some UK mags as well as elsewhere. i can go dig up the articles and scan them if you like but you will only discredit them so why bother 
it is common fact the Honda Hicky rode was a better bike the first two years Rossi left in many aspects and it is not a opinion made by me just shared by me |
With all due respect, I'd love to read those articles as well as to see who wrote them. Unless they were written by a racer with recent top level (i.e. MotoGP) experience, they are basically useless because bike journalists and retired ex racers have nowhere near the necessary ability levels to explore and evaluate the performance characteristics of prototype equipment at or near the limit. That is a plain fact. Even the opinion of someone like Kevin Schwantz would be essentially valueless because he is no longer capable of top level pace.
Back when he was the top dog, Mick Doohan would frequently complain/ reject chassis/suspension equipment being developed by HRC and its development riders. While HRC would give him new parts that they assured him would offer measurable improvements to his current set up, Doohan, more often than not, would reject the new equipment/mods by saying that since the development riders were incapable of matching either his pace or his style, the value of their recommendations were more often than not a waste of time. His arguments were always supported by his own testing of said recommended equipment/mods. Doohan once politely buried a retired Schwantz's year end appraisals of bikes on the 500 grid for the same reasons stated above. At the time, Doohan specifically stated that if someone couldn't ride within a tenth or two of his pace, their evaluation/analysis of a bike would hold little, if any, credibility/value for him (and Schantz, btw, completely agreed.) He reinforced his point by saying that certain bikes whose designs/set ups he felt were were fundamentally flawed could be absolutely pure and smooth sweethearts when running a 1:25.00 second a lap pace but dangerously unpredictable and unrideable at a pace even a tenth or two quicker. He also stated that the converse could be applicable whereby a bike that was deemed unrideable at the limit of a development riders abilities could become sweet handling at a higher pace that only he could achieve. When Doohan swapped his Big-Bang engines for the old style screamers, the development riders became even less relevant than they already were because they lacked Doohan's rare ability to manage the shortcomings and exploit the strengths offered by that engine's configuration.
Rossi's M1 was also proclaimed by many journos as the sweetest handling bike on the grid but, once again, this means nothing as well. The M1s that Rossi rode to two championships were specifically developed in accordance with his particular abilities and preferences. During his championship reign, he endlessly praised the M1's performance so for you or anyone to deride that bike as being inferior is pointless and irrelevant. The results speak for themselves. In Rossi's hands, the M1 was an exceptional handling bike with more than enough power and acceleration to dominate the other bikes on the grid. Even on the big horsepower tracks where the V5 Hondas were expected to dominate.
Many like to say that the M1 was a dog and point to the performance of other riders of the M1 to reinforce that view but the same can be said of the 800cc Ducati. In Stoner's hands, the Ducati, like the M1 during Rossi's Championship years, was a great bike. Rossi loved his M1 back then just as Stoner loves his Ducati now.
And for those who think that Rossi didn't complain in 2004 and 2005 just because he was winning races, I would suggest that he/she refer back to the latter portion of Wayne Rainey's championship run.