~ Auto Buzz ~: MotoGP 2015: Stick to the Subject—RACING Let’s focus less on the Marquez/Rossi feud and more on the actual racing.

Thursday, 29 October 2015

MotoGP 2015: Stick to the Subject—RACING Let’s focus less on the Marquez/Rossi feud and more on the actual racing.

I agree with Dani Pedrosa and many others who feel MotoGP has been cheapened and soiled by this Marquez/Rossi affair. I’m especially sorry to read the public outpourings of bile from persons who seem less interested in the facts of this matter than they are in taking an excuse to spew. This is discouraging. We don’t know what happened, so we can’t judge. We don’t have all the evidence. Somebody within Dorna must have the on-bike camera footage, but they aren’t showing it to us, and they are under no obligation to do so. The cameras and the images they produce are by law Dorna property, to dispose of as they see fit. Because we all love racing, we mistakenly feel it is “ours,” whereas in fact it belongs to Dorna stockholders. Some of us have seen both the trackside and overhead videos, but many have clearly seen only one of the trackside versions. When I first looked at the trackside clip, Rossi looks around at Marquez twice. But now I am seeing versions in which he looks around only once. In the looks-twice version, there appears to be a quick motion of Rossi’s knee (which is not seen at all in the overhead version), but in the looks-once version, the “knee motion” is not quick; it is a slow heave. Could it be that animation software exists outside Disney? Are parties unknown having a bit of fun with us all? Under these conditions of inconsistent and possibly altered “evidence,” I am drawn to the Scottish verdict of “not proven.” We just don’t know whether Rossi somehow caused Marquez to fall.

Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa race action

Marc Marquez may very well have tried to slow Valentino Rossi at Phillip Island, as Rossi charged in the pre-Sepang press conference. If this were a punishable offense, he would have made an official protest, but in fact racers have played games with each other always. At the Canadian Grand Prix in 1967, Mike Hailwood “buzzed” Giacomo Agostini lap after lap, passing him, allowing himself to be repassed, and repeating—in hope that he could tempt Ago into racing, or some other foolishness that might result in a DNF, Hailwood’s only chance of being 500cc champion. Ago stolidly minded his own business and was champion, while Hailwood won the race. Many other riders have amused themselves by playing such games; who can forget Luca Cadalora in 250 Grands Prix, slowing his pace to build his pursuers’ hopes, then rocketing away in a display of utter superiority. Playing. Head games. Psychological war. More rules could be made, but then race results would have to be postponed while some Board of Review went into session to scrutinize every second of video for possible infractions. We want to see racing, not wait outside hearing rooms for robed bureaucrats (“All rise!”) to finish deliberating. Thus it was decided to penalize Rossi for what could actually be seen—the Italian widening his line and possibly braking (in the looks-twice version, at least) to slow Marquez, with the outcome that Marquez falls. This is an infraction: irresponsible riding that results in a rider falling.