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*** spoilers****

Assen produced some amazing shots.












Post race interview: Fabio & Mir’s immediate reaction when the press asked Maverick about the rumors of him leaving Yamaha.


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Posts: 21051 | Location: North Carolina  | Registered: April 16, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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That last chicane on the first couple laps makes an awesome shot, with the whole train flowing through.




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Posts: 15133 | Location: Spring, TX | Registered: July 11, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Vinales officially out of his Yamaha contract at the end of the year. Aprilia bound? I’m hoping that Yamaha announces Morbidelli to the Factory Spot and gives him the bike he deserves.

https://www.motogp.com/en/news...e-end-of-2021/382207
 
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https://www.motorsport.com/mot...022--season/6617595/

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Motorsport.com reported on Sunday morning that Vinales was considering quitting Yamaha at the end of the season and take up a ride with Aprilia for 2022 as the relationship between the Spaniard and his team has hit rock bottom.

Vinales was signed by Yamaha in 2017 to replace Ducati-bound Jorge Lorenzo and won three of his first five races on the M1. But since then, his form on the Yamaha has been inconsistent as the bike itself has also had mixed form.

After winning on the opening night of the 2021 campaign in Qatar, Vinales wouldn’t score a podium again until last Sunday’s Dutch TT at Assen while teammate Fabio Quartararo won four times and currently holds a 34-point lead in the championship.

Yamaha tried to arrest Vinales’ decline by swapping crew chief Esteban Garcia for ex-Valentino Rossi ally Silvano Galbusera at Barcelona, though this seems to have only added to the tensions between both parties as Garcia is a close friend of Vinales.

Suffering his worst ever MotoGP weekend in Germany, qualifying 21st and finishing the race last, Vinales slammed Yamaha’s response to his woes in 2021 – and seemingly in recent years – as disrespectful.

Vinales denied links to Aprilia after the Assen race but admitted leaving Yamaha was “an option” for him.

On Monday morning, following an Assen weekend in which he was on pole and second in the race, Yamaha announced both parties have agreed to part ways at the end of 2021 following Vinales' request to terminate the contract.

Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis expressed sadness at the decision but has vowed Yamaha will "give full support" to Vinales for the remainder of 2021.

"It is with sadness that we will say farewell to Maverick at the end of the year," said Jarvis. "We are in the middle of our fifth season together and over the years we have achieved many highs but also had to manage many lows.

"After the German GP, which was the most difficult weekend of our partnership, we had important discussions in Assen and came to the conclusion that it would be in the interest of both parties to go our separate ways in the future.

"Yamaha will put in their maximum effort – as we always have done – to give full support to Maverick and finish this season in the very best way possible."

Vinales himself added: "This partnership has been very significant to me over the last five years, and it proved a difficult decision to part ways. In these seasons together, we experienced both great achievements and tough times.

"However, the underlying feeling is of mutual respect and appreciation. I am fully committed and will strive to achieve the best results for the rest of the season."

Aprilia denied on Sunday that it had held discussions with Vinales, but was open to the idea of the nine-time MotoGP race winner joining the Italian brand in 2022.

Yamaha will potentially have two bikes up for grabs in 2022 now, with the seat alongside Fabio Quartararo needing to be filled, while Valentino Rossi’s likely retirement frees up an M1 at Petronas SRT.

The logical replacement for Vinales would be 2020 championship runner-up Franco Morbidelli, who is currently out injured following surgery on his knee last week.

Morbidelli does have a contract with SRT for 2022, but it is thought he has an escape clause which can be triggered should a factory team offer him a deal.




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Posts: 15133 | Location: Spring, TX | Registered: July 11, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Well this certainly illuminates that very interesting comment Maverick made not too long ago about about “not wanting to make another serious career mistake”. Clearly something isn’t right and he seems to think leaving Yamaha will potentially fix whatever is wrong. Or the frustration just reached a boiling point.

It’s puzzling. The M1 is a championship contender for sure this year. Hell, the Yamaha is arguably the best bike in the grid. If he can’t make it work on an M1 and doesn’t know why there is no guarantee that he will find any success on an Aprilia. Especially when he claims he keeps writing the same post race notes year after year and cannot pinpoint the source of his issues with consistency.


Going into the summer break right now it’s looking like the fight is going to come down to Yamaha verses Ducati. Ducati thinks they have some favorable tracks coming up on the schedule but ultimately you have to build a bike that can fight or at least have a chance on almost every track. The Ducati’s power and straight line speed is HUGE and it’s handling has improved from last year. This alone puts Yamaha and Suzuki up against the wall because their only hope is to fight them in the twisty sections where their superior corner speed makes up for that top speed and power deficit. This is risky as hell because you’re MUCH more likely to crash trying to push your bike hard in a turn than you are passing the inline four Yamaha & Suzuki bikes on the long straights and then trying to block their attempts to pass you. Mat Oxley wrote a brilliant analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of running a V4 bike verses an inline 4. Basically he said a V4 is better built to fight it out on the track but if an inline 4 can get out front and fully exploit its vastly superior corner speed and not have to fight it’s way up through the pack it’s pretty damn hard for a V4 to catch back up. The ability of Marquez to extract the maximum out of his Honda in the corner speed department could be a big part of his success over the years.

This might also be one of the factors that has seen Rins crash out so many races as he is asking too much from an inferior bike. He can only do so much to try to compensate where his bike has an advantage but going past the limit in a corner carries quite a bit of risk. Mir has managed a masterful season so far even though it might not seem like it. Given where he has started he has salvaged decent finishes on a bike that seems like it didn’t improve nearly enough to contend with the advancements from the rest of the grid. He has been quite vocal about the need for Suzuki to bring new parts to test. In its current form the GSx-RR doesn’t stand a chance of successfully defending its title. Mir basically said this publicly so I’m sure Suzuki is doing what they can behind the scenes. Rins also echoed this sentiment recently. This is why they don’t have a satellite team...if they can’t supply new parts fast enough for their factory team there is no way in hell a satellite team makes any sense right now.


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Posts: 21051 | Location: North Carolina  | Registered: April 16, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by stickman428:


It’s puzzling. The M1 is a championship contender for sure this year. Hell, the Yamaha is arguably the best bike in the grid. If he can’t make it work on an M1 and doesn’t know why there is no guarantee that he will find any success on an Aprilia. Especially when he claims he keeps writing the same post race notes year after year and cannot pinpoint the source of his issues with consistency.


I don't think so. Who else is really doing anything on the Yamaha this year? Not Vale, nor Franco, only Fabio. Mav's deal is winner to lose each week.

Since 2016, the M1 is up and down and the most inconsistent bike on the grid. Works well when there is an abundance of grip (Where the RCV works better than any other bike when there is a lack of grip) but doesn't work in the cold, rain, or mixed grip conditions. One week it's unbeatable, the next weekend it's best position is in 10th. We saw this explicitly last year. Fabio, like Maverick this year, was up up up one weekend and down down down the next weekend. Very inconsistent bike. Valentino suffered the same exact fate.

It even got so bad a couple of years ago the head of Yamaha racing in GP, held a special press conference and apologized to the riders. The Japanese never do this.

All roads lead to one thing, at least to me. Yamaha is going down the same road as Honda, wrapping development and support around one rider, Fabio. It makes zero sense how Franco was straight fucking killing it the last half of 2020 then this year fuck all. Valentino was competitive in 2020, pushing the bike last year, leading races, until he had crashes, and mistakes. But he was competitive. This year, he's in the rear with the gear. Something is going on at Yamaha. Morbidelli doesn't have the stature of Maverrick to raise hell. He has to gut it out, gut out his contract and hope that when the silly season starts next year, Honda, KTM, Ducati, or Suzuki offer him a factory ride. He is grossly underpaid and supported. And he was the best Yamaha rider for the back half of the season in 2020. Valentino is in the same spot. He can't slag Yamaha. They have too long of a history together, and his ambassadorship is at stake. I'd say for Vale, 70% retirement, 30% chance of him riding for Ducati on a factory supported bike on his own team next year. I know he wants a last chance with a competitive motorcycle. He didn't deteriorate this much in 6 months. Something is up. Never in his career have I seen his team not solve the bike with weight distribution, rake and trail, where he can ride how he wants by mid-season.

From this report, well it is news to me about Garcia. Previous reports were that Mav wanted him gone. It's clear now that Yamaha fired him and blamed him and that seems to be the biggest source of the fire. Apparently this was all a Yamaha/Lin Jarvis decision and Mav didn't agree with it. Then there is Yamaha wrapping development, with a bow, around Fabio, together that's the fire. Aprilia is probably promising Maverick #1 status next year and next year contracts are all up and Maverick can go back to Suzuki, or get the big pay day with Ducati as they wanted him bad. He has multiple options and as we just saw, with Zarco, bailing out doesn't always cost you like it did in the past. Used to when a rider did this, man they were fucked. Apparently not anymore.

I'm no fan of Maverick, nor any Spanish rider, but in this case, I don't see he has done anything wrong. The bike has been horribly inconsistent for him this year, in 2020, 2019, 2018, all the way back to his first year. Up, down, up down. The Japanese are strange in this way. Historically they'd stack rank the riders they pay, and the #1 gets all the support, leads development, gets parts first, etc. In recent years they "say" equal this and that in the factory team but apparently Mav is telling us this is not the case. He said in the post race press conference that the bike and Yamaha are unable to give him a package to maximize his own potential. Reading between the lines, that sounds like a rev limiter, something. A rider wouldn't say shit like that publicly, especially in a press conference, if something wasn't going on. Either way, there has to be some merit to it because Franco was winning races and getting on the podium regularly last year. Vale was at least at the front, pushing, even leading races. Mav, Fabio, and Vale were all up and down but there were consistent even when the bike was not. This year, it's the Fabio show. Petronas is fucked. And Mav is saying this.



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Posts: 12557 | Location: Down South | Registered: January 16, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Could the inconsistency be related to the engine issues they had last year and an inability to fix them so they have had to work around it in other ways because of the engine freeze?


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Originally posted by Prefontaine:

COTA: Book lodging quickly.


Where should I look to book? Any suggestions on which area to stay?


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Posts: 2824 | Location: Lake Anna, VA | Registered: May 07, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by mutedblade:
quote:
Originally posted by Prefontaine:

COTA: Book lodging quickly.


Where should I look to book? Any suggestions on which area to stay?


I won’t post my intel/spot on the internet or share with anyone. People would figure it out and my jig would be up. But I will give you a bunch of clues.

First and foremost stay the fuck out of Austin. I mean you can run to Austin at night for dinner or something, just don’t stay there. Stay south of the track, east, west, just not north. If you have to commute south on 35 (or north to a lesser degree) to the track, you’re fucked. 35 can turn into a parking lot where you’ll be idling for 2 hours. It’s terrible. Austin proper, 35 can lock up at say 1pm on a Saturday or Sunday. I mean you don’t move for over an hour. So imagine the track and tens of thousands of people (80k) and 35. It’s a recipe for a disastrous ruination to your mini vacation. Best advice is to find something where you don’t need to get on 35 to get to the track. Austin was never built for the population explosion that it has received over the last 10-12 years. They do not have the highway infrastructure. I wouldn’t even use 35 (I personally don’t) to get there. Map all potential places using COTA’s address as the destination. Look at a physical map also and see if any potential lodging has a backroad, rural highway, etc, to get to the track. Do the above and you’ll be good. If you are flying in, COTA is south of the airport. Fly in Thursday well before rush hour, get your supplies then get to the crib. Or come in well after rush hour I personally stay Sunday night as well to avoid traffic or I should say I book the place we rent until Monday at 11am. Some years I stay until Monday at checkout time and drive home. Other years I’ll wait until 10-11pm and drive home on Sunday night. Right after the races on Sunday, 35 north or 35 south, is absolute hell on Earth. If you want to fly out on Sunday, do it at 10pm or something. Plan some deal where your flight leaves at 5-7pm or something on Sunday, best of luck to you Wink

Friday/Saturday, if not using 35, you can leave the track whenever. Sunday is another matter. If my rider(s) is not on the podium, dude I’m not Usain Bolting it out of there, but I am walking real fast to a light jog to get to the truck and GTFO, and I mean as soon as they have crossed the line. I can watch the podium later online. Stick around and you’ll be punished. The first few years were fantastic down there. We rented a ranch, it was cheap and so close we’d leave after FP1/FP3, drive back to the ranch and make brunch for all of us so we wouldn’t have to eat the track food. We’d take our sweet ass time and still be back at the track an hour before the second practice session each day and deal with no traffic. Prices are high now. Cheapest will be a motel room for $100 a night. Find a place as close as you can where you won’t have to use 35. Best deal is to rent a small house and get a few of your people to go and share the cost. That’s what we do. Had none of my people committed to going I’d have booked a Best Western for $100 a night. Best of luck.



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Posts: 12557 | Location: Down South | Registered: January 16, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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The first year we went for F1, we tried a hotel on 35S around Slaughter Ln
Pulled in the parking lot & immediately canceled the reservation, definitely much different than the online photos.
Booked an AirBnB in the 'midtown'/Hyde Park area at 9pm, and found workarounds to avoid 35 completely.

The 2nd year, we booked a place in NW Austin around where I lived in college. FM2222/360 area. Used 360 to drop down to 290/71 & got to the track that way.

Traffic can get pretty heavy in the vicinity of the track, we got there super early one morning & it wasn't too bad.

Not sure on MotoGP parking, but we used Lot F both years, and had seats at Turn 10 the first year & T4 the 2nd.
It's roughly a mile from Lot F to the main gate, and another mile to the area around T4/T10.
We covered something like 26 miles, on foot, in a 3 day race weekend.




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Posts: 15133 | Location: Spring, TX | Registered: July 11, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Phillip Island has been canceled yet again.

Example #75342 why both the Australian & Chinese government sucks donkey balls...ehh I mean link to article


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GPone reported it on the 4th. Sucks. One of the three best motorcycle tracks on the planet.



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Tickets for Austin go on sale tomorrow. Unfortunately for me, plans have changed and I don't think I'll be going. I am however saving for a fly away in '23 (come on Hungary, get that track done)


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Tickets go onsale tomorrow for COTA


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Got mine today Big Grin



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Dani Pedrosa to make KTM MotoGP wildcard appearance at Austria

Can't wait to see Dani ride the bike he built.


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Throwback Tuesday: Rossi/Stoner - Laguna Seca 7/20/08





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I was in turn 3 (paddock suite, 2nd story). They’d come through there so close it looked like one bike.



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Thai GP Cancelled

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Earlier this month the Australian MotoGP round at Phillip Island was struck from the 2021 schedule, effectively replaced by a second Portimao race penned in for the November 5-7, with the calendar tweaks resulting in the Malaysian GP being moved to run one week after the Thai round as the remaining rounds on the Asian flyaway stretch.

But it has been confirmed the Thailand GP, scheduled for the October 15-17, has been cancelled for the second year in a row.

MotoGP officials have confirmed a replacement event is being assessed with an updated 2021 race calendar due to be published “as soon as possible.”

“The FIM, IRTA and Dorna Sports regret to announce the cancellation of the OR Thailand Grand Prix, which was set to take place at Chang International Circuit from the 15th to the 17th of October,” a MotoGP statement read.

“Despite the best efforts of all parties involved, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and resulting restrictions have obliged the cancellation of the event.

"The FIM MotoGP World Championship looks forward to returning to race in front of the incredibly passionate Buriram crowd in 2022.

“A replacement event is currently under consideration and any updates regarding a possible substitute will be published as soon as available.”

The Thailand GP cancellation opens up a three-week gap in the 2021 MotoGP calendar between the rescheduled United States round at the Circuit of the Americas (October 1-3) and the Malaysian round at Sepang (October 22-24).

MotoGP may look to run another double-header, having started this season with back-to-back races in Qatar, while the summer break resumes with two consecutive Austrian races at the Red Bull Ring.

The Argentinean round also remains without a new date after its initial postponement, but the South American event looks likely to be cancelled for 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

So far this year, the Finnish, Japanese and Australian MotoGP races have been officially cancelled from the 2021 calendar.




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Posts: 15133 | Location: Spring, TX | Registered: July 11, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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The governments in those areas that have been cancelled again are likely killing any chances for future contracts between Dorna and the respective tracks. Oh well.


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