13 replies to this topic

[WonderWoman61]

There's a thread like this one for drivers so surely there's been a few bad moves for riders over the years.

All I think of right now is Carl Fogarty moving from Ducati to Honda for the 1996 World Superbike Championship but I am sure there are much better examples.

Edited by WonderWoman61, 13 July 2023 - 09:57.

[WonderWoman61]

Valentino Rossi to Ducati for MotoGP 2011.....is right up there as the worst.....

[messy]

Anyone who’s gone to Repsol Honda being promised the earth, then left a year later having picked up a limp rather than any wins.

Lorenzo being the obvious example, but Pol Espargaró maybe being the most painful given how much going to Repsol clearly meant to him - I remember watching a video where they delivered a Repsol Honda bike to his home pre-season and the guy was in tears, he’d been so strong in 2020 on the KTM and his career was going places, then….oh, and Joan Mir too. Basically everyone.

Ironically the guy who actually did the best of all of them was the guy who’d lost his ride for the next year before the season even started.

Edited by messy, 13 July 2023 - 18:53.

[juicy sushi]

I think the problem is that HRC is quite a poisoned chalice due to the management, and will forever be thus until they clean house at that level.  Anyone to Ducati post-Stoner was on a hiding to nothing until the aerodynamic era really took off (though Rossi and Hayden definitely were making the wrong choice).  Noriyuki Haga to Aprilia was a bad one, but he may not have had many choices at the time due to his Yamaha experience.

[WonderWoman61]

There's probably hundreds more from years gone by. I wouldn't know where to start.

(1234 posts!)

Edited by WonderWoman61, 13 July 2023 - 20:17.

[WonderWoman61]

Anyone who joined Foggy Petronas after 2004 certainly would have been ill-timed.

[tonyed]

New bad move? Marini to HRC Honda from Ducati.

He wants a 'works ride' when in fact the chances are he'll get a 'ride that doesn't work'. 

[Robin127]

It could prove to be a shrewd move.  Honda will have to change direction in a big way and they are apparently going to get help from outside the factory for next year, which is exactly what Suzuki did and they ended up with the best bike on the grid,  With Marquez going the bike won't be tailored around one rider who at one time could correct any deficiencies that caught other riders out with his remarkable ability (and luck) to crash and still remain on two wheels.

 

Marini gets a full works ride, along with a big pay rise and could be onto something very good. He would have had some input from his brother and it is a way of getting out of his shadow. 

[tonyed]

Honda aren't going to produce a winner in less than 3 seasons, outside help or not.

Once he's left Honda he'll not get another ride on a different machine.

Two year contract, big money, retirement   

[brands77]

Alternatively they could to get hold of the Suzuki and stick Honda badges on it. At least that was capable of winning a GP.

[tonyed]

Alternatively they could to get hold of the Suzuki and stick Honda badges on it. At least that was capable of winning a GP.

       

But the Suzuki is now well out of date.

Plus the fact I hated that silly 'Pan Pipes' exhaust, mind you better than KTMs scaffold tube.

Another thing in the 'revive two strokes argument', great exhausts.

'False' strokes have no art about them. 

Randy Mamola once described the sound of an unsilenced two stroke as 'the sound of ripping calico'   

[Robin127]

 

...But the Suzuki is now well out of date...

And still better than the current Honda.

[tonyed]

Perhaps Honda could steal the Suzuki secrets from Rins and Mir like Suzuki stole the MZ technology through Degners' defection. 

Then again perhaps they tried and didn't get anyware because unlike Degener they are only riders.

[brands77]

I think you need to have degrees in Computer Science or statistics to be of any use now