HRC has announced that they will not be renewing Mick Doohan's contract as General Manager for Racing for 2005, ending a fifteen year relationship. Very curious. In the same press release HRC also stated that Jeremy Burgess would always be welcomed back at HRC should he decide to come back. This statement reveals the continuing contempt that Honda has for riders as well as still being clueless about why Rossi left and brought JB and crew with him. Shall Doohan follow Rossi and the crew? The coming MotoGP season is looking to be even more interesting than last years; I can't wait for Laguna Seca.

Original Post by (glenkelly)

 

Rossi is going to own everyone this coming season. Biaggi is going to be a contender as well as Gibernau. Hayden needs to get his **** together and make the podium more than a couple of times. Hayden has two more years with Repsol but if he doesn't do anything substantial this year and next he will be picked up by another team. I would like to see him ride for the Proton team just to build up the name and team.

 

You may very well be right "QuikSilver", I think Honda just doesn't have a guy to take charge, too many Honda riders too focused on becoming Honda's #1 guy instead of racing and putting the RC211 in front.

I think the biggest threat to Rossi this year will be "Capirossi" that's if tests from Sepang is a sign of things to come in 05' season.
Capirossi has set the fastest times through out the 3 day testing.

Here are the times from the 3 day MotoGP testing at Sepang

Unofficial lap times:

Loris Capirossi (Ducati): 2’00.54
Sete Gibernau (Honda): 2’01.325 (61)
Valentino Rossi (Yamaha): 2’01.36 (45)
Nicky Hayden (Honda): 2’01.68 (99)
Alex Barros (Honda): 2’01.90 (10)
Max Biaggi (Honda): 2’01.91 (83)
Colin Edwards (Yamaha): 2'01.93 (43)
Marco Melandri (Honda): 2’02.1 (66)
Troy Bayliss (Honda): 2’02.69 (67)
Shinya Nakano (Kawasaki): 2’02.7 (34)
Toni Elías (Yamaha); 2’02.80 (51)
Makoto Tamada (Honda): 2’02.8 (73)
Alex Hofmann (Kawasaki): 2’03.7 (48)
Rubén Xaus (Yamaha): 2’04.00 (52)







Sete Gibernau reacted to the news that HRC plan to focus mainly on Max Biaggi this season by posting the second fastest time of the first preseason test at Sepang and blaming his poor result in the Grand Prix there last year on the ‘confusion’ at Honda at the time.

Gibernau has finished runner-up in the MotoGP World Championship to Valentino Rossi for the past two seasons and is hopeful the Japanese factory will respond to his feedback in Malaysia with a 2005-spec RC211V tailored to his needs.

You can't expect your riders to be fully prepared and competetive when competition starts in their own garage, before it even reaches the race track, in situation like that I am sure certain crew members are favoring one rider more than other and so on, that just creates too much distraction amongs riders and crew within same team, in other words there is a war within Honda team and that can't be good for morale of the entire team and the riders. Personally Gibrenau would be my go-to guy as Biaggi does most of his competing with his mouth lately and he is not a strong mentally rider when under significant pressure, don't ask me why but Honda seems to be involving more politics in to the whole deal (Which is not unusual in the world of motorsports) and as a result Biaggi seems to be the guy for them this year.

Anyway, let me know what ya think?[&:]

 

Hey guys,
I'm having to move this to the off-topic boards as well since this isn't specifically related to the 1000RR. However I just sent the admin a message and asked them to create a specific road racing board for all AMA, Motogp, or individual racing talk. Once thats up i'll move all these posts there. In the mean time till that board is up, please use the off-topic board.

 

Cool man, do what ya gotta do, we'll follow along

Yes MotoGP Board would be nice.



[IMG]local://upfiles/423/2F3C69C2BB514DB3A617D0B407A8D5AB.jpg[/IMG]

 

good luck![8D]