Who's on Dani's helmet?

I don't feel qualified to talk about racing, but the politics and business side of MotoGP is very entertaining ;-)

If you want some Hayden - Pedrosa history, this article is a great start IMHO.

Puig: "Hayden Is A Hypocrite, And Can't Set Up A Bike" | MotoGPMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Follow the links and you'll get a pretty good story. It might be biased, but I can't read spanish fluently to get the other bias.... so I present this article.

Still no idea on who the baby is.... must not be as important as Rossi's dead bulldog that got to go on the back of his AGV.

 

Thanks nozzle!

 

Thanks nozzle, what an interesting take on the whole Hayden/Pedrosa thing. So what do you think? Is a team a team, or is a team a collection of riders vying individually and "team" is just for sponsor money?

 

I think the AMA superbike team of Spies and Maladin work like Puig thinks. The Earl's Racing Team Nicky grew up in was a different model.

The sponsors and Dorna are all in this to make money for themselves. First on Sunday, sales on Monday.

So that drives soooo much. Repsol is spanish and want a spanish World Champion associated with their product, got it.... I just don't understand why Honda would agree to some of the contract terms discussed - one way sharing of data - unless they got BIG MONEY. I would not have made that choice if it was my company.

It is interesting that some folks assume that because Nicky and Dani are on the same team, they get the same support/bikes/opportunities. I don't think that I would agree that Nicky has gotten the same level of support Dani. I do wish Nicky the best of luck in Monday's test with the GP9 bike from Ducati. I do wish I had money to buy the 1098...to support Nicky of course, not for me. :wink:

 

Not knowing the inside story any better than I do concerning how much Nicky might have known about the way the Repsol team does their business when he signed with them, its diificult to draw conclusions on their internal battles. Of course, if Nicky went in thinking one way, and things went along ok for a while (as in Nicky winning the Championship in 2006) and then Puig started changing the model, well Nicky has a beef.


As for Puig's complaint that Nicky can't set up a bike, well that might hold water if Pedrosa had been running off and hiding every race like Spies and Mladin do in AMA. Sure havent seen too much of that this year .

And Dani made a mistake, please, no one that saw that bullshit move can buy that, unless youre Pedrosa's mom or something.

My wish for you nozz: winning lottery ticket to buy that 1098 with, if it happens, dont forget your buddy vfourbear


One last thing, does anyone have some inside dirt on why Spies is going to World superbike and not MOTo GP?

 

What I read said that Spies wanted to much salary from the MotoGP teams - millions of dollars - and that was out of the ballpark for any rider in the paddock except Rossi. The MotoGP money is in the other endorsements they say, not the rider's contract.

Since MotoGP is marketed by a Spanish company, and is much much more popular in Europe, a team or sponsor would need to have Ben connect with their market, something he may not have done as well as he did just riding the bike.

I think he was asking for too much money, and then the MotoGP teams started negotiating with other folks and he got froze out.

I have not read many posts that claimed he couldn't do well on a MotoGP machine, so I figure it is about the money.