What just happened was a powerplay. A typical MotoGP powerplay. And there\u2019s a few things going on here which may not be immediately obvious.<\/p>\n
Firstly, this is still all about winning world championships. And to do that, you need to beat Marquez. That\u2019s the elephant in the room. Not Honda. Marquez. Because without Marquez, Honda has nothing. There is no depth to either the factory team or the satellite team. It\u2019s all Marquez. Not his brother, not Crutchlow, and not Nakagami.<\/p>\n
The other teams know Marquez\u2019s success in 2020 hinges entirely on his shoulders being up to the task. I understand things are not going as well as they could be after his last operation. One awkward get-off and that\u2019s Honda down the toilet. I\u2019m willing to bet all the teams are banking on this exact thing happening.<\/p>\n
Secondly, the conversation between Yamaha and Rossi may well have gone like this:<\/p>\n
Yamaha<\/strong>: \u201cOK, Vale, look, we have to fuck Ducati in the arse. Bologna wants Fabulous, and we do not want Bologna to have Fabulous. They are doomed without someone like Fabulous because Dovi and Petrucci will never win a title. Neither will Miller and Bagnaia, but they will probably do better than the other two. What you wanna do?\u201d<\/p>\n Vale<\/strong>: \u201cHow about you wheel my bike over to Petronas and put new fairings on it. And we will continue as before. Full factory bike with a different fairing. I don\u2019t know how much longer I want to do this, but I understand how the game is played in terms of the future and riders and contracts and fucking Ducati.\u201d<\/p>\n Yamaha<\/strong>: \u201cWe were kinda hoping you\u2019d see it like that. We didn\u2019t want you to lose face.\u201d<\/p>\n Rossi<\/strong>: \u201cI am The Doctor. My face is too big to lose. I could be out there on a Royal Enfield and people will still come to see me. And you\u2019re only signing the kid for a year. A lot can happen in one year.\u201d<\/p>\n Yamaha: \u201cYou OK with Maverick staying on for a bit? We don\u2019t want him to go to Ducati or Suzuki.\u201d<\/p>\n Rossi<\/strong>: \u201cSure. No problem. I prefer to have Morbidelli as a team-mate. He is a good boy. Oh, and tell George to make sure he doesn\u2019t fuck about with the testing too much. He knows what I like.\u201d<\/p>\n Yamaha<\/strong>: \u201cYou good with all this Fabulous?\u201d<\/p>\n Fabulous<\/strong>: \u201cI have shit myself with happiness. I don\u2019t care. I just wanna race bikes, play video games, smash Instagram, and maybe get some fine-looking pussy like the Criminal Redding.\u201d<\/p>\n Yamaha<\/strong>: \u201cGood boy. Maverick?\u201d<\/p>\n Maverick<\/strong>: \u201cIs he being paid more than me?\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, I have no idea what really transpired between the players. No-one except the players know.<\/p>\n What this shuffle means for the 2020 season is obvious. Stability and predictability for Yamaha.<\/p>\n What this means in 2021 is anyone\u2019s guess. But there are a lot of races between now and then.<\/p>\n And they\u2019re all going to be fabulo\u2026erm, wonderful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What just happened was a powerplay. A typical MotoGP powerplay. And there\u2019s a few things going on here which may not be immediately obvious. Firstly, this is still all about winning world championships. And to do that, you need to beat Marquez. That\u2019s the elephant in the room. Not Honda. Marquez. Because without Marquez, Honda [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1494512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[100,24,85,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1494511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1494514,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494511\/revisions\/1494514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1494512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1494511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1494511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1494511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}