Kyle wrote:
> guig wrote:
> > Methinks he can ride well enough, you can't ask any more of him that he
> > gets on his bike, goes head to head with the best riders there and wins
> > 8 GPs so far, much better performance than the previous one who fluked
> > 50% of his GP wins last year and tootled around in 3rd or 4th without
> > getting involved at the shapr end.
>
> OK, so about the reference to Hayden's 2006 performance... Yes, the
> face that he won the championship with only 2 wins durring the season,
> and only 3 career wins, does say something. I'm a Hayden fan, but I'm
> not going to call him the best ever or something like that. But you
> have to say, in a points-based championship consistancy wins. and he
> was definently the most consistant last year! I don't think I can
> remember one crash or DNF other than the Pedrosa incident.
>
> And as far as Hayden sitting back in 3rd or 4th and not getting
> involved at the "sharper end"... Remember that he had those recurring
> clutch problems all last year. Together with his riding style not
> being the smoothest and easiest on the tires, He was probably doing an
> AMAZING job to finish on the podium or in the top 5 almost every race
> last year!!
I think you bring up a good point about consistency and not crashing.
here's a clip from Soup by Spies on that subject this year:
"This year I hit the ground the most I ever crashed in a year, and
that was just the fact that I was having to ride to my absolute limit
every time I got on the bike. Mat and I pushed each other farther than
we'd ever been before. There were so many times I was in the red zone
riding ... it was unreal. Pretty much every race, every lap of every
race. That's just how it was.
"I didn't really change my riding style this year. It was more that I
had to learn to ride at a pace so high the whole race. That's hard to
do. I just had to ride hard. Last year, wherever you qualified, we'd
race about half a second off that. This year, we were just drilling it
every lap. You couldn't worry about conserving tires this year. It was
just all out. I just had to ride my ass off, completely, the whole
race, and fight through little things during the race and try to come
back after mistakes and crashes in practice. Having to ride hard is
all there was to it.
"It's tough when everybody says, "Oh, the Suzuki's such a great
motorcycle." The Suzuki is a great motorcycle, but if you look at all
the other Superbike series in the world, ours is the only Suzuki that
completely dominates. I think it's the team and it's the riders. If
you watch Mat and me in practice, the bike is always wobbling,
shaking, backing in, sliding, doing something. And when you look at
other bikes, they're not necessarily doing that all the time."
I think how hard someone contending for a championship has to ride
comes down to their equipment and what their sutuation is in the
points, and crashing is an indicator of that. Last year Hayden was
really still in a development phase on his bike when he found himself
with a solid championship lead, and then he wasn't going to go too far
out on a limb in races and jeopardize that lead, plus he's just not a
guy who's going to push so hard to risk crashing on a regular basis
(more of a Lawson type than a Schwantz type). He really only made two
notable mistakes all last year, running off track at Donington when he
was pushing toward the front on a bike set up poorly because he'd
tried that new chassis on Friday, and at Assen trying to win that race
in the last corner. And he was pushing very hard at Estoril and
Valencia when he had to, but in both cases that only lasted about five
laps because of circumstances outside his control.
Regarding Stoner, I think his lack of crashes and consistent good
results reflects his equipment more than anything, although I'm sure
he's matured and learned from what happened last year. Last year he
was down on equipment, probably more tires than bike, but also had a
less-experienced team in MotoGP that likely knew the bike less well.
So he had to push harder to stay in contact, and crashed a lot. This
year he hasn't had to push nearly that hard, so hasn't really made
any mistakes. But I don't see a guy who crashed out of the last three
races last year suddenly becoming a whole different rider in less than
six months. It's gotta be the tires, Mike.
So both Hayden and Stoner won championships largely based on mistake-
free consistency; obviously they both have talent and desire beyond
that. That Stoner won his earlier and with more wins is largely based
on him being on relatively better equipment. Had Hayden been on
Stoner's bike this year, he might well have been just as dominant, or
maybe not if it didn't fit his style as well, which Capirossi's
experience suggests. If Stoner was on Hayden's bike and tires of last
year (and he almost was last year), he probably would be crashing more
and making other mistakes, and therefore probably wouldn't be winning
the championship. At least that's my opinion.
>> Stay informed about: So can Casey ride yet? 
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