Over the shoulder glances always look nefarious when the other rider is down

Regardless of who ultimately wins the championship, the 2015 MotoGP season will go down as one of the greatest championship seasons ever, although it will forever have an asterisk next to it. Technically the outcome will still be decided on the track, though many intially felt Race Direction’s decision effectively gifted the title to Lorenzo in Malaysia. However, just as the momentum any rider could gather during the season would quickly be reversed, the start-at-the-back penalty imposed by Race Direction following “the incident” now looks like it will be nullified by the appeal to CAS.

The off-track drama began at Thursday’s press conference. There’s been all sorts of speculation as far as where Rossi was coming from with his statements. Many people just found them bizarre. Was Valentino a closet conspiracy theorist? Or was this just the latest, and certainly most brazen, example of Rossi’s legendary “mind games.” But what did he hope to accomplish with them? Was he trying to seed the idea in Jorge’s head that the only reason for his recent victories was down to Marquez sandbagging? That didn’t make sense, Marquez put in the last lap of last laps at Phillip Island to run Jorge down and snatch the win. Did Rossi genuinely believe the allegations he was making? And if so, what effect did he think they would have on Marquez? Wouldn’t this “viscious personal attack,” as many announcers labelled it, only antagonize Marquez further? I don’t think anyone truly knew what to make of Rossi’s charges. We were all certain they had to be part of some pyshcological warfare plan of Rossi’s, relentlessly working to gain an advantage, on track or off, we just couldn’t imagine exactly how they would yield any advantage. It didn’t dawn on anyone that we should simply take Rossi’s words at face value, there were no mind games here, that he was simply speaking the truth, and that this was coming, in a sense, from a position of weakness (more on that below). But perhaps we should have known . Iannone gave us the hint. The other riders were asked what they thought of the notion that Marquez was sandbagging. Iannone clearly said he thought Marquez was playing with them. Of course, Andrea is Italian and Valentino’s good friend. Everyone seemed to focus on Lorenzo’s sarcastic comment that Marquez really helped him on the last lap, and this was seen by many as evidence contrary to Rossi’s assertion that Marquez wanted to help Lorenzo.

One problem with this is that it’s simply verboten to acknowledge that the race was not “on the up and up,” that one of the riders was “in the tank.” Certainly no one was open to that possibility at Phillip Island, where the racing was on the edge of your seat thrilling. But even in Malaysia no one really wanted to acknowledge the obvious, despite the fact that no shortage of ex-racers plainly stated the obvious. This is why we kept hearing about how Valentino’s comments on Thursday would enrage Marquez, or Nick Harris telling us in real time during the race that Marquez’ obvious efforts to simply harass Rossi, slow him up, and possibly cause some Argentina-like incident to happen were simply Marquez racing hard, not wanting to relinquish the position, because of Rossi’s “vicious personal attacks” on Thursday. Horseshit. Marquez was obviously sandbagging. Rossi had no choice but to go public. In Phillip Island I don’t think you could see it unless you were right there on the bike, like Iannone. If Rossi doesn’t go public Marquez is free to do it again, and all of us watching will simply think it’s close, hard racing (although in Malaysia it was much more egregious and obvious). The fact is, if someone on track is faster than you, marginally or more, there isn’t a lot you can do to prevent them doing something like what Marquez did. This is the position of weakness I was referring to. Quite often this year Marquez has clearly been faster than Valentino. Rossi knows that at many tracks he simply won’t have the pace of Marquez and the Honda. Rossi figured making it public would mean Marquez would then have to be on his best behavior, so to speak, there would be a closer examination whenever the two would tangle on track. What Rossi didn’t figure was that Marquez is a spoiled little brat, who’s never been told, “No, you can’t do that.”

It’s a shame that Rossi happened to phrase it as Marquez looking to help Lorenzo. Why would Marquez want to help Jorge? It seems clear now that it was more about denying Rossi, and helping Lorenzo was just the byproduct of that. Marquez generally wasn’t seen as having set off on his balls to the wall final lap at Phillip Island once he was satisfied he had scuttled any attmepts for Rossi to do battle with Lorenzo, but now it seems plausible that this was indeed what happened. People naturally focused on the Spanish Italian rivalry, but I don’t think it has anything to do with nationalism. I went to Misano this year, and yes, I was on Italian soil, but when you’re inside the grandstands, the Rossi booths selling swag have a throng of people lined up waiting to buy stuff. The Marquez and Lorenzo booths have maybe a quarter of the traffic, maybe. In the grandstands it’s a sea of yellow, with a tiny sliver of 93 red. When Jorge crashed out the crowd went bonkers cheering. Malaysia, same thing. Jorge turned it off to coast in to parc ferme after QP only to be escorted away and had to duck paddle down pit lane. The crowd loved it, cheering and jeering him. He was boo’ed mercilessly on the rostrum after the race in Malaysia. Did you see his face when they started boo’ing him? It was that same closed lip, toothless grin, face of defiance we now see regularly, nodding his head repeatedly, as if to say, “Yeah, go on, boo me, we’ll see what happens….” The shadow of Valentino Rossi looms over MotoGP larger than maybe even all others before him combined, and now that he’s in the twilight of his career there’s a growing concern in many places over how large of a hole will be left once he retires.

I think Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo absolutely believe they’re faster than Valentino. And most of the time they are. I think they view themselves as the “new breed,” that they’ve eclipsed Rossi on the racetrack — they’re faster, they brought in the new elbow dragging riding style that even Rossi has tried to adopt but can’t fully emulate. They’ve each won two titles, and Rossi hasn’t won anything in that time. I think they believe they’ve legitimately taken over the crown. This is why Lorenzo talks the way he does, that’s he’s faster, that Rossi only beats him because of weather and luck. And yet, most tracks they go to, Valentino Rossi is still the overwhelming fan favorite. He gets all the press, he’s on the podium even when he’s not on the podium, he’s larger than life, a living legend. They make movies and write books about him. He gets invited to test drive Ferrari F1 cars. When Brad Pitt, or Niki Lauda, or Lewis Hamilton come to a MotoGP race the photos plastered all over the press are with Rossi. Lorenzo only gets a photo with Brad because he’s in the same garage, Marquez none.

And I think the two of them have just had it, each for different reasons. Lorenzo has completely laid bare his emotions and ambitions this season. He’s now openly hostile and defensive with reporters. He’s throwing temper tantrums outside Race Direction and calling for his teammate and rival to be DQ’ed, to be gifted the title off the track. It is a rare thing for a professional sports figure to just completely show their ass like that, but this has been building for quite some time with Lorenzo. The story of the bad blood created once Lorenzo came into the Factory Yamaha team and the famed wall in the garage was erected is well known. Lorenzo won the title in 2010, Rossi took his ball and went home, so to speak, and then Jorge followed it up with another title in 2012. In 2013 Rossi came back to Yamaha with his tail between his legs, and it was clear immediately that Lorenzo was the faster rider and team number one. Unfortunately for Jorge, that was also Marc Marquez’ entrance into MotoGP. Cal Crutchlow may be able to claim that he knew what Marquez would do, but I don’t think anyone else really believed a rookie, even Marc Marquez, would do as well as he did, certainly if they gave odds on him winning the championship they would not have been great. But he did, and I don’t think Lorenzo has ever really recovered from this, in his personality I mean. Lorenzo envisioned himself as the heir to the throne.

Rossi really created the modern, overdone victory celebration in MotoGP, complete with costumes, stage props….a full on broadway production. By the time Lorenzo came into MotoGP, Rossi was already a legend, he had transcended the sport, and become a figure known worldwide by people who could not even be called casual fans. Lorenzo made a valiant attempt at his own victory celebrations, but somehow, I think on some level, they’re not really his own, I think on some level they’re seen as a kind of apeing of what Rossi had done before him. There have been other attempts as well, to build the Lorenzo brand, to create….something. Pimping his website or Twitter handle on the pre-grid, the “Mantequila y Martillo” nicks, the black mamba thing….Marketing, branding, whatever you want to call it, I think its all part of a delibrate effort to try to turn himself into a personality, a figure in the sport, rather than just another rider. But it all seems forced, where it never was for Valentino. It seemed to just come natural for Rossi. And I think as much as he’s tried, Jorge Lorenzo has never really been able to turn himself into a personality, and I think he knows that, and it’s a source of frustration on some level, if for no other reason than even though most people regard him as clearly faster than Rossi on more days than not, Valentino Rossi is still right there, looming larger than life.

Lorenzo’s attempts to become the next Rossi have always seemed to fall flat

Marc Marquez won 2 titles, the most recent two, and is still dwarfed in popularity by Rossi. He was gracious to Rossi only as long as he was able to easily beat him, in 2013 and most of 2014. Once Rossi had come back to full strength, with Galbusera in the team, having altered his riding style, and with a more competitive, seamlessly geared Yamaha, at that point whatever deference we thought Marquez afforded his childhood hero vanished. Marquez was just as willing to shove a front tire into Rossi’s leg as anyone else, as he did in Argentina and Assen. There’s an important comparison to make there, which is the difference in response from the two riders when they weren’t beating the other. When Marquez has lost to Rossi, he’s either refused to accept defeat and crashed out trying to keep up, or he’s rammed his bike into the side of Rossi. When Lorenzo loses he’s sullen and offers endless excuses. Yet even in defeat Rossi’s still playful and charismatic, taking it in stride. I would venture to say this personality characteristic is part of why fans are so drawn to Rossi.

The thought of Rossi winning the title this year is just too much for either Jorge or Marquez to take. They don’t view him as a legitimate champion, worthy of the title. Which is really too bad, because this year Rossi’s taught them — taught us all — the last lesson there is to learn, how to win when you’re not the fastest. If Rossi does win it this year, it will probably go down as the greatest championship season in the modern era. I’m not sure what he’s done this year is fully appreciated by most people yet (and hopefully Malaysia doesn’t detract from that). He’ll have beaten not one, but two other riders at the top of their game, two of the fastest guys that have ever ridden a motorcycle. It’s absolutely astonishing that he’s doing it at 36, and after a few years in the wilderness when he seemed so clearly on the way out.

The problem is neither Lorenzo nor Marquez can recognize much less appreciate what they’re witnessing. Lorenzo’s already been usurped by Marquez. That was bad enough. The thought of now losing another title to an elderly Valentino Rossi he simply cannot countenance. Marc Marquez is simply a spoiled brat who’s never been told, “No, you can’t do that.” This is why, after convincing himself that somehow Rossi was to blame for Argentina and Assen, he thinks it’s perfectly okay to sabotage Valentino’s race in Malaysia, and perhaps in Phillip Island as well. Certainly Emilio Alzamora has never sat Marquez down and admonished him you can’t crash into the side of other riders and take them out. But Marc Marquez is a 22 year old kid, thrust onto a world stage. It’s difficult to lay too much blame at his feet. You really have to look toward Alzamora and his father when this kind of behavior appears.

Rossi has stated last week that Alzamora told him Marquez blames him for losing the championship this year. If that’s true, I really wonder what Emilio’s response to that was. It seems pretty obvious that a 2015 RCV with corner entry problems during the first half of the season and DNFs throughout the entire season are what cost Marquez any hopes at the title. But Argentina was only one of his DNF’s, and at Assen he took home 20 points. The real killers for his championship hopes were the DNFs at Silverstone and Aragon. So now that Marquez is eliminated from the points chase, I think he figured it was a great opportunity to show everyone that he’s clearly faster than Rossi, and especially after Argentina and Assen, he needs to “win a showdown” with Rossi, so he was trying to make one happen. That seems clear to me that he was trying to make that happen. There were a couple of passes in this last race where it seemed pretty deliberate to me that he was trying to make something happen just like Argentina. Great example was at 25:44 of the full race video, where Marquez hangs in on the outside of the left hander, so for the immediate right hander next, he’s got the inside line, and he actually kept it very close to Rossi there, a good 6 feet off the curbing, before he yanked it back right. Vale was very close to being clipped there, exactly like Argentina, only from the opposite side.

I watched the whole Marc Marquez press conference, it’s a shame no one asked him, “Marc, at any time when you were having this battle with Valentino, did the thought ever cross your mind that, even if you think you’re faster and you could go with Jorge, did you ever have the thought that maybe, since I’m out of the points battle, that I should give Vale the chance to race with Jorge, just tuck in between him at least for a few laps and not try to pass?” I think his answer might have been very revealing.

I’d also like to know what Santi Hernandez was wagging his finger at Alzamora for. I think they know inside Marquez’ team what he was doing, they just couldn’t stop him before this happened. You know, it’s like these NBA guys, they’re coddled from an early age, no one ever tells them no, and so they get to the NBA as grown men, but they’re just spoiled children. I think no one has ever had a “come to Jesus” talk with Marc Marquez. So he’s a spoiled brat and it’s not even in his consciousness that etiquette is to make every effort to let Vale and Jorge fight it out themselves. I think he sees Vale about to win the championship even though he’s clearly not the fastest guy in MotoGP, and after a season where Vale somehow managed to get the better of him in two different showdowns, and he wasn’t gonna just let Rossi finish out the year like that.

What, pray tell, was this “discussion” about?

I will be amazed if the penalty stands and Rossi is indeed made to start from the back. It should be a no-brainer for Race Direction or Dorna or whoever to pull these two teams into a room, look at data traces, and understand that Marquez was sandbagging. It’s clear what Marquez has done here, and clear the punishment does not fit the crime.

It’s a shame the Thursday press conference was canceled. That would have been positively electric! But it’s understandable why Dorna would not be keen to put these three guys in a room and let journalists ask whatever they wanted. That would probably have gotten ugly very quickly. No matter though. All that matters is that currently it looks to be the case that we’ll get the season finale we’re all itching for. The appeal to CAS will probably result in a stay of the 3 point penalty until review next year. Now all that remains to be seen is whether Vito Ippolito, Carmelo Expeleta, or anyone at the Permanent Bureau or inside the Marquez camp can see that we get an honest, clean race out of him.