Well wasn't this week in Moto GP interesting?
And sad.

I have never seen such a complete melt down from such a champion.
Right from Rossi's amazing outburst and attack on Marquez in Thursdays press interview to the cowardly Sepang race incident.
It unfortunately showed a guy all of a sudden unsure of himself after years of supreme self confidence and looking for any excuse rather than looking at himself in the mirror for the answer.

What exactly did Rossi expect on the track from Marquez after those ridiculous, childish and false accusations?
Free passage?
And the arrogance of expecting Marquez to stand aside and not fight for the best possible race result for HRC to allow the championship contenders to battle undisturbed?
Valentino, if you are not good enough to pass and gap a fellow Moto GP rider, who's fault is that?

Well, to the back of the starting grid for you in the last race of the season VR46 and deservedly so.
Just be thankful you weren't black flagged like most other riders in the race probably would have been for doing less.

A legend tarnished and many fans lost including myself.
Very disappointing...

* Last updated by: yannih on 10/26/2015 @ 3:24 AM *

Dirty dive, intentional, leg bumped his arm and Marc locked the front end. Brilliant tactic, but this is not rollerball. Rossi starts from the back... Jorge has to DNF for Rossi to win. You're right... what does the fan-base think of this? Not too many like Marquez being a dominating winner, so probably not too much repercussion on that.

* Last updated by: Hub on 10/25/2015 @ 9:41 AM *

Rossi's fan base doesn't seem to give a shit, like most things in this country, people don't seem to want to know the truth ....

I don't care how good a rider rossi is (or was) but as a person, he is a piece of shit, F him, they should ban him for the last race ...

wonder what he was thinking,guess road rage has no boundaries

* Last updated by: darryle on 10/25/2015 @ 5:12 PM *

Check out the video.

Rossi Marquez Slow Motion

It shows all that needs to be seen.
Rossi goes wide, Marquez's helmet makes contact with the Italians knee slider, Rossi sees red and in a spare of the moment decision kicks out either hitting the Honda's handle bar or brake lever.
It is as clear as day. Watch the leg movement and the force involved plus the reaction of the Honda and its front wheel.

As Rossi rides off he looks back twice as he knows he has made a huge error of judgement.
When he rides into the third place bike podium after the race his reaction say it all. Very subdued and un-Rossi like because he knows whats coming.
Then he finds out there are no 100% clear camera shots of his act and the lies start.

As per usual, race direction then gives a penalty relative to the rider and not the offence.
Imagine if a lesser known rider did that? Black flags everywhere!

It will be a travesty if VR46 wins the 2015 World Championship...

What an absolutely disgraceful act.

* Last updated by: yannih on 10/26/2015 @ 3:54 AM *

Didn't take long for that video to get blocked.

First off, Rossi did not "kick at " Marquez. It looked to me like Marquez hit the gas and ducked his head and it hit Rossis leg. Rossi pushed off with his knee. I guess it hit Marquez arm and he hit the brakes locking the front. Now I admit, it was supremely stupid for Rossi to run Mark wide, but I guess he already thought Mark was fucking with him after Phillip Island. After all, all weekend Marquez could run Dani's pace, why suddenly does he drop back and dice with Rossi? And at one point Rossi signalled for him to fall in line and they could have worked together to catch Borenzo. So, if Marquez was clearly faster, he should have passed Rossi and Rossi would have gladly followed him to try to catch the leaders. Or if Rossi was faster Mark should have let Rossi try to catch them, save the dicing for the end of the race. Either way, there is an unwritten rule. If you are not in the title chase you don't fuck with the riders that are. it's just good manners. I think where Rossi really screwed up was attacking Marquez at the Thursday press conference. Who knows what kind of motivation that gave Mark? I heard that Rossi is paying Bautista to take Borenzo out at Valencia....

Mad

And one more thing. What's with Borenzo? After whining about how Rossi gets special treatment he continuously complains about riders following him on qualifying laps. Boo hoo. Lin Jarvis should have told Borenzo to keep his mouth shut. After all, Rossi is his teammate, and Jorge threw him under the bus worse than the Honda pair.

Mad

I was watching it live, rossi sure as hell did kick out at Marquez, I saw several replays live, these other
videos are not going to show it like it was live, the announcers even figured it out eventually,
I don't care what rider anyone likes, right is right, and wrong is wrong and rossi crossed the line

Marquez even said so, he was there, we were not, unless you thing marquez just made up a story
suddenly that rossi kicked out at him, its not hard to fiqure out which person is being honest
and which one is not ..

Again, I will say like most things in this country, people don't seem to want to know the truth ....

If Marquez did this to rossi, I would call marquez a POS too, but see, it doesn't work like that
for some people ... I hear all kind of rossi fanboys trying to justify his actions ...

I remember Marquez did something to Lorenzo a couple of years ago, not on purpose, but right after the
race, he went and apologized to Lorenzo .....

GO TO ABOUT 25 SECONDS IN THIS VIDEO, ITS VERY CLEAR WHAT ROSSI DID :

GO to Video Here !!!!

* Last updated by: carabuser on 10/27/2015 @ 10:45 AM *

Thursday's comment, the headgame Rossi played on himself did him in. Rossi was making this personal. Instead of getting his head down, focus, the focus was on Marc. Do you understand a racing situation is to run your own race, do not break concentration, no... look back twice, slow down, bump'n'run. That told me where Rossi's head was at. 9 times, you just can't think like that and blow the championship(s).

Now the crybaby wants to sit out the race, has no clue the odds of Jorge being taken out by someone, tire problem, fuse on the engine, let alone the contracts signed to show up for every race... boy needs to grow up.

Agree 100% Hub !!!

Seems to me that's the third time this year rossi has done that to MM.

I think you are right jimmy, I know of at least one other time that rossi took out
MM on purpose, fan boys don't want to believe it, or don't care, I won't enable
any rider that does crap like this, no matter how much I like them ...

It is bewildering for anyone to say Marquez has been fucking with Rossi.

Marquez's aggressive passion to win is there for all to see.
One might say just like the attitude of win no matter what that made Rossi one of the greats.

Marquez won in Australia so that can instantly be ruled out as any assistance to Lorenzo or holdup to Rossi.
In Sepang, the passion was always going to go up a notch after Rossi's comments on the Thursday.
To say Marquez let Lorenzo through to screw with Rossi is ludicrous.
Then the hard but fair battle started. And Rossi's words understandably bought out another level in Marquez.
Very simply, Rossi was not good enough to overtake and pull away. So he reverted to dirty tactics.
End of story.
And that right there is the answer to Valentino's Rossi's predicament.
No longer the best on the track!
It is something the Italian is not use to and hence the reason for some very poor decision making under pressure.

Its obvious to all that have watched the last 3 years of Moto GP that Marquez is faster but more on the edge and Rossi is not quite as quick but a model of consistency.
As racer, sometimes consistency will only get you so far.

Also notice how Rossi did not fall in line behind Marquez to stop dicing and losing time and let the race flow?
No, Rossi just had to be in front.
Marquez was riding extremely hard to keep Rossi behind so the pace with 46 behind would not have been an issue.

But Rossi's pride got in the way.

That right there has been the real story for the last two weeks...

* Last updated by: yannih on 10/26/2015 @ 6:23 PM *

A little more than a rub, I would say.

dirty. I can see Marquez changing his line to avoid bumping Rossi and then he gets his bike kicked out from under him. It was a "crash or win" pass so Rossi thought a crash would look like an accident.

Did this happen near the end of the race?

I have only seen two full MGP races but one in Qatar, Rossi started somewhere in the middle. He still won the race so I'm not sure putting him at the back will make much difference.

* Last updated by: Rook on 10/26/2015 @ 6:43 PM *

G'day Rookster,
You need the super slow motion version that shows it all perfectly.

A blatant white line fever spare of the moment kick...

When its normal speed or slowed slightly it all happens too fast to see.
The clip I had above was perfect but Dorna took it down.
You make your own decisions as to why.

I know I've posted a bit on this thread but obviously I'm pretty passionate about what happened.
I really hate how there are one set of rules for people who are particularly good at something and another for the rest.

I don't know what video some of you guys are watching but there was no "kick". There was contact between Marquez' arm or head and Rossi's knee which he pushed out to fend off that contact. Who knows what the motivations of either rider were? Either way it's a pretty fucked up way to end the season. Assuming Rossi doesn't retire, next season could be epic. Rossi hates Marquez, Marquez hates Rossi, Borenzo hates Rossi, Rossi hates Borenzo, Borenzo hates Marquez, Marquez doesn't know who this "Borenzo" guy is. Dani manages to stay fast.....Stoner comes back to take whining to a whole new level....

Mad

There was a kick. I watched it over and over again. Might have even kicked the shift lever. There was no camera between the bikes to see exactly what happened, but a kick did happen.

https://motomatters.com/analysis/2015/10/27/2015_sepang_motogp_round_up_heroes_who_h.html

GO TO ABOUT 25 SECONDS IN THIS VIDEO, ITS VERY CLEAR WHAT ROSSI DID :

GO to Video Here !!!!

Jimmy, this is what I heard :

"Márquez believes Rossi kicked his handlebars, or at least deliberately took his foot off the pegs and nudged his bar and brake lever."

https://motomatters.com/analysis/2015/10/27/2015_sepang_motogp_round_up_heroes_who_h.html

An excellent post by Hub. Everyone should read it.

Mad

Very well thought out and balanced article.
However it is human nature that all that read it will have their own opinions.
Me?
I pretty much agree with most of the authors points except I simply cannot get my head around how Marquez or any other rider competing at the highest level is expected to not race to his full ability and step aside while others fighting for a championship can do so?
It goes against the mindset of every champion at the top of their game in any sport.
Marc Marquez go out there and not give absolutely everything like he has done in every race previously?
Unthinkable.

So why not then have two Moto GP races? One for championship contenders so they are nicely wrapped in cotton wool and nothing can get in the way of their battles, and then one for the rest?
Crazy.

If Rossi and Marquez had even the slightest mindset of not being desperate to win every time they set foot onto a race track no matter who the competition or what the situation is, they would not be the champions they are.

An absolute mystery to me...

* Last updated by: yannih on 10/27/2015 @ 11:25 AM *

Regardless of what good points the article has, there is no place for this in
Moto GP, this is the pinnacle of M/C racing, riders should not be staring down
other riders, and constantly trash talking for weeks, and then kicking out at
them on the track, this isn't some low level local dirt track for crying out loud ...

The only thing I can think of, is Rossi knows he is not as good as he use to be, just look
at all the third place (and worse) finishes last year (didn't look up this years)
and he has an ego, always has, he seems to think that marquez should favor him over
other riders, and granted, marquez is a bit wild at times, but I don't thing he would
ever pull the stuff that rossi has, time will tell, marquez is young and admits to that
and even apologizes to other riders when he messes up, rossi ? well I think his
character (or lack there of) speaks for itself, he really has been acting like a little
bitch lately, just my opinion, I will stop now ....

ride safe all ....

Okay...so this bike is closing fast...right on him.MM's of clearance.Both leaned in.Turn and pavement at ?speeds?.Rossi pushed a bit(with his knee) to stop that contact..for safety's sake...both riders.That's all I see.He looked back to see if M crashed...that's all.Nothing malicious that I can see there.

Here's a thought.Marquez is thinking.."yer azz is mine"...He can't commit to full run around Rossi at this point in the turn.He does the next best thing...he squeezes.Seeing that that's not gonna work...he gets a moment of 'oh shit' goin on inside his head...then he thinks.."If I can't make it,you aint gonna make it either"...the knee push startles him,so he applies front brake(to slow slightly and line up for a pass when it comes up..To his undoing.I don't see Rossi's knee contacting the right handlebar there at all.If it did,it definitely wasn't intentional.Think about it.
He's focused on making that turn and all...not.."If I push out here I'll force his front brake to apply".

* Last updated by: Grn14 on 10/27/2015 @ 2:09 PM *