Though the horse trading amongst teams and riders is generally referred to as Silly Season, it tends to make far more sense to view this year’s rider market place as a giant game of musical chairs.
The music has just started playing, and all the riders are up and circling the bikes accessible for 2017, with all eyes up at the factory finish of pit lane. In contrast to musical chairs, nonetheless, it is not a query of absolutely everyone rushing for open seats when the music stops. Instead, the riders slot into garages a single by one, as contracts are settled.
Therefore it tends to make sense not just to look at this year’s contract merry-go-round not just from the point of view of the riders, but also from the perspective of the teams and factories.
Searching at the strengths and weaknesses of each and every factory can offer some insight into not just which riders the factory may possibly sign, but what their existing riders will be looking for in a new contract.
Yamaha’s Embarrassment of Riches
With arguably both the ideal bike on the grid and the strongest rider line up, the Movistar Yamaha group will be the axis around which all of Silly Season will revolve.
Who they sign and what their riders choose to do for 2017 and beyond will dictate significantly of the rest of the rider marketplace. A vacancy at Movistar Yamaha would be the most desirable seat obtainable, and Yamaha could take their choose. The question is, will there be a vacancy?
Each Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi could choose to either remain or leave, even though their destinations and motivations would be quite different.
Lorenzo’s option is between staying with Yamaha as his best chance of chasing a lot more MotoGP titles, or taking a likelihood on Ducati, as effectively as a very fat paycheck from Ducati’s sponsors Philip Morris. For Rossi, the choice will come down to whether or not he nonetheless believes he can win or not.
Jorge Lorenzo has currently made the first move in what could turn out to be a protracted game of contract chess with Yamaha. At the group launch in Barcelona in January, Lorenzo told the media he wanted his contract sewn up as quickly as possible.
He has repeated these comments given that then, stating that he would like to have a deal accomplished just before the first race of the year in Qatar, so that he can concentrate on the 2016 championship, rather than his future beyond this season.
It is no secret that Ducati are keen to sign Lorenzo to race for them, however. So far, Ducati Corse boss has publicly denied creating an offer you to Lorenzo, although it is far as well early in Silly Season for factories to be admitting to obtaining produced concrete approaches to riders.
Ducati are confident they have built a motorcycle capable of winning a MotoGP race, but they face 4 of the greatest riders in history.
Winning a race would be a very good deal less complicated if they, too, had their own Alien, and persuading Philip Morris to throw income at an existing top rider is quicker and easier than bringing on young talent and waiting for it to create.
But not simple: Philip Morris are still wary following spending one thing in the region of €15 million a year on Valentino Rossi, only to see him struggle on the GP11 and GP12.
Lorenzo – Bluff Poker, or Straight Cards?
So Lorenzo’s selection is most likely be between a enormous payday, similar to Rossi’s for the duration of his Ducati period, and a assure of becoming in contention for the championship for at least the subsequent couple of seasons.
Lorenzo is hardly underpaid at Yamaha – the precise figures are unknown, despite wildly inaccurate claims from some sites – so the choice is in between two sorts of ambition: the ambition of matching Valentino Rossi’s tally of world championship titles, and attempting to be the ideal Spanish rider in history, or the ambition of proving himself capable of winning a title on various machines, with the added bonus of winning on a Ducati, anything which Rossi conspicuously failed to do.
There are these who argue that Lorenzo’s public statements on wanting to have his contract settled before the season has started is a way of placing pressure on Yamaha.
Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis has refused to be drawn into a bidding war with Ducati so far, both because Yamaha can not afford it, and because they are in the luxury position of obtaining a rider capable of matching Lorenzo’s overall performance, and a package capable of attracting a replacement rider of comparable prospective to Lorenzo need to he leave.
As Steve English pointed out in an upcoming episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast, Maverick Viñales has an eerily comparable style to Jorge Lorenzo, and could jump at the chance of a factory Yamaha ride if presented. Then there’s Alex Rins coming via, who Yamaha will also be functioning difficult to attract.
Which way will Lorenzo fall? I believe Lorenzo is driven a lot more by hunger for titles than hunger for funds, and is much more probably to remain with Yamaha.
If he does, and goes on to win much more championships, then he will turn into 1 of the brightest permanent stars in the Yamaha firmament, guaranteeing him of an earnings for life from the factory.
Lorenzo may possibly earn more cash in the extended term with Yamaha than if he leaves Yamaha now and heads to Ducati.
Rossi – Yamaha Legend
Valentino Rossi’s choices are dictated by the very same reasoning. Rossi’s long-term future is with Yamaha, regardless of whether he continues racing with the factory or not.
His VR46 Riders Academy has just penned a deal with Yamaha to provide bikes and support, and as he begins mulling more than his alternatives once he retires – if it is not at the finish of this contract, then it will practically surely be at the finish of the subsequent contract – then powerful ties with Yamaha would make it less complicated for Rossi to transition into some form of management position.
For now, although, Rossi still desires to race, but only if he believes he can be competitive. He has no interest in circulating in mid-pack: he wants to win a lot more races, and win yet another title.
If that is not attainable, then he knows he has a vibrant future ahead of him once he hangs up his leathers, and already has most of the pieces in location prepared for the subsequent step in his career.
Yamaha can not wait for ever, of course, and so Rossi will have to make a selection in the first half of the season. Once once again, the general feeling is that Rossi will take the 1st six races to assess how competitive he can be.
And when again, the sixth race of the season is at Mugello. It would be an excellent location at which to announce his retirement. But he won’t do that from a podium he earned and with a win or much more under his belt.
What do Yamaha want? The continuous references in their press releases to a “dream duo” tends to make it evidently clear where they stand. If Rossi and Lorenzo remain, they win, and could nevertheless location Alex Rins with Tech 3 prepared for the moment a single of them does leave.
If Rossi retires or Lorenzo leaves, they can either chase Maverick Viñales or Alex Rins for the factory seat, or take Dani Pedrosa if he gets the boot from Repsol Honda, or maybe even move one of the Tech 3 riders up. If each Rossi and Lorenzo depart, then they face a tougher situation, but even then, they need to have no difficulty locating suitable replacements.
The departure of each Rossi and Lorenzo would make the Movistar Yamaha team a lot a lot more appealing to Marc Márquez, and could even tempt him way from Honda’s clutches, must the Spaniard struggle to tame the 2016 Honda RC213V.
The reality that the Yamaha M1 is the best bike on the grid makes it an simple sell to potential recruits.
Márquez – A Gilded Cage is Nonetheless a Cage
It is clear that Repsol Honda has put all of its cards on Marc Márquez for the future, and so HRC will not be keen to let the Spaniard go.
In a lot of methods, Honda is in the toughest position of the massive 3 factories in MotoGP: the RC213V is clearly the most challenging bike on the grid to ride, as the differential in functionality amongst the 5 men on Hondas for the duration of testing clearly shows.
Honda wants to retain Márquez, not just since he is the most talented rider of his generation, but also since if he leaves, it will cast a shadow over the factory’s reputation and make it a lot tougher to discover a person to take Márquez’s spot.
Unless other riders – Dani Pedrosa, Cal Crutchlow – can succeed on the bike, and persuade talented youngsters that it is a competitive package, the loss of Márquez would also imply the loss of a competitive replacement for Márquez.
Would Márquez want to leave? Financially, he is effectively catered for at Honda. Like Rossi and Lorenzo, the only thing he genuinely cares about is winning, and his selection will be based nearly exclusively on no matter whether he believes he can do that on the RC213V.
The large step forward his group created with the bike at Phillip Island and in the final hours of the Qatar test could go some way to persuading him to stay, if it translates into the races as properly.
Márquez’s circumstance is difficult by the connection his management group has with HRC. Emilio Alzamora and the Monlau Competicion structure have extremely close ties with Honda, as help to the Marc VDS Racing satellite team, and as the de facto factory Honda squad in Moto3.
Márquez’s mechanics and crew chief have all been taken on by Honda, and are deeply embedded in the Japanese business. Disentangling all that could be hard, but if Alzamora helped Márquez move outdoors of HRC, Honda may well be inclined to do just that.
Then there are the sponsors, especially Spanish businesses Repsol and Estrella Galicia, who advantage enormously from the popularity of Márquez in his property nation. There are a lot of strong aspects conspiring to preserve Márquez in Honda. He will require a good cause to leave.
Partnering Márquez
The second seat at Repsol Honda is much more intriguing, and also much more complicated than it appears. Dani Pedrosa is the ideal teammate to Márquez: capable of winning when Márquez does not, and aware enough of his predicament inside HRC to preserve the partnership with his teammate completely amicable.
Márquez is a excellent admirer of Pedrosa’s talent, but he does not really feel threatened by the Spanish veteran.
That would be extremely different for any of the possible replacements for Pedrosa. HRC is identified to be keen on both Maverick Viñales and Alex Rins, but Marc Márquez would not appear kindly on having either of those two as teammates.
Each are young, Spanish, ambitious, and quick, and unlikely to respect Márquez as the leader of the Repsol Honda group.
Rins, especially, would be very awkward: the Spaniard is nonetheless bitter about the way Emilio Alzamora treated him as a manager, so considerably so that Rins has been rejecting approaches from other managers to look soon after his affairs.
He is also angry at the way Alex Márquez received preferential remedy in the Estrella Galicia , Moto3 squad, with Alzamora arranging the group so that Márquez Jr. would take the Moto3 title.
There is no love lost in between Alex Rins and the Márquez clan, so possessing Rins in the Repsol Honda garage would be an awkward and uncomfortable affair. The distractions that would lead to are reason enough for HRC to seek alternatives elsewhere.
Rise and Rall, And…
Originally, Jack Miller was getting groomed to take Pedrosa’s location at Repsol Honda, but his early promotion has been far from a success. Miller has not developed the final results expected, but considerably much more importantly, HRC have been unimpressed by Miller’s attitude.
Alberto Puig, former manager of Dani Pedrosa, has been brought in to help Miller in that respect, and has created a huge distinction. To his credit, Miller is now working significantly harder on his fitness than he did in the past, and is approaching the company of racing considerably more seriously.
He will need to convert that strategy into benefits, however. Rumors of Honda’s displeasure with Miller continue to swirl around him.
Honda could do much worse than to hang on to Dani Pedrosa. Although the Spaniard will be 31 in September, he showed final year that he could nonetheless be competitive, as soon as he was completely recovered from the arm pump surgery.
Pedrosa knows that time is operating out if he desires to win a MotoGP title, but at the finish of 2015, this year looked like being his greatest shot at a championship. Testing has not gone nicely for him, leaving him in a quandary.
Pedrosa has spoken prior to of retirement, and it seems unlikely that the Spaniard would go to a satellite squad should he lose his seat at Repsol Honda.
Ducati could be tempted to give Pedrosa a possibility if he has won races this season, and if Yamaha loses each Rossi and Lorenzo, then Pedrosa would be a solid teammate to a young talent.
Pedrosa has even been linked with KTM, as his former crew chief Mike Leitner is running their MotoGP program.
Pedrosa would be an best rider to lead development of their RC16 MotoGP machine, the Spaniard also obtaining played a important function in acquiring the Honda RC212V out of the doldrums exactly where its original design had left it in 2007.
But the partnership among Leitner and Pedrosa is uncertain: Leitner resigned as crew chief in part due to the fact of Pedrosa’s insistence that two mechanics be replaced. If there are still trust issues in between the two, Leitner might choose to take a younger rider to lead improvement.
A Lack of Alternatives
Who would take Pedrosa’s location if the Spanish veteran left the Repsol Honda team? It might truly be simpler to appear at who HRC would not sign to the factory team. The most unlikely candidates to join Repsol Honda would be the growing army of ex-Honda riders.
Stefan Bradl, Alvaro Bautista and Scott Redding would all be seen as a step back by HRC, and Redding, in specific, would not be interested in going.
Cal Crutchlow may be a possibility, as the Englishman has at least shown he can be quick on the Honda, but as he is the identical age as Pedrosa, it seems vanishingly unlikely HRC would place into the Repsol Honda team.
Pol Espargaro would enjoy to get his hands on a Repsol Honda, and lobbied Michael Bartholémy of the Marc VDS Racing group in 2015 for a Honda. But HRC will not appear kindly on either the criticism the former Moto2 champion has produced of Yamaha, nor on his second season at Tech three.
Could HRC take a gamble on Michael van der Mark? Senior executives inside HRC are mentioned to have a extremely poor opinion of Globe Superbikes, viewing it as a waste of spending budget that they could be spending on MotoGP and Moto3.
Nonetheless, HRC are mentioned to have a extremely optimistic view of Van der Mark, his Suzuka 8-Hour wins in 2013 and 2014 weighing quite heavily with Honda best brass.
Although a satellite ride with Marc VDS is a considerably more most likely location for the young Dutchman, taking the location of Jack Miller if he fails to reside up to expectations, a seat at Repsol Honda is not totally unthinkable. Really unlikely, probably, requiring a lot of other factors to happen, but not not possible.
Predicions
So who will fill the Movistar Yamaha and Repsol Honda seats for the 2017 and 2018 seasons? Here are our predictions:
Movistar Yamaha
Jorge Lorenzo
Valentino Rossi
Repsol Honda
Marc Márquez
Maverick Viñales/Dani Pedrosa
Tomorrow, we will continue to take a appear at the possible permutations of Silly Season for 2016, starting with the other 3 man factory teams.
Who will take the factory Ducati seats? Can Scott Redding or Danilo Petrucci move up to the factory group? Will Suzuki be capable to maintain Maverick Viñales, and what do they do if they can’t? Who will want to take a opportunity on Aprilia? And will KTM go for youth or encounter?
Photo: © 2015 Tony Goldsmith / www.tonygoldsmith.net – All Rights Reserved
This report was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.
The Big Fat MotoGP Silly Season Primer, Part 1
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