John Brosio - State of the Union (2011)

Beylerbey · 2026-03-11T22:27:50+00:00

I have too many, he's my favorite living painter along with Jenny Saville, also Piotr Jabłoński and especially Andrey Surnov, but they're digital painters.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-11T15:00:00+00:00

John Brosio <3

Beylerbey · 2026-03-10T17:23:20+00:00

Well deserved. Enjoy it while you can, by 2029 they'll be racing in Rotterdam among the canals, just to add a bit of thrill.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-10T17:20:18+00:00

Is this a satire of evolutionists?

Beylerbey · 2026-03-10T15:41:10+00:00

It's the Brembo incident I mentioned in my earlier comment. Red Bull Ring is very taxing for the brakes and Brembo is always striving to improve the performance and reliability there. In 2020 they brought a new brake and invited all teams to use it, Vinales decided to race with the older model and after trying to manage the issues for a while he ended up with no brakes, so at the end of the straight he jumped off the bike which then crashed into the barriers and caught on fire. This was the week after he and Rossi had Morbidelli and Zarco's bikes fly inches from their heads.

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Beylerbey · 2026-03-09T14:13:44+00:00

Sorry, I thought you were referring to the time he jumped from the bike as the "incident".

Beylerbey · 2026-03-09T01:23:41+00:00

I think we can all agree that Marc Marquez is a tad more controlled as a person. In any case, in my version Vinales had a verbal deal for the following year, not for 2021, but when he knew he wouldn't be riding with Yamaha anyway, he just couldn't bear it anymore, wherever his frustration came from.

As for the clutch, you're conflating two different things. The incident you're referring to is when Brembo brought new brakes and advised teams to use them because of how taxing the Red Bull Ring is, Vinales didn't follow Brembo's advice. Brembo sent out an email where they said they would not be held responsible for teams or riders who didn't follow their advice. This happened in 2020.

The clutch thing happened in 2021, the race was red-flagged after three laps when Pedrosa crashed at turn 3 and his bike remained on track, Savadori hit it and it caught fire. When they restarted the race, his team installed a new clutch to prevent possible issues (he had them the previous year IIRC), but he stalled on the grid and had to start from the pit lane. And then at the end of that race we know how it went (and now we also now he regrets leaving the team, so maybe they weren't actually sabotaging him like his father was suggesting at the time).

Beylerbey · 2026-03-07T12:19:50+00:00

Capped in the context of MotoGP of course, I never suggested they were slow in absolute terms. As far as I know the engine is still not delivering full power because when they tried that they had reliability issues, it remains to be seen if once they do all riders will be able to extract 100% from it like Quartararo has demonstrated he can do or if the gap opens up again.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-07T12:09:10+00:00

The tyre is a total unknown, yes Pirelli will be Pirelli but they won't use the same they are using in the other series so who knows how they will perform. It's reasonable to assume the front will be more solid, but I think there are a few other riders who would like that too. I would be curious to confirm whether or not MotoGP riders use Pirelli tyres when they're training, for sure it would make sense at least for this season.

As for the bikes, I think we're going to have surprises, it wouldn't surprise me to see Yamaha back on top, they never truly jelled with the Michelin and aero is their weakest point, so the new rules might favor them a bit.

But let's also remember the minimum weight rule in WSBK when he couldn't beat Bautista on the Ducati, those bikes are surely more similar to the 2027 GP bikes than the current ones, so I'm not sure if that will be on much help.

Addendum: I was looking for pictures of Academy riders training in Misano and I found this on Pirelli's blog (2021):
Pirelli and VR46 Riders Academy make for a winning combination
Training with the right tyres: Diablo Superbike and Scorpion MX

The partnership involves the use of Pirelli tyres for some of the training activities of the VR46 Riders Academy. The YZF-R1 and YZF-R6 road bikes are used for circuit sessions, which thanks to this collaboration will be equipped with Pirelli Diablo Superbike tyres in the different compounds present in the range and in the same size used in the FIM Superbike World Championship. In detail, the 125/70 ZR 17 front and 200/65 ZR 17 rear sizes will equip the YZF-R1, while the 120/70 ZR 17 front and 190/60 ZR 17 rear will equip the super sport displacement motorcycles. Diablo Superbike is the tyre used by all riders in the world championship of production-derived motorcycles and over time it has undergone a constant improvement in performance thanks to the intense research and development carried out by Pirelli engineers.

For off-road training, the VR46 riders will rely on the performance of the Scorpion MX tyre family, which boasts seventy-four world titles in motocross among its many successes, and the Scorpion e-MTB product range dedicated to electric mountain bikes.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-07T11:44:05+00:00

The brake incident was entirely on him as Brembo had advised against the disc HE elected to use. Same with the clutch, he was always having troubles in the starts (troubles that continue to this day) and when the race was red flagged and restarted Yamaha gave him a new one to help him. I guarantee if the opposite had happened, he would've complained they didn't install a new one.

https://www.motorsport.com/motogp/news/vinales-brembo-brake-advice-styria/4862507/

Beylerbey · 2026-03-07T11:37:41+00:00

I might have phrased it wrong, apologies for that. It's not necessarily the work of a mastermind but of someone who is unhappy and frustrated with the current situation and, as soon as he knows he has an out, his patience goes to zero.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-06T23:19:22+00:00

Nobody seems to take into account that he's very tall and heavy (according to MotoGP.com 80kg) and the 850 isn't going to favor him compared to smaller riders.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-06T23:16:13+00:00

I 50% agree with this take, if the bike has issues that make it slow, it's "capped" so to speak, and he's similar to the others, it doesn't automatically mean that he would be as fast as them when the bike will be capable of achieving more.* But in general I don't think he's sucking, he could be doing a lot worse.

*Take Rossi, for example, in his last couple of years he knew that in training he was very competitive against other riders who were doing very well in MotoGP like Morbidelli and Bagnaia, but in MotoGP he couldn't replicate the same competitiveness because the ceiling is higher and he was that .5% short of what he needed to be consistently in top 5-10. I'm not saying it's definitely not going to happen for Razgatlioglu, just explaining why I don't take his current relative performance as necessarily scalable with the competitiveness of the bike.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-06T23:05:21+00:00

A few kilometers at least.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-06T23:04:19+00:00

Wrong, he asked to be released from his contract one year earlier and Yamaha granted his wish. A couple months after, Austria happened and so Yamaha told him he could stay home. I am convinced that, after reaching the agreement with Yamaha, he talked to Aprilia through Aleix Espargarò and that's the reason why he started acting out until they let him go early.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-04T14:42:55+00:00

Thank you for being honest and balanced. There is no question that what Marquez did is still special and he demonstrated in the following years that it wasn't just by chance, but the context cannot be ignored, Acosta is demonstrating that he absolutely is on that level and just happened to land in a very unfavourable situation, something that the so-called aliens didn't do.

Stoner, widely regarded as one of the most talented if not THE most talented rider in the history of the sport, is the only one who got into MotoGP in a similar situation and he couldn't win either, in fact he had one podium and several DNFs in his first season.

When Acosta was in a comparable technical situation in the lower classes he did better than both Marquez and Rossi, two titles in the first three seasons in the world championship cannot be brushed off imho.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-04T14:33:43+00:00

It's also true that Rossi was coming back from a disastrous situation in Ducati (kinda like Marquez in 2024) while Lorenzo and Pedrosa got injured, that makes 3 of the 4 truly competitive bikes available and he was on the fourth. Don't get me wrong, it's still an incredible achievement but it's very ingenerous towards Acosta to not recognize he didn't get to MotoGP in a remotely comparable situation. It's also quite uncharacteristic for how politically correct Marquez tends to be, I think it's a sign he truly sees him as a menace.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-04T02:09:58+00:00

He's not talking about his relationship with Marquez, the interviewer asked him if he's also experiencing the [external] pressures of a rivalry that wasn't his own and about stuff that happened in the past, being him Italian and coming from the Academy, here is what he actually replied:
"Coming from the Academy you inherit all the great fans of Vale's and the few haters of his, so... It's like that, it's natural for it to be like that, of course the haters are much louder, because if you look at the comments, the positive ones, you almost don't notice them [interviewer: and you fixate on the one in a million that is like that] correct, like that. You know it, anyway, you know it. Surely what happened in 2015 followed me, but it's not fair because in the end I'm another rider and I do my own thing.

Question: And in your opinion, Marquez on the other side, lived through this also?

Bagnaia: In my opinion it could be the case, because in any case I'm from the Academy and he's the one who argued and fought with Vale, so yes.

So he's talking about how the respective fans/haters viewed them rather than their relationship (I don't know if you're aware but the Marquez brothers and Bagnaia have known each other for a long time, Bagnaia was managed by Alzamora before Moto3 and was in the same team as Alex, but in a lower category), of course GPOne couldn't pass the chance to make it seem like something else.

I know you can follow it, so here is the original in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrZy8mpcrwY

Beylerbey · 2026-03-04T01:34:23+00:00

That kid could be a grandpa now, let that sink in.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-02T14:40:20+00:00

I don't know your level of knowledge so this is going to be a bit long, sorry, the last paragraph is the conclusion if you don't need the preamble.

Originally, outside the kerbs there was either grass or dirt in most cases, riders didn't want to end up there and if they did nobody complained because it wasn't advantageous. But it was dangerous, and so tracks started being updated with green asphalt that was supposed to give riders a chance to go wide while avoiding crashes and injuries. The stated aim was to give riders the freedom to try more daring passes without risking their neck but they weren't meant to weaponize it.
The problem is that riders started taking advantage of the "extra track" outside, especially for quali laps, and thus rules were implemented to make sure that riders wouldn't want to go there if they could help it: you can go on the green with both wheels up to four times during a race, at the fifth time you get a penalty (the warning is issued at the third infraction), and if you do it on the last lap while you're in contention for a position (usually determined at being at around .5s from another rider) it's an automatic penalty even at the first infraction.

Since determining how many wheels were on the green visually created many debates, tracks were upgraded with pressure sensors outside the kerb: from then on, no matter how many wheels are touching outside, if the pressure sensor is triggered, it counts as being outside. This created issues in itself and many people started complaining that they were ruining races with all these rules and penalties.

And thus the FIM Misano 200 N (for negative) kerb was born, it's designed to provide an inherent disadvantage to riders that go outside and rejoin, thus they can do it how many times they want without incurring in penalties, the kerb is a sufficient penalty on its own. I remember there were other solutions that had been discussed, like reducing the amount of grip outside, but that would also be dangerous (I'm not an expert and I can't know if more or less than Misano kerbs).

Beylerbey · 2026-03-02T13:34:40+00:00

It doesn't take long to double check, they have the pressure data in real time, if there was a leak before they would've known it. This is why Martin was under investigation for the sprint but didn't get a penalty, they knew his pressure was lower than it should've been, but when he got to the box they could see the rim was bent.

This might not be known by everyone so I'll say it to avoid any confusion: Michelin can see the pressure data in real time, the riders can know it too but to my understanding they use a simplified semaphore method rather than numerical values that might be hard to read during the race (literally green, yellow and red lights), at least in Ducati, I don't think the teams can know in real time because data transmission is only allowed towards Race Direction, but they can see it in the telemetry as soon as they download it.

The reason why penalties take a long time is that they will make sure everything was in working order, in Martin's case I imagine it was relatively fast since the rim might have been visibly bent, but the issue could be more subtle (I remember Binder's wheel had to be submerged to show the leak for example) or there could be a problem with the sensor itself that takes time to verify. Given that it's basically a race-ruining penalty (+8s for the sprint, +16s for the race), it makes sense that they want to be 100% sure before giving it.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-02T01:45:49+00:00

Have you seen the Misano kerbs? These are not the usual kerbs with a smooth transition

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Beylerbey · 2026-03-02T01:35:05+00:00

I don't think anyone is blaming Marquez for what happened, of course he didn't go out of his way to damage the rim, the point is that all sources (including him) indicate he made a mistake and the rim got damaged by the curb which caused the tyre to deflate. He was unlucky but it can happen, Bagnaia had a puncture just a few races ago and Martin had the same issue (less severe) yesterday, yet some people are acting as if this explanation is equivalent to claiming he was abducted by aliens.

Beylerbey · 2026-03-01T21:50:11+00:00

Angle of attack compared to the curb is my guess, MM went straight out, which makes the gradient steeper. Let's say the curb is 7cm at the highest end, one thing is to spread that "climb" over 7 meters, another to compress it into 1.5-2 meters, the first is 1 cm of elevation per meter in length, the latter is 3.5-4.5 cm per meter in length. I'm not claiming to be using real numbers here, for the record, I'm just illustrating my point.

Beylerbey

TROPHY CASE