MotoGP fans?

I know that has been rumor for the last couple of weeks but haven't seen anything official for 2016.

Have to wonder if Iannone electing not to have surgery on his shoulder (and likely missing testing and possibly the first couple of rounds) plays into this.

Iannone though has shown this year that he is on average as stronger rider than Dovizioso, even riding injured. Interestingly it was Stoner's switch from Ducati to Honda in 2011 that caused Dovizioso to burn a bridge with Honda and enforce his contract for that year that he was to be supplied with a factory HRC bike. Three riders in Repsol colors that year due to that.

 

Ducati confirms Stoner as test rider in 2016

 

cant wait to see what happens when testing starts!!

 

Honda will improve their bikes. Hopefully so will Yamaha and Ducati. Suzuki needs more power and I hear they've found it, and figured out how to make the motor more reliable. They might be competitive, but need a first rate rider. Next year (2017) look for them to try to snitch either Pedrosa or Rossi.

Art

 

A little light reading .....

David Emmetts words :

All is not what it seems

Then came the MotoGP race, and as at Phillip Island and Sepang, a tense and thrilling battle was ruined by the events which surrounded the race afterwards. Whether you regard the events post-race as a valid complaint against an obviously rigged result, or the wild ramblings of a man desperate to apportion blame to anyone but himself for his own failure depends entirely on your perspective. There are facts which are beyond dispute, and facts which are open to interpretation, but on one thing, everyone can agree. The aftermath has besmirched what has been undoubtedly the greatest season of premier class racing in recent years. Once again, there are no winners here, and that is very sad indeed.

The facts beyond dispute? That Jorge Lorenzo did what Valentino Rossi feared he would, and took off at the front. That track temperatures were round about where they were yesterday, high enough to cause problems for the hardest option front tire as the race went on, especially for the Hondas. That Valentino Rossi rode the race of his life, making surgical passes left, right and center, quickly working his way forward to fourth. That Marc Márquez had the pace to follow Lorenzo for all of the race, though he had to ride at the limit to do so. That Dani Pedrosa was first dropped by the leaders, then came back again, launching an attack on the penultimate lap on Márquez. That Márquez struck straight back when Pedrosa ran wide, but never attempted a pass on Lorenzo.

All of these facts then leave room for interpretation. Why did Márquez never attack Lorenzo? The Repsol Honda rider says he was biding his time to attack, as he has done so often this year. He was waiting for either the last or the penultimate lap to take a shot at Lorenzo, but Pedrosa upset his plan, he said. Rossi, on the other hand, claims Márquez played "bodyguard" to Lorenzo, riding on tail and protecting his back, not passing Lorenzo, but passing Pedrosa straight back once he was passed by his teammate.

Just the facts...

Márquez says he was right on the limit trying to follow Lorenzo, and points to the gap between the two which yoyoed constantly, Márquez pushing hard to close up on Lorenzo, but only really faster than the Spaniard in the second sector, Turn 6 being the only real option for a pass. Rossi points to the race of Pedrosa, who first dropped back, then upped the pace to close up on Márquez again, to try a final pass. If Pedrosa could catch Márquez again, then clearly the Honda was capable of being faster, Rossi's thesis runs.

Márquez said he went for the win, but was simply incapable of beating an unleashed Lorenzo. Rossi says Márquez was protecting Lorenzo's back, and ensuring that the Spanish Movistar Yamaha rider would win the title, rather than Valentino Rossi.

Which version of events represents the truth? Deciphering that is extremely difficult, as both versions of events share the same two key characteristics: they are plausible, and they are entirely unfalsifiable. There is a chain of events we can follow, and each individual part of the claim can be dissected, but even then the picture which emerges is still open to interpretation. So it comes down to Occam's razor, and the simplest explanation being the most likely one.

Firstly, was Marc Márquez really on the limit, or was he easily faster, as Valentino Rossi would claim after the race? What we do know is that both Lorenzo and Márquez were eleven seconds quicker than in 2013, the last time there was a dry race at Valencia. Though the circuit has been resurfaced since then, the race times of both Márquez and Lorenzo are not hanging about.

On the outside looking in

Can you judge from the outside how hard a rider is trying? Certainly, Márquez looked to be going fast enough through Turn 13, both wheels sliding through the corner. But was that at the limit? I turned to a disinterested party for an opinion, in this case, Andrea Dovizioso, who happened to speak to us after Valentino Rossi had made his accusations of foul play. "It's true, for us is normal to see Marc fighting a lot in the battle. So to see that, it was quite strange. But only the riders know exactly the problems they have in the bike. So I don't know if he was on the limit, over the limit, or he was controlling the race," Dovizioso said.

Is it possible for one MotoGP rider to see when another MotoGP rider is on the limit? "Normally yes," Dovizioso replied, "but you can't know every detail the riders can have. Especially when you ride a different bike." You can make general judgments, Dovizioso implied, but each bike is different, and the precise limits of the bike and where it struggles is not immediately visible. "This is my experience, because I rode already three bikes, and until you try a bike, you can't know every detail of it. Especially the difference from the morning to the afternoon. The conditions always change. So yes, the riders can normally understand and analyze the situation, but it's easy to not see everything." How accurately could another rider judge it? As accurately as 95%? "Maybe less," Dovizioso said. "If you race in your career just one bike, it's less. If you have different experience, you can know more about that, but the rules change, the bikes change, so I can't speak about Honda, it was a long time ago."

The one point which Rossi did press home in his attack on Márquez was that it was unusual for the Spaniard not to ever attempt to pass the rider in front. "For me, if you check the races of Marc Marquez in the last two years you know he always tries to overtake and minimum on the last lap," Rossi said. "So the question is why Marc Marquez never tried to overtake Jorge Lorenzo and never tried to make one attempt on the last lap?"

Márquez' explanation was simple. "I don’t know about Dani, but I was struggling with the front, especially in the beginning," Márquez said. "Then in the end, in the last six laps, I see that the victory was possible, but when Dani overtake me we lose this half second, it was impossible to catch Jorge again." Márquez said that his plan had been to try to pass in the final lap, but his attack had been preempted by Pedrosa, the exchange between the two Repsol Hondas putting too much gap between them and the Movistar Yamaha of Lorenzo.

Horses for courses

Why had Márquez not attacked Lorenzo earlier? At the last race, Márquez had passed Rossi and been passed back nine times in a single lap, but at Valencia, Márquez had not attempted a single pass. In part, that was down to tactics, Márquez following the same strategy he had used at both Indianapolis and Assen, following the rider in front without challenging for most of the race, only launching an attack in the final laps – or in the case of Assen, in the final corner – of the race. In part, it was down to the nature of the bikes and the track, one anonymous MotoGP rider ascribing the passes between Rossi and Márquez to the different nature of the Honda and the Yamaha, Márquez striking where the Honda was stronger, Rossi hitting back in the area where the Yamaha was better.

Then, of course, there was the fact that the two races were held under very different circumstances. At Sepang, Márquez was racing against a rider who had publicly attacked and humiliated him in the press conference on Thursday, and his blood lust was up. Márquez had received a private dressing down from Race Direction for those actions, and been told not to take unnecessary risks around riders racing for the championship. A suitably chastened Márquez was racing at Valencia against a rider who was looking to win a title, and was never quite close enough to make a clean and safe pass. The Spaniard was only occasionally close enough, but it was never possible to do so cleanly, and without a major risk of crashing.

The biggest problem Márquez had was the difference in acceleration out of the final corner. The Hondas have been complaining of a lack of acceleration all year, the rear tire spinning too much to provide good forward drive. The Yamahas have fantastic mechanical grip, getting drive out of the final corner to launch themselves down the straight with enough advantage to easily hold off the Hondas in the braking zone into Turn 1. Turn 6 was the only place where Márquez had the pace to pass Lorenzo, but he could never do it safely in previous laps, and had Pedrosa to deal with on the last couple of laps.

Santa's little helper?

Did Márquez really decide the title in favor of Lorenzo? That seems an odd accusation for two men who have little love lost between them. Lorenzo regards Márquez as the Spanish usurper, the man who stole the popularity which by rights belongs to him. Márquez regards Lorenzo with the same disdain he has for all of his rivals, as an obstacle to victory and to championship glory. Márquez revels in attacking and beating Lorenzo, especially given Lorenzo's public complaints about Márquez' riding. There is nothing Márquez likes more than to beat Lorenzo in a close battle, after the comments which Lorenzo has repeatedly made about how dangerous a rider Márquez is.

The strangest aspect of Rossi's attack on Márquez is that he appeared to be shifting the responsibility for winning the title from the Italian's own shoulders onto the man he had so publicly attacked. Despite Rossi's brilliant early laps – and they were truly things of beauty, passes executed with surgical and ruthless precision – his race pace was simply not up to that of the front three. Lorenzo and Márquez ran laps of between 1'31.5 and 1'31.9 just about all race long. Pedrosa ran laps of 1'31.7, lost ground as he slowed up with an overheating front tire to clock a string of 1'31.9s and 1'32s, before upping the pace again and hitting a 1'31.5 to catch the leaders.

Rossi, meanwhile, was running consistent 1'32.1 and 1'32.2. Fast enough for fourth, but nowhere near good enough for the win. Even if Rossi had started from the front row of the grid, and not had to fight his way forward through the pack (a battle which was over shortly after one third distance), he did not have the pace to beat Lorenzo, nor even the pace to beat the two Hondas. Rossi finished where his race pace dictated, regardless of where he had started. That race pace was roughly in line with what he had shown during practice, a couple of tenths short of the pace of the leaders.

If you ain't got the speed ...

By placing the onus on the Hondas to beat Lorenzo, he is deflecting responsibility of his own failure to do so. All throughout the year, every rider in the paddock bar one has said that the championship has basically been between Jorge Lorenzo, who is the faster of the two, and Valentino Rossi, who has been more consistent and smarter. The faster rider may not always win, but over a full season of eighteen races, having the speed helps.

Even in the races where Rossi has accused Márquez of helping Lorenzo, his accusations do not bear close scrutiny. In Australia, Rossi accused Márquez of holding him and Andrea Iannone up in order to allow Lorenzo to get a gap, which only Márquez could bridge. Yet Márquez finished ahead of Lorenzo, taking five points from the Spaniard, and Iannone finished in front of Rossi, taking three points from the Italian. At Sepang, Rossi was not fast enough to catch Lorenzo after he forced Márquez wide, lapping slower than his teammate. If he had not been suckered into battling with Márquez – clearly Márquez' plan, as revenge for Rossi's humiliation of him in the press conference – then Rossi would have finished either third or fourth, again losing points to Lorenzo. And if Rossi had truly been faster than Márquez, he would have quickly disposed of the Spaniard and gone on to chase Lorenzo. But Rossi wasn't quicker than Márquez, and got sucked into a battle he had nothing to gain from and no point fighting.

Jorge Lorenzo made his feelings about the entire affair clear in the press conference after the race. "I think I clearly deserve this world title," Lorenzo said. "If you see the statistics compared to our rival, we beat him in everything: in victories, in pole positions, in fast laps, in laps leading the race, in laps leading the practice, and everything. Only in podiums, and in the consistency, he beat us." If Rossi could point to events that worked against him, so could Lorenzo: a loose helmet lining at Qatar, bronchitis at Austin, tire troubles at Argentina, visor fogging at Silverstone, and a stupid mistake at Misano. If Lorenzo had not got suckered in trying to follow Scott Redding at Misano on slicks fresh out of the pits, the Spaniard finishes in second or third, Rossi then finishing in sixth. In that case, Lorenzo heads into Valencia with either a 14 or 11 point lead. Either way, the task goes from being difficult to being impossible, with or without help from the two Repsol Hondas.

Known knowns

While the above may be open to interpretation, There are a couple more indisputable facts about the 2015 championship which bear consideration. The first is that this has been one of the most thrilling and keenly contested championships in years, the title only being decided in Valencia. The second is that Yamaha built a fantastic bike in the YZR-M1, arguably the best racing motorcycle ever to see the light of day. The 2015 M1 kept all of the strengths of last year's bike, while the combination of chassis revisions, electronics and the fully seamless gearbox removed the bike's weaknesses.

The third is that both Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo deserved the title, both riding better than they have ever done in their careers. What Rossi has done at the age of 36, and after spending so long in the doldrums at Ducati and afterwards, is truly remarkable. To be able to summon up the self-discipline and desire to push his body and his riding skills to try to beat younger men than he, men who grew up watching Rossi, copying him, learning his tricks and trying to improve upon them, is a feat that puts Rossi on a level beyond anything seen in history.

For Jorge Lorenzo, in 2015 he came back stronger than he has ever been in his career, having learned from his mistakes of last year, and inventing new ways to ride around problems whenever he encountered them. Lorenzo may have a strong preference for the Bridgestone tires with more edge grip, but he never had to search for the perfect set up, being quick on the bike despite the setting he had in it, and more consistent when Ramon Forcada fixed the problems he had.

Poisoning the well

Most of all, though, Rossi's decision to attack Marc Márquez so publicly has thoroughly destroyed the credibility of the series, and detracts both from the value of Jorge Lorenzo's championship and his own performance in 2015. By attacking Márquez, Rossi is admitting that he did not have the championship in his own hands, and needed help from other riders to win it. Why he thought those riders would want help him after he launched such blistering attack on them is something of a mystery.

The timing and method of Rossi's attack was itself interesting. Firstly, he spoke to Italian television to make his complaint, his preferred way of speaking directly to the Italian people, a method he used on occasion to try to persuade Ducati to make the changes that were needed if the bike was to be competitive. Then, in his customary media debrief, where he explains to the press how his race went, he broke the habit of every debrief I have ever been in with him, speaking first in Italian (and live on TV) before switching to English. That was curious indeed, but it allowed him to make the accusations in his native language first, the language he is far more comfortable with and in which he can be more precise. He then repeated the same claims in English, and though his English is excellent, it was clear that he was still thinking in Italian.

The most informative vignette was on Italian television, when Carmelo Ezpeleta came along to congratulate him on a great season. Rossi made a very public show of saying to Ezpeleta "I told you so! Didn't I tell you on Thursday this would happen?" Rossi had apparently been to see Ezpeleta on Thursday, to warn him of a "Spanish plot" against him. The most intriguing words followed, an almost throwaway line. "I will see you in my motorhome later," Rossi said. For a MotoGP rider to be summoning the CEO of Dorna, the man who runs the series, to his motorhome, is a sign that the balance of power is out of kilter. Carmelo Ezpeleta should be summoning riders to his office at his own convenience. He should not be at the beck and call of riders, for them to summon him as they please.

After his bitter attack on Márquez, Rossi then did not show up at the FIM Gala Award Ceremony, the official prize giving ceremony for the 2015 championship. That is a snub not just of Dorna, who organize the series, but of the FIM, the international federation under whose auspices MotoGP is run. It is a further sign, if any were needed, that Valentino Rossi has taken this loss exceptionally badly, and is in no mood to be gracious in defeat. He believes that someone else is to blame, and he is not afraid to call them out for it.

Bigger than the sport?

There is a grave danger to Rossi's strategy, one that hurts both the championship and himself. Rossi's attack undermines not just the credibility of this year's championship, but of every championship in the future. If fans believe this year's title was fixed, they are more likely to regard next year's championship as fixed as well. Accusing other riders of foul play is opening a Pandora's box of conspiracy and paranoia that will not be tamed, and will grow wildly out of control. If fans stop watching because they believe that MotoGP is not fair, fewer fans will watch to see Rossi enjoy success in the future.

Is MotoGP rigged? If it was, then it would be rigged for maximum financial gain, and that would mean that Valentino Rossi would win every championship. Rossi remains the giant of the sport, the man who is bigger than the series, the rider who sells the championship to casual fans and brings an international appeal to motorcycle racing. If Dorna had their way, they would not choose to have Jorge Lorenzo – clearly the fastest man this year, and arguably one of the fastest riders ever to walk the earth, but not a lovable or even likable character in the slightest – win the championship. Instead, they would have their big ticket riders, Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez win the title.

Does Marc Márquez want a Spanish champion? He certainly does, but only if that Spanish rider is called Marc Márquez. Motorcycle racers are deeply egotistical, and care only about their own achievements. Marc Márquez helping Jorge Lorenzo to beat Valentino Rossi makes as much sense as Max Biaggi helping Rossi beat Sete Gibernau. There is a logic there, but it is an entirely abstract logic which bears no relation to the human reality of the situation.

The truth is out there

Can we believe what we saw on Sunday? The facts speak for themselves, but we should be careful not to read things into them which may or may not be there. Did Marc Márquez really let Jorge Lorenzo win? Whether he did or not, we will never know, and speculating about it is particularly pointless. Did Marc Márquez cost Valentino Rossi his tenth world title? This we can be a little more certain of: blaming Márquez is as valid as blaming Andrea Iannone for Phillip Island, or Rossi himself for a misjudgment at Misano where he stayed out too long, or Andrea Dovizioso for being faster at Austin, or Iannone at Mugello, or Pedrosa at Aragon. All of those riders interfered with the championship, just as all the riders who let Rossi past at Valencia interfered with the championship. It is an entirely simplistic and narrow view of what a MotoGP championship is.

There were eighteen races this season, and points were handed out at each race, each race was run under its own specific circumstances, and there were surprises, oddities and weirdness every race weekend. The point of a motorcycle championship over so many races is to even out the rough patches, to average out the performances, so that the rider who has performed best over the course of the season receives the title. In 2015, that was Jorge Lorenzo, by one of the slimmest margins in a very long time. Valentino Rossi fought like a lion, and comported himself with great dignity as a racer, all the way to the end. But from Sepang onwards, that dignity disappeared, and Rossi looked like an old racer searching for excuses.

That tarnishes the image of a rider who has a legitimate claim to be regarded as the greatest of all time. More importantly, that tarnishes the image of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, and MotoGP in particular. That is a very bad thing indeed, as Grand Prix racing will continue long after Valentino Rossi retires. Sometimes, an athlete is bigger than the sport he competes in. But that sport has to ensure that it is not crushed under the weight of that athlete's reputation when they leave.

Trunkman's take on Rossi mania :

Doctored – MotoGP’s Obsession with Valentino Rossi

Within his own sport, from the fans to the media to the organisers themselves, the preoccupation with Valentino Rossi is staggering. Why does this obsession exist? It can’t just be his talent can it? This is part one of a series of three articles examining the future problems facing MotoGP as a result of this fandom of one particular rider.

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further. I am not, in this article, nor elsewhere, disputing the fact that Valentino Rossi is an incredibly talented motorcycle racer. He is a seven time MotoGP World Champion as well as World Champion of the 125cc and 250cc class. He’s won the second most Grand Prixes of anyone, ever. He’s won the Suzuka 8 Hour. And at 36 years of age, at the time of writing, he is right in the fight for this year’s championship. To suggest he is not one of the sports all time greats would be absolute madness. However, that I need to point this out off the top is kind of the point of this article in many ways.

Nor am I looking to get into an argument about whether Rossi is the GOAT. The Greatest of All Time. That is something that is purely a matter of opinion. Many people will swear till they are blue in the face and have worn their keyboard bashing fingers to the bone, that he is. Personally, I’d hang the GOAT medal around the neck of one Mike Hailwood, but as I say, that’s a discussion for another time and another place and preferably involving pints of something.

Nor, I guess I must declare, am I massive fan of any of Rossi’s key rivals. I am a fan of motorcycle road racing. Grand Prixes, Superbikes, Road Racing and so on. It’s the sport I love. I cheer for a great race, not a rider. I cheer for skill, not only the skill of one. If there’s one rider I do actively remove my hat of impartiality for though, I must confess, it’s for Remy Gardner in Moto3 but that’s because his old man is who got me interested in MotoGP in the first place and the Gardners are friends with my family, so, fine, that’s a vested interest. You got me. But it’s hardly relevant here.

What I want to look at in these series of articles is ‘Rossi-Mania. ‘Rossi Fever’. I capitalise it because I think it’s a real thing that could be defined by science and medicine. Why is it that fans, the media and even the sport’s governing body are so utterly, blinkeredly obsessed by Valentino? Why does he get the free pass many other, not just MotoGP riders, but greats of their own sports, do not enjoy? What is it about him, and humans in general, that such blind hero worship is not just observed in the case of #46, but is entirely the norm? It’s not something I’ve ever witnessed with any other sports person in history. And I’m curious as to why. And if it’s a good thing for the future of the sport in general.

There’s three areas I want to look at as mentioned above. His popularity amongst fans, the media’s portrayal of him and his place within the sport itself.
For Part One, let’s start with the fans. The fans of MotoGP and, of course, more specifically, Valentino Rossi himself.

To merely state that Valentino Rossi is the most popular MotoGP rider is to understate things massively. That would be like saying oxygen is quite a popular gas amongst animals. By way of comparison, in his prime, Michael Jordan was unquestionably the best, and also the most popular basketball player, arguably the most popular and well known sportsperson overall, in the world. He received the bulk of the fan and press attention, but a lot of this had to do with the fact he was winning. Everything. MVPs, scoring titles, gold medals, championships, battles with Danny DeVito led cartoon aliens, you name it, he won it. Now, while it is true that in years gone past, especially during the birth of the 990cc era, Rossi too was winning everything put in front of him, the subsequent levels of adulation heaped on Rossi, across the board, are seemingly unaffected by his results.

His popularity has not waned from his days of domination to his disasterous run at Ducati to his late career resurgence now. Jordan was always popular but he was surpassed in fan and media excitement by the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson and others in his later career, especially when he was playing for the Wizards. A team who, at that time, were basically the 2011 Ducati of the NBA. In Jordan’s final year the fans did not even vote him to the starting lineup for the All-Star Game. Vince Carter was more popular. Now, Vince Carter was no slouch but you take me point. And yet, by contrast, during Rossi’s Ducati tenure the largest queues at the merchandise stands at any GP would always be, without fail, at the VR46 huts. The crowds remained a sea of yellow.
Aside from his popularity I wonder about the benefit of the doubt given to Rossi by fans as well.

It seems for a Rossi fan there is no grey area. And indeed, for casual fans of racing, Rossi will more often than not get the benefit of the doubt without argument. For example, and I offer these without judgement, think of Jerez 2005, Laguna 2008, Motegi 2010 and Jerez 2011. Now, imagine if you will, the reaction to incidents in those four races if Rossi had been in the position of the other guy involved? It’s worth thinking about. Not about who was right or wrong, just simply the shift in public reaction. And there’s a solid scientific reason for that, which I’ll get to.

Why people flocked to Rossi to begin with is, I’d suggest, for a number of reasons. As a youngster, in his 125cc and 250cc days he was a big personality. He joked and mucked about with victory celebrations at a time when the sport was perhaps lacking personalities.

Mick Doohan was dominating the 500cc class like no-one had for a very, very long time but Doohan was what you might call ‘the consumate professional’. Doing press annoyed him. He didn’t go in for big celebrations after a win. He got on the bike, rode the **** out of it, won, and went home. Before Doohan there had been the much loved flamboyancy of Kevin Schwantz and until Rossi arrived, himself an openly large fan of Schwantz, there hadn’t been that big personality in the sport. Fans were drifting away and an injection of some sort was thought to be required.

And so Rossi was the right guy at the right time. That’s how it started. That he had the talent to back it up was obviously an integral part of that. Many purists might’ve been annoyed by his antics but they would at least begrudgingly admit that he had earned them unlike their often voiced disdain for the likes of Randy Mamola in his Cagiva days for ‘too much showboating, not enough winning’.

And Rossi also recognised the value of a brand, something that was becoming more and more important. The constant #46, the dayglo yellow, the sun and the moon. He was a ready made package. It’s worth noting that, aside from a few exceptions such as Kevin Schwantz’s #34 or Barry Sheene’s #7, keeping the same number year to year wasn’t exactly the done thing before Rossi. He excited current fans of the sport, reinvigorated some old ones and brought in swarms of new ones. They were Rossi fans first, bike racing fans second, if at all. And this where a separation begins for me.

There is, in sport, a difference between a spectator and a fan, as discussed by Beth Jacobson from the University of Conneticut in her 2003 paper. Spectators watch a sport, and enjoy it, often just for the sport, the contest. A good example here being myself during the current Ashes series. As both a British and Australian citizen my allegiance, or ‘fandom’, if you like, is split. I don’t care who wins. I just want to watch a good game of cricket. When this hasn’t been an option, as all the games have been one-sided affairs one way or the other, my interest has waned. A fan does not do this. They are invested.


This is where what social psychologists call a ‘collective identity’ comes into play. These identities can come and go depending on circumstance. There are political collective identities during an election perhaps, or ones of class in society. In terms of sport, during the course of the live event, these collectives form for the duration of the event.

Researchers Hirt, Zillman, Erickson & Kennedy published a paper in 1992 that suggested that sports fans of a particular player or team are unique in that their community is already formed, ready made, before any individual members have already actually met. When someone arrives at a race track in yellow, you already know that they are on your side. Over time, this grows and grows. Humans’ need to feel like they are part of a group is built into us by evolution. For safety, for carrying on genes and so on. So to be part of a winning group is a much more powerful urge and so, when Rossi arrived and started winning, then clearly this is where people flocked. He was exciting and people wanted themselves some of that.

‘Balance Theory’ as proposed by the Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider, suggests that we are all looking to achieve some sort of psychological balance in our attitudes and beliefs. It’s our lazy human brains not wanting to be challenged in many respects. An example here might be, ‘I like George Clooney. George Clooney likes Nespresso. I like coffee. So I will like Nespresso’. Or the inverse, ‘I like George Clooney, but I hate Nespresso, therefore George Clooney must be ******. I don’t like George Clooney anymore’.

When it comes to sport this comes into play via a psychologial mechanism, part of Social Identity Theory which dates back to the early 20th century, called BIRGing (Basking in Reflected Glory). It’s why sports fans will often refer to their team as ‘we’. ‘I am their devoted fan, therefore if those players win the game, I have won the game’. This is, clearly, a huge factor in the beginnings of Rossi-fandom and, during the period he was not winning like he used to, it plays a massive role in the strengthening of the myth.
More on that later.

Traditionally this existed in a stadium or perhaps down the pub during a telecast which, at the time Hirt and co penned their paper, was people’s only real access to their collective community. But in 2015, we have the internet. And timing, as much as anything, has helped fuel the Rossi fandom flame.

This all makes pretty logical sense. Obviously the most successful and exciting sports people are the most popular right? Whilst not true in every case, it’s a fairly safe blanket bet. The Chicago Bulls are more popular than the Milwaukee Bucks.

Collective Identity also comes into play with nationalism and patriotism. Motorsport is massive in Italy and now the fans had a true Italian star to get behind. There have been countless papers in sociology and beyond about national identity in sport but that’s not something I want to get into here. Now, it is fair to say Rossi is hugely popular amongst non Italian fans as well which is something that, in MotoGP certainly, falls into the same collective identity system.

There are only a handful of MotoGP riders to choose from as a fan. It’s why Rossi is so popular around the world because there aren’t necessarily riders from countries where the sport is very popular like Holland or Indonesia. It’s why the NBA and the EPL are more popular than local leagues.

Britain especially took Rossi to heart. His reign was at a time when the UK was severely lacking in MotoGP talent but interest in racing was high thanks to Carl Fogarty and James Toseland in WSBK. The likes of Bradley Smith, Cal Crutchlow and Danny Kent were many years way and so, loving to back a winner, the Brits jumped on board Rossi. He was a bit of a laugh and fitted right in with the sort of racer that Brits loved. Brits went in for showmen or gutsy riders. They had adored his like before. The showmanship of Schwantz and Sheene and the guts of a Gardner or a Sarron.

Also Rossi lived in London for a time. And here’s where it gets interesting.
During Rossi’s time in London he had, essentially, been paying a lot less tax than he should’ve been. Both in Italy and the UK. Now, Rossi was not what you might traditionally call a tax cheat by any means. He was in London, not an island off of Malta. And when it all caught up to him, and the lawyers duked it out, he swallowed the pill and didn’t run, he paid up. Some £30 million plus. And he returned to Italy. His reputation entirely untarnished.
Wait, what?

Now, you can argue back and forth about the ethics and the morals of what did and didn’t happen in this situation but usually one whiff of tax avoidance around a celebrity and the UK media and fan base take a deli number to line up to nail them to the wall. Not even Take That was immune and when the British public turns on Take That no-one would seem safe. Rossi, on the other hand, was seen hard done by. That the tax department was just out to get him. And he was a hero for paying up.

I’m sorry, what? Again, you can research the case and make up your own mind, I’m not here to judge, but can you imagine anyone else getting this almost universal free pass? Even if that’s true it’s usually the job of people to simply read a headline and jump to the exact opposite conclusion. Motorsport forums the world had fans falling over themselves to defend him. And he gained fans. None left. One would expect at least some to take a leave of absence. And yet the legend grew.

Because now these fans were invested, massively. They could not remove themselves from him because they, through BIRGing, were him. Which brings us to CORFing. The other side of the social identity coin. Cutting off Reflected Failure.
You come at Rossi, you’re coming at us.

CORFing can take many forms in sport. The often used comic example in the UK concerns Andy Murray in England, where he is British when he wins and Scottish when he loses, enabling fans to distance themselves from the failure but be included in the victory. Bandwagons come into play here as well, and bandwagon supporters are of course the bane of any ‘true fan’. I’ve been a Fremantle Dockers member since day dot so I know a thing or two about that. Talk to me when you’ve sat in the outer in the WACA in a winter storm, drenched to the bone watching us (look at me BIRGing) take a 100 point beating (or maybe not. Maybe that’s BIRFing, basking in reflected failure). But Rossi fans did not dwindle during his dark years. They still came. Only when he was not physically there, during his broken leg in 2010, did they stay away, not during his disastrous Ducati years of 2011 and 2012.

In an 1980 paper, two psychologists, Cialdini and Richardson took a look at how college sports fans in the US deal with loss and it is a phenomenon very much at work when it comes to Rossi. They observed, by surveying and studying a large sample size of students, that when their self esteem was threatened, after their school lost a basketball or football game, rather than accept the defeat, or jump off the bandwagon, or even attack their own team for not playing well enough, they resorted to what Cialdini and Richardson called ‘Blasting’.

They were part of the school, as students, so to attack the team, even in outrage would be to attack themselves. And so they attack, critisize and belittle the other school. Not to put them off their game as the game was already over, but, as the author’s quoted, in an attempt to “look good to observers, one option available to us would be to make those with whom we are negatively connected with look bad: to publicly blast the opposition”. The collective identity must be protected.

They are protecting themselves, not Valentino himself. He doesn’t need protecting. He’s got a thick skin. He’s, whether publicly admitted or not, aware sometimes he cannot win. It’s the fans protecting each other from competitors to their crown, their shared glory.
This is often seen in sport amongst rapid fans, or in intense rivalries such Man U and Liverpool. Or when people’s politics spill into sport such as the booing on Adam Goodes recently in the AFL by a handful or narrow minded, ignorant, racist, morons. To put it lightly.

But with Rossi, it is all about the man himself. There’s two examples that show the extremity of this when it comes to Valentino Rossi.
The first is that infamous, frankly disgusting, Day of Champions at Donington Park in 2007. I wrote a big article about it at the time and was attacked for it by Rossi fans. And, in many respects, the parallels to Adam Goodes, although in an entirely non-racial way I must add, are obvious.

Rossi was struggling in 2007. The tyres and the bike were not to his liking. He had lost the championship last year for the first time since most of his fans had become fans. Rossi had fallen. They were already on the defensive, ‘blasting’ Nicky Hayden as lucky and undeserving as a champion. Nonsense of course and, as Julian Ryder is often quoted as saying, the more distance we get from 2006, the more we appreciate Hayden’s achievement that year. But in 2007, Rossi’s climb back to the top that had been largely tipped, had not arrived. There was a new kid in town on a new bike. They hadn’t liked Mick Doohan back in the day, and now here he was again, only this time calling himself Casey Stoner.

Stoner had said that he wasn’t a huge fan of Donington Park (many weren’t, especially the spectators) and this was supposedly the kicking off point. But, I’d argue, that’s bollocks.
The biggest cheers of the Day of Champions, a superb day of fundraising for the Riders for Health Charity held annually at the British Grand Prix, were always reserved for Rossi, the local riders and usually Colin Edwards who fitted the mould of everything the British crowd loved. Gutsy, a good laugh and a man who knew his place at Yamaha. Don’t beat Rossi. So when Casey Stoner, leader of the title chase at this point, came on stage one might’ve expected him to not get the sort of cheers of the others because he was a relative unknown, didn’t have that big personality and so on. Instead he was roundly booed. At a charity event. It was entirely appalling.

The excuse was he had bashed Donington. Or that he had bagged out England. Or something . He had lived in England for years, began his career there and was hugely fond of the place. So none of that rang true. At this stage he hadn’t even publicly said something non-glowing about Rossi as he later would. All he had done was beat him, fair and square. He was the enemy of the highest order. He was an attack, the first real, sustained, genuine one there had ever been, to Rossi and his diehards. Rossi was already down but 2007 was meant to be the comeback year. And yet here was this kid, this really, really talented kid from Australia of all places, already a mortal Ashes like enemy of England.

And so the only defence was to attack him. Belittle him as a way to prop themselves up. It was the bike, not him. The tyres, not the rider. Rossi just had bad luck etc etc. And they booed. I remember it well. It was the first time I’d ever seen such a thing in a MotoGP, a sport where the upmost respect was usually given to all riders. They were after all risking their lives for our entertainment. The defence was it had nothing to do with him winning, it was about his attitude, or his comments about Donington or anything else. ‘It’s because he stages for free kicks, not because his Aboriginal’.

This was when I first began to think about the collective identity, and all that came with it, of Rossi-Mania. With Stoner it just grew and grew. Logic went out the window. Stoner was the antichrist. The antirossi. From Laguna 2008 to Jerez 2011, it was literally impossible to have a sensible discussion about Casey Stoner with most MotoGP fans because most of them were only interested in a Rossi defence first and foremost. I once likened it to a fellow MotoGP writer that it felt like arguing with a creationist at times.

The second example is simply, the internet. Sporting websites have always been a place for debate and ribbing of opposition supporters and so on. Most of the time it is good natured or genuine debate save for a few bad apples. Though to stumble onto a pack of rapid Rossi fans on an internet forum wherein someone has dared to suggest that, perhaps, Jorge Lorenzo or Casey Stoner has some modicum of talent, is to suggest that you wish to render their children orphans. The blind defence of The Doctor is incredible. I have, in all honesty, never seen such a thing.

To go back to basketball, Lebron James is, right now, clearly the best player on the planet. But to read the comments under an article about him on ESPN is a mix of love, hate and indifference. To read the comments under any MotoGP article on somewhere like Crash or MCN and it will invariably have turned into an argument about Rossi. It might be someone simply saying, ‘Nice lap by Lorenzo’. Within a few comments you will find, ‘**** Lorenzo, he’s only good because he stole Rossi’s setup’. It might be an article about Suzuki but you’ll end up with ‘Rossi could win on a Suzuki tomorrow’. It is the Godwin’s Law of MotoGP online.

The speed of the defence. One could argue, as I will throughout these articles, is hugely scary for MotoGP. The fanbase for Rossi far outweighs the fanbase of motorcycle grand prix racing. Rossi fans support, unquestionably, their hero. They will occasionally root for the underdog, a non-threat to Rossi such as Colin Edwards, and then even the respect begins to wane for the rest. Lorenzo was fine, till he started beating Rossi.

Marquez was a fun new novelty, and for a while it was fine he was beating Rossi because Rossi openly liked Marc. And then he didn’t, especially post Assen this year, and now he’s a public enemy of Rossi fans everywhere. He’s suddenly been ‘found out to be a fraud’. A four time world champion we’re talking about here. It’s the world’s most predictable graph.

Sports fans will defend their teams though, that’s not uncommon, what intrigues me with Rossi is the level of ‘blasting’ and CORFing that takes place. Why is it? Perhaps, it’s to do with my first point, the spectator versus fan situation. A great deal of Rossi fans came to the sport via him, and so, without him, there is no MotoGP to them. If Rossi falls, there is no Plan B. Every other rider is simply a background artist to the Rossi Show. And so he must be defended at all costs for without him, there is no MotoGP. It’s entirely possible that this the subconscious thought at play in the minds of many a Rossi fan. And that’s a massive problem for the sport and it’s an idea I will later argue is not exclusive to fans.

Now, all of this is not necessarily to ‘have a go’ at Rossi fans although I think it’s fair to say some of them could tone it down a little, and I am sure this article in particular will be seen as such. It’s also not to have a go at Rossi the man, nor his career. The latter speaks for itself and we’ll be looking into the former a little more in the next part, although in my infrequent face to face dealings with him as a member of the MotoGP press over the years I have found him to be no more or less pleasant than most of the other riders on a race weekend.

I just think it’s one of the largest unexplored phenomens in MotoGP. You can dismiss much of the pshycology as mumbo jumbo if you like, but you’d be wrong, at least on a scientific level. These are human processes that exist, and have been tested over and over, I am merely attempting to apply them to the sport I cover. You can dismiss gravity if you like, it’s still taking place.