2010 Motorcycle Racing

[pimento]

Let's call the Doctor.

Doctor Whom?

[henk4]

Doctor Whom?

Doctor Rossi, are you not from the Peyton Place generation?

[pimento]

No, it was a play on the fact that I'm currently watching Dr Who.

What's a Peyton Place?

[henk4]

No, it was a play on the fact that I'm currently watching Dr Who.

What's a Peyton Place?

the playground of Dr. Rossi, and the series Valentino refers to himself...

[Kitdy]

Interesting shit has occurred recently. Rossi has since returned to racing - at the Sachenring last week with a broken leg, and still injured this week at Laguna Seca. He did well on both occasions, fighting with the big dogs.

The Doctor is making a house call to Ducati, and Stoner is going to Honda to form a sort of three man team with himself and the current two Honda riders; Dovi will be riding the "third" factory Honda, to be sponsored by Red Bull instead of Repsol.

Lorenzo looks very hard to beat at this point, and barring an injury and/or a series of crashes, even though the season is halfway done, it looks like he has this in the books. He has won 4 of the last 5 and 6 of 9 this year. Interestingly, a Spanish rider (either Lorenzo or Pedrosa) has won every race - except the first which Rossi won. Pedrosa was leading the GP at Laguna Seca but crashed out at turn 5, where a few riders went down. With that crash, Lorenzo sits 72 points ahead of second placed Pedrosa in the standings.

Also, estimated rider salaries were recently published on GPOne.com and a few blogs, here are the rider earnings in Euros:

1. Valentino Rossi : from 12 to 15 million Euro

2. Jorge Lorenzo: from 4 to 7 million Euro

3. Casey Stoner: from 5 to 7 million Euro

4. Dani Pedrosa: from 3 to 4 million Euro

5. Andrea Dovizioso: from 1.5 to 2 million Euro

6. Marco Simoncelli: from 1.5 to 2 million Euro

7. Loris Capirossi: 1.5 million Euro

8. Ben Spies: from 1 to 2 million Euro

9. Alvaro Bautista: 1 million Euro

10. Randy De Puniet: from 500 thousand Euro to 1.2 million (if he goes to Suzuki)

11. Marco Melandri: 500 thousand Euro

12. Mika Kallio: 350 thousand Euro

13. Colin Edwards: 250 thousand Euro

14. Aleix Espargaro: 250 thousand Euro

... and American dollars:

Valentino Rossi: $15.5 – $19.5 million
Jorge Lorenzo: $5.2 – $9 million
Casey Stoner: $6.5 – $9 million
Dani Pedrosa: $3.9 – $5.2 million
Andrea Dovizioso: $1.9 – $2.6 million
Marco Simoncelli: $1.9 – $2.6 million
Loris Capirossi: $1.9 million
Ben Spies: $1.3 – $2.6 million
Alvaro Bautista: $1.3 million
Randy De Puniet: $650,000
Marco Melandri: $650,000
Mika Kallio: $450,000
Colin Edwards: $325,000
Aleix Espargaro: $325,000

Rossi is also tied for 10th as the highest earning athlete of 2010 with an estimated income of 37 million dollars - with Yankees' powerhouse (and cheater) Alex Rodriguez. That is, according to this and this article from SI.

[Kitdy]

Ducati has just announced that they will not be entering a factory team in World Superbike next year. WSBK is the series that Ducati made basically, and they have won it far more than anyone else. MotoGP (with Valentino) will now be their focus.

[LeonOfTheDead]

WSBK budget went into Rossi's pocket lol

[Matra et Alpine]

Ducati "made" WSB in the same way prostitutes make a red light district

Ducati are fighting a losing battle in WSB as even WITH being allowed to run bigger engines the desmo stuff is just far too expensive to make competitive.

By signing Vale yes they've had to cut back to only being able to support that level of engine investment in one class. Of course, it may be a long-term-plan and after winning MotoGP for Duc in 2011 he'll then go to WSB and win it there for them in 2012

[2ndclasscitizen]

Rossi wouldn't make any difference to them being able to afford to run a factory WSB team, as the MotoGP effort is pretty much wholly funded by Philip-Morris sponsorship money. I think they've just cracked a sad about being shite this year. And by they, I mean the factory team, because there's still competitive privateers, i.e Checa.

[Matra et Alpine]

Ducati factory throw LOTS of money to the team and used to be privateers too.
Sponsorship in bikes is not as lucrative as F1 -- sadly

[2ndclasscitizen]

Ducati factory throw LOTS of money to the team and used to be privateers too.
Sponsorship in bikes is not as lucrative as F1 -- sadly

Yeah, but into the WSBK team, not MotoGP. Rossi's wage wouldn't have made them cut the WSBK factory team, the Philip-Morris money would cover that. They're just quitting because they've chucked a sad about being ****ing nowhere in the championship this year. Losing their MotoGP and WSBK team managers to HRC and BMW has clealry been a huge blow for them.

[fpv_gtho]

How much extra is Rossi's salary actually going to drain? I forget if theres been any figures published, but it looks like Lorenzo is chasing just under $20m a year from Yamaha so Rossi would be getting similar from Ducati, so around the $17-18m mark. I'm not sure what Stoner's on now but i dont think its over $10m. Maybe $5-8m.

I would think WSKB would be a bigger drain than $10-15m a year but who knows how its all justified and stacked up in Italy.

[Ferrer]

It's quite possible that the greatest rider ever, who's Italian, in an italian bike riding for what could be seen as the Ferrari of motorbikes is worth more than those 20 millions are all the Ducati WSBK titles put together.

And if he wins...

[2ndclasscitizen]

Vale Shoya Tomizawa. God damn terrible.

[Matra et Alpine]

^^ Yep , another sad moment in motorbike racing