2022 MotoGP Discussion (No Links - Contains Spoilers!) | Page 11 | GTAMotorcycle.com

2022 MotoGP Discussion (No Links - Contains Spoilers!)

Oh, and if anyone is interested, Dorna is doing a fan survey about the current state of the series as well as future plans:

Global MotoGP™ Fan Survey 2022

I'm normally pretty skeptical of this stuff (had one recently from eBay asking about my 'relationship' to the corporation and whether I felt 'understood' by them that I quickly closed), but Dorna is clearly at a bit of a crossroads, both post-Rossi and being jealous of the F1 explosion as a product of their, uh, 'heightened' reality show over on Netflix. While I have mixed feelings about Dorna and Ezpeleta, there is always a risk they start worrying a bit too much about the sizzle and forget the steak. Either way...
I filled out the survey. I appreciate Dorna looking for feedback from their audience to gauge how to approach the future of the series. I couldn't be happier as a subscriber to Dorna's product tbh - I get access to all the content I could possibly want for a fee that is reasonable and in support of the series. Thinking back to the 90s, if the races weren't on TV, I'd take note of the time that any channel would show "sports highlights" and watch every single one in hope that one would show race highlights.

I enjoyed the race. I feel like Quartararo is one with his machine while others aren't. Pecco's mysterious crash - as you mentioned he seemed to be shouting at the bike - why would you do that to me? Mixed results from Ducati riders suggests the same. Maybe Aleix is close, but he seeemed to struggle in the conditions this weekend. Nice to see Maverick in a good mood. I'm impressed with Zarco. My wife and I joke, when we're not sure who's going to be on the podium or top qualifying, we say Zarco and he's always there or thereabouts. I find myself rooting for him now. If Quartararo wins, he'll be a deserving world champion. I like the underdog (doesn't every Roma fan?) - hoping Aleix and Zarco keep fighting right to the end.
 
I was pulling for Fabio last year because he was my preseason pick and he seems like a decent kid. But he rides an awful lot like Lorenzo, who was the least interesting of the aliens, especially on track: Get to the front early, tick off a series of fast and consistent laps to build a 2+ second lead, manage lead as needed to preserve tires, turn similar lap time on last lap as first. It's supernaturally skillful and incredibly hard to do, but not much fun to watch. At least Quartararo isn't as irritating off-track (that one's for you, @Winales_2017 ! 😁), at least not yet. Depending how culpable he was for the hilariously bad CGI dancing devil and DJ celebration last year...
I agree, actually; Fabio is what the next evolution of JLO would have looked like if he had a VR type brand or even if just stayed as test rider at Yamaha and he got PR training: the tragic part is as you said, JLO was pretty insufferable off-track, ironically think that is what makes him more Human in my eyes. Marc is seen only as a killer because of how he is on track, but actually he is pretty silly off-track and up until his injury was just a 'mad lad,' most never saw that part either.

These guys are always asking for new ways to go faster, but Lorenzo... he was the bane of the engineers and mechanics and created a reputation that could only be justified when he was winning: his 2nd season at Ducati underscored that which was made worse with typical abysmal Italian management. Persoanlly, I think that is what it took for him to compete with Rossi, Stoner, Pedrosa, Marquez as his talent was apparent but was only possible in the narrowest of margins so he had to maximize it as much as possible. His style wasn't showy, and it really only did one thing: create precise and metronome like consistency laps that helped perseve tires and fuel which suited the best I-4 bike on the grid.

Fabio will take this season barring an injury, no one has gotten close to him and Ducati will once again taste defeat despite fielding most of the track, and that should be alarming to everyone involved: specifically VAG. Zarco is showing his age, I like the guy and his career almost ended several times (specifically when he left KTM) but I think he will be a glorified test rider kept on a satellite bike to collect points on race day--pretty much what Aliex has been.

With that said, Fabio races are usually as exciting as JLO ones, which is to say very little after the first few opening laps where he just takes the lead and isn't seen unless their is a mechanical issue: and that is my biggest issue as the racing suffers. This weekend was no different, Pecco is proving to be another Dovi: capable of wins and poles but unlikely to ever be a championship contender, he's Italian so they'll keep him on the bike for PR but I think Enea or Jorge are more likely to challenge if they sort out their consistency and stay healthy. Getting rid of Miller kind of makes sense, but unles they are ready to divest out of Pecco and bring up the youngsters to build the team around them it's going to be like this again.

I'm really seeing a night and day thing with Marc not in this championship; the racing is just not as exciting without someone pushing the bike to very edge and pushing the field to keep up.

Well done to Mav who finally got to grips with the bike this weekend, sucks about the ride height device malfunction, hopefully this could be a turning point for him and he learned how to ride a V4 now--he had better pace than Aliex for once.
 
I filled out the survey. I appreciate Dorna looking for feedback from their audience to gauge how to approach the future of the series. I couldn't be happier as a subscriber to Dorna's product tbh

This deserves it's own reply: you cannot be serious, can you?

I mean, the content library is good... when it works. I have never seen a more buggy streaming service in my entire life, even the free options via IPTV or RedBull TV and the project JC, I and the guys worked on was far more reliable and in better quality than what DORNA had produced. I agree that the job is difficult, last year was an insane battle of attrition with the amount of back to back race weekends, but the most basic errors were being made by DORNA that it baffles me how they can stand by this product and charge what they do with no improvements. They lock people into the recurring payments, and used to do the black Friday thing to do it unless you knew how to be proactive about it.

I'd offer to join DORNA if they could bring me as a consultant (DORNA used to stalk these forums back in the day as they thought we were a threat to thier market share) if I was allowed to bring in my team: I used to joke with JC that they'd HAVE to hire us after the countless times we kept things up and running when DORNA servers crashed, or made any of the countless errors that ruined race weekends but to be honest I'd just be glad if they started offering things in 4K and stopped harassing fans and took stuff down Online, it's free Marketing! Just ook at the stands at the track this year, they've been sold out and sponsors care more about these metrics and KPIs than they do about commercial rights on TV since DORNA/BT/DAZN/RBTV don't even have ads during the race!

Carmello and DORNA operate like this the 1950s with exclusive broadcast rights and magazine publications, which makes the product suffer. Up until recently the racing could make up for it, but now that things are reverting back to the mean--Fabio had a 4 second lead--I'm starting to struggle wanting to watch live again.

Essentially they have a captured Market, and they operate as such. Honestly, if BT sports were more accessible I doubt DORNA could compete on content and substance: Simon is the only thing keeping the commentary team relevant. the rest are the most monotonous commentary to act as filler.

These last couple of years (4-5) showed me how difficult what they do is, it is a large time commitment and we were not even doing the logistical feats like traveling with team and equipment during COVID and putting on races in front of empty tracks with seemingly no financial payoffs, but... what I did learn is what they need more than anything else is new blood. They can't undo decades of piss-poor customer relations and abysmal UX with an Amazon documentary, which they stopped filiming early this year as they realized it didn't have the intended effect. There needs to be an entire overhaul of the way they operate, especially for the price point they are in as it doesn't even work across most platforms and you have to do a ton of work arounds to watch off of the website, which seems to be the only thing it's optimized for.
 
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This deserves it's own reply: you cannot be serious, can you?

I mean, the content library is good... when it works. I have never seen a more buggy streaming service in my entire life, even the free options via IPTV or RedBull TV and the project JC, I and the guys worked on was far more reliable and in better quality than what DORNA had produced. I agree that the job is difficult, last year was an insane battle of attrition with the amount of back to back race weekends, but the most basic errors were being made by DORNA that it baffles me how they can stand by this product and charge what they do with no improvements. They lock people into the recurring payments, and used to do the black Friday thing to do it unless you knew how to be proactive about it.

I'd offer to join DORNA if they could bring me as a consultant (DORNA used to stalk these forums back in the day as they thought we were a threat to thier market share) if I was allowed to bring in my team: I used to joke with JC that they'd HAVE to hire us after the countless times we kept things up and running when DORNA servers crashed, or made any of the countless errors that ruined race weekends but to be honest I'd just be glad if they started offering things in 4K and stopped harassing fans and took stuff down Online, it's free Marketing! Just ook at the stands at the track this year, they've been sold out and sponsors care more about these metrics and KPIs than they do about commercial rights on TV since DORNA/BT/DAZN/RBTV don't even have ads during the race!

Carmello and DORNA operate like this the 1950s with exclusive broadcast rights and magazine publications, which makes the product suffer. Up until recently the racing could make up for it, but now that things are reverting back to the mean--Fabio had a 4 second lead--I'm starting to struggle wanting to watch live again.

Essentially they have a captured Market, and they operate as such. Honestly, if BT sports were more accessible I doubt DORNA could compete on content and substance: Simon is the only thing keeping the commentary team relevant. the rest are the most monotonous commentary to act as filler.

These last couple of years (4-5) showed me how difficult what they do is, it is a large time commitment and we were not even doing the logistical feats like traveling with team and equipment during COVID and putting on races in front of empty tracks with seemingly no financial payoffs, but... what I did learn is what they need more than anything else is new blood. They can't undo decades of piss-poor customer relations and abysmal UX with an Amazon documentary, which they stopped filiming early this year as they realized it didn't have the intended effect. There needs to be an entire overhaul of the way they operate, especially for the price point they are in as it doesn't even work across most platforms and you have to do a ton of work arounds to watch off of the website, which seems to be the only thing it's optimized for.
Can't be serious? It's an opinion on a product - I'm happy with it - you don't have to be. I first subscribed in 2018, and since then I can recall one time that the app didn't work at all - turned it off, and ended up watching the race a day later on the same app - and two or three times maybe that it wasn't a perfect stream. I've always used Nvidia Shield to stream, but when traveling, mobile and casting, laptop or other smart TVs - never had an issue accessing the platform no matter where in the world. Slow internet, no problem, can stream low quality. I can watch qualifying and the race live or if timing of the event doesn't work out, I watch spoiler-free afterwards. The live video production is the best of the lot (vs other race series). There are pre-race and post-races press conferences, tech talks by Simon, plenty for me to stay engaged and interested.
 
Can't be serious? It's an opinion on a product - I'm happy with it - you don't have to be. I first subscribed in 2018, and since then I can recall one time that the app didn't work at all - turned it off, and ended up watching the race a day later on the same app - and two or three times maybe that it wasn't a perfect stream. I've always used Nvidia Shield to stream, but when traveling, mobile and casting, laptop or other smart TVs - never had an issue accessing the platform no matter where in the world. Slow internet, no problem, can stream low quality. I can watch qualifying and the race live or if timing of the event doesn't work out, I watch spoiler-free afterwards. The live video production is the best of the lot (vs other race series). There are pre-race and post-races press conferences, tech talks by Simon, plenty for me to stay engaged and interested.
My two Roku TVS had some issues early this year with the Live feed. Video on Demand has always worked fine. for me as well.
 
Can't be serious? It's an opinion on a product - I'm happy with it - you don't have to be. I first subscribed in 2018, and since then I can recall one time that the app didn't work at all - turned it off, and ended up watching the race a day later on the same app - and two or three times maybe that it wasn't a perfect stream. I've always used Nvidia Shield to stream, but when traveling, mobile and casting, laptop or other smart TVs - never had an issue accessing the platform no matter where in the world. Slow internet, no problem, can stream low quality. I can watch qualifying and the race live or if timing of the event doesn't work out, I watch spoiler-free afterwards. The live video production is the best of the lot (vs other race series). There are pre-race and post-races press conferences, tech talks by Simon, plenty for me to stay engaged and interested.

I'd take this apart if I didn't have 2 days of work to catch up on: but to be honest I think I realize why the service is as bad as it is; most of the vocal paying demoraphic are too easily content with the status quo--I'm sure they're using these as KPIs to keep things as they are as we speak.

It is my contention that on a larger scope when you take a larger demographics this breaks down: attendees of the races and presumably those who are also tracking their bikes are more concerned with using their discretional funds on making their (ever-shrinking) budgets go further to ride not pay DORNA a track day fee for the basics for races they have to watch a day later or live when it occasionally works.

This is ultimately an n=1 sample size, and I'm inclined to say it's the outlier, but it is valid. I just don't think it's the norm, I've had DORNA pass since 2015 and kept it mainly through the offseason black Friday specials and I ALWAYS stopped using it after a few weeks and mainly used it for Market research rather than a place to watch the current season of races.

I found it so bad I just gave up and just re-watched from other sources where I could stream direct to my TV: I don't want to watch on my laptop if I can avoid it, and I'm OS agnostic and have all 3 major platforms: Linux, Windows, iOS. And they all had issues when streaming from within a PC or Mobile platform, it either just buffered until it crashed or simply refused to play with chromecast.

With that said, I can't see how things improve this way and ultimately the you get what you pay for adage is one that doesn't reflect cost, but rather lowered expectations.

All the other major sports managed to solve this years ago and at a much better cost point; one of my colleagues actually made an early competitor to the UFC fight pass, which was focused on overseas MMA franchises that didn't have any Online stremaing and did well for a while as he established partnerships diretly. We spoke a lot over the years about how to improve things with regards to these kind of projects: ultimately these things live and die based on their community.

Eventually, he gave up as it was only able to cover expenses as many franchises folded or they stopped paying him so he moved on to another project which now is profitable and doing well, but the fact remains: MotoGP is like the ultimate moat in the Sports World, and it's a dinosaur in terms what it delivers, they rested on the laurels for too long in terms of innovation.

The ultimate slap in the face is making timing an extra cost, that really makes it clear that they'll monetize anything they can while neglecting it's core function as a LIVE streaming service: you can find replays of the races pretty readily as early as an hour afterward if you know where to look.
 
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I'd take this apart if I didn't have 2 days of work to catch up on: but to be honest I think I realize why the service is as bad as it is; most of the vocal paying demoraphic are too easily content with the status quo--I'm sure they're using these as KPIs to keep things as they are as we speak.

It is my contention that on a larger scope when you take a larger demographics this breaks down: attendees of the races and presumably those who are also tracking their bikes are more concerned with using their discretional funds on making their (ever-shrinking) budgets go further to ride not pay DORNA a track day fee for the basics for races they have to watch a day later or live when it occasionally works.

This is ultimately an n=1 sample size, and I'm inclined to say it's the outlier, but it is valid. I just don't think it's the norm, I've had DORNA pass since 2015 and kept it mainly through the offseason black Friday specials and I ALWAYS stopped using it after a few weeks and mainly used it for Market research rather than a place to watch the current season of races.

I found it so bad I just gave up and just re-watched from other sources where I could stream direct to my TV: I don't want to watch on my laptop if I can avoid it, and I'm OS agnostic and have all 3 major platforms: Linux, Windows, iOS. And they all had issues when streaming from within a PC or Mobile platform, it either just buffered until it crashed or simply refused to play with chromecast.

With that said, I can't see how things improve this way and ultimately the you get what you pay for adage is one that doesn't reflect cost, but rather lowered expectations.

All the other major sports managed to solve this years ago and at a much better cost point; one of my colleagues actually made an early competitor to the UFC fight pass, which was focused on overseas MMA franchises that didn't have any Online stremaing and did well for a while as he established partnerships diretly. We spoke a lot over the years about how to improve things with regards to these kind of projects: ultimately these things live and die based on their community.

Eventually, he gave up as it was only able to cover expenses as many franchises folded or they stopped paying him so he moved on to another project which now is profitable and doing well, but the fact remains: MotoGP is like the ultimate moat in the Sports World, and it's a dinosaur in terms what it delivers, they rested on the laurels for too long in terms of innovation.

The ultimate slap in the face is making timing an extra cost, that really makes it clear that they'll monetize anything they can while neglecting it's core function as a LIVE streaming service: you can find replays of the races pretty readily as early as an hour afterward if you know where to look.

I had the Dorna service when it first came out, and it was buggy as hell. I disconnected for a while, but came back in 2020. In two and a half years, there's only been one race that had issues live that I'm aware of. It was last year (can't remember which round, think it was possibly Sachsenring?), other than that, it's been flawless. I hammer it with a bunch of devices (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, Roku, Android box from TV provider), and all work without a hitch. I turn it on, pick the video, watch. As I am rarely able to watch the race live (8 am conflicts with two old dogs' walk schedules), the fantastic 'No Spoiler' option is my default, and I can confidently log in and watch whenever is convenient.

I think you're being fairly condescending by suggesting anyone who is happy is only there because of lowered expectations or not knowing better. I also have used MLB.TV (awful), DAZN (tends to drop out or have crap quality for big football/soccer games), as well as the SportsNet and TSN garbage services that regularly boot me out and/or don't work on the rare occasions I use them. The Dorna service is miles better and more consistent than any of them. I'm switching to Fubo next year to follow the Premier League, we'll see if they're better than DAZN.

BT Sport is great, but it costs an absolute fortune in the UK: £25/mo. or you have to agree to a two year contract. Makes Dorna seem positively benign by comparison. Sure, it comes with more that MotoGP, but if that's your only option, get ready to spend. I'm not clear if that includes events on-demand, and if not, I'd be screwed. The coverage is marginally better, though I prefer Simon Crafar to Neil Hodgson simply because his understanding of the tech on the bikes is deeper.

All in all, it's generally great and works well for me. Frankly, without it, I'm not convinced I'd have any legal option to watch the races on demand. It's not like TSN or Sportsnet are lining up to buy the rights, and if they did, it would be a million times worse, as both streaming platforms are hot garbage.
 
As I am rarely able to watch the race live
I think this has most to do with your POV as that is 95% of the challenge with streaming services, again it's valid for your usecase, but I stand by my point(s) as they've been gathered from a much broader userbase.
I think you're being fairly condescending by suggesting anyone who is happy is only there because of lowered expectations or not knowing better.
Consider the fact that in total JC and I did this for ~4 seasons and we were getting viewers from all over the World and going through TB of data back then and gathering tons of data about viewership and habits, and then with the new team (at a much smaller scale) I got to see what was missing from DORNA and it was glaring how much could be done with only slight improvements. Even with uploading replays they often dropped the ball. I gave up because I was unable to keep up the demands with work and then going back to University on top of that.

I can't speak about those other platforms, though I have used DAZN for a trial month and it was fine to watch MotoGP it's just not what I wanted as I prefer to watch BT sports even if it's on delay: I was a big fan of Movistar back in the day because they had so much content all race weekend and had documentaries new/old as filler. It was good if you could get it.

BT Sport is great, but it costs an absolute fortune in the UK: £25/mo. or you have to agree to a two year contract. Makes Dorna seem positively benign by comparison.
Agreed. And that is the issue, if that is the benchmark from the competition and DORNA is the flagship why are you being out done by the competitor in every possible facet?
 
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The MotoGP site/app has certainly gotten better over time. They still have a habit of breaking things that used to work, but not as frequently as they used to. Updates to the service broke Chromecasting recently and it took them a month or two to fix that. They clearly didn't test Chromecast at all before making the update.

My annoyances with the service are simple things that they figure out in one season and then forget about in the following season. I watch almost everything on-demand rather than live, so I have the No-Spoiler page set as the default. Over the years, they've broken the preference for the default page numerous times so that I'd open the app and be immediately presented with the winner of the race on the main page rather than it going to the No Spoiler page. And even on the No Spoiler page they'd have a picture of the winner of the race as the video thumbnail, so you'd have to close your eyes and blindly stab to start the video if you didn't want the race spoiled. And then the description text for the video would also tell you who won the race. That description text is displayed as a big banner every time you start, fast-forward or reverse a video on Chromecast. There was a period of 4 or 5 years where they figured out these problems and fixed them halfway through each season after people complained, but then forgot about it and made the same mistakes again at the beginning of the following season.
 
For me: watching videos after they've been posted are fine. Stream/quality no issue. Watching live is hit and miss. Sometimes, it's good. Other times, I have to tune down the quality to 720 to avoid any buffering. Rarely, but not never, I can't watch. Its just way too choppy.

And yeah... I have the no spoiler URL burned into my memory lol
 
Bad news for Pedro Acosta…

e7878fdd52f5b35891a653370d627cc3.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Bad news for Pedro Acosta…

e7878fdd52f5b35891a653370d627cc3.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh, no. He was just starting to hit his stride this season... I remember him saying he doesn't do MX, so I'm guessing this was on track with a road bike.


I hope he gets better and doesn't rush this as he has nothing to prove as a rookie and his path to GP is all bust assured if he just continues to progress.
 
Wow Aleix…that was some phenomenal riding.

Rider of the day for me.

Ride of his career, including his win, I think. That last pass through the Geert Timmer Chicane was insane. Made the most of some bad fortune, and punished Quartararo for his stupidity.

What a flip from Sachsenring, where the Quartararo box was pretty much the only happy one. To put it another way, Bagnaia won, and that was what, the fifth most interesting result? Behind Bezzecchi's first podium, Vinales' return to the podium, Aleix's comeback, and Fabio's double crash?

While the paddock is thrilled to be getting a nice long summer break after a relentless run of racing and testing, five weeks is going to be a long wait for Silverstone. Which is also where Aprilia finally got their MotoGP podium last year, so could be a good spot for them again. Credit to Rivola, he's built a team at Aprilia that seems to be genuinely pulling all in the same direction from top to bottom. While I still think the rider's championship will be a stretch for Aleix, they do have a solid shot at the team's championship if Maverick can find some consistency and Pecco and Miller continue their inconsistency...
 
Oh, and for the silly season followers, Alex Marquez to Gresini (thanks to Estrella Galicia sponsorship cash) really starts to lock down the rides for next year. Sounds like Ogura and Rins to LCR, Mir to Honda, Oliviera plus Fernandez to RNF, Bastianini to Pramac and Martin to Ducati are all close to done. Would mean Ogura is the only rookie for next year.

Have to say, it would be excellent business by RNF to grab a (recent) multiple race winner and one of the most touted young talents. Hopefully Aprilia gives them some solid bikes to work with.
 
Wanna feel oooooollllld?

View attachment 55996


From Goodwood, where they did a parade lap including Rainey on his old Yamaha with a few mods. Despite the leathers, Kenny rode the KR bike you can just see on the left.


This is before my time, and I think the 2 stroke era was dangerous, but had pretty boring racing over all. But, this is another chance to take a poke at DORNA, here is a short segment of Rainey's documentary on BT sports about this ride at Goodwil coming out soon:

BT Sports is miles ahead of DORNA in production, content, and the commentary team; and this just shows why. Rossi's exit interview in Tabulia earlier this year was another example.

Today's race was pretty good for the championship, but overall rather boring by comparison to the rest of the races 1 Race of MotoE and Moto3 created the best racing I've seen for most of this season. Aleix did well, and congrats for for staying there to get a podium Mav but... I fell asleep watching.

Rins to LCR, Mir to Honda

This is going to be painful to watch, Suzuki was perhaps the most forgiving bike on the grid and they're going to ride HRC bikes which have been known as body-wreckers even at the best of times when they were winning championships, but now it's just a meat-grinder. I just hope Mir stays healthy long enough to work alongside Marc because these two are the best riders on the grid in my opinion: Fabio is a solid rider and as hit a winning streak on the Yamaha and has been the one to adapt his riding style to make the most out of the package but today goes to show that he can still revert to his old self when things aren't going his way--it was like watching him when he a moto2 rider when he crashed all the time.

I still can't see why they bothered to send him back out, that could have been way worse and not worth the risk when he has such a lead and he has the 3 other riders to be test riders for anything Yamaha would want to test out as team leader.
 
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