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batsplat · 1 day ago

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if you’re ever bored……hypothetical 2010 season where jorge actually does go to ducati & casey switches a year early to honda…………and also just for fun valentino doesn’t know what motocross is :) how does that shake out? (was just reading your hypothetical 2013 casey / marc honda teammates answer [<333] and then immediately thought of like 4 other hypothetical seasons i needed)

not good for jorge, i can tell you that much

okay so.... hm... jorge signs with ducati in 2009, gets paid considerably more than casey is, and casey is unhappy enough he'll break the contract. three man honda team took a while to figure out... while dovi's 2009 performances would probably make honda quite amenable to such a switch, it would be tough to drop him after one year... hm. uh. probably a different team that would have been ahead of honda in the pecking order as a landing place for casey

(loud screeching noises from valentino at the suggestion casey might find a happy landing spot at yamaha because of VALENTINO'S mostly australian team. keep your hands OFF they belong to HIM)

anyway okay so let's say jorge signs with ducati in august. then there's a bit of a delay in casey making any choices because he's off sick while this is happening (classy from ducati as ever). but at this point, let's say the honda/dani relationship breaks over puig. so let's say.... hm...... pretty sure hayden was on a two year deal... okay let's keep it simple and put dani in yamaha. so then casey decides to go for honda

okay base conditions that both valentino and casey remain ~reasonably~ uninjured for the duration of the season... let's cover off jorge's season first. i think it starts quite promisingly and then essentially plateaus from there. this is a bit of a #hottake but when you really dig into it, jorge's 2017-18 ducati stint was... clearly worse... than valentino's 2011-12 one... yeah the headline results from jorge were better, but his teammate almost won the title one of those seasons. valentino was seventh in 2011, the same position as jorge in 2017 like... i think you can argue about 2012 vs 2018 - valentino was sixth and jorge was ninth BUT was injured for much of the latter half of the season and did get three wins. but again, we're comparing an unrideable mess with what was probably the best bike on the grid

now the way casey's 2010 irl pans out is that he has a really poor start to the season and then magics something out of the bike in the last third-ish. poor as in, being beaten by his teammate in the first five rounds and crashes twice:

2010 is his most all-or-nothing season because even for him, the bike is just shit at this point. he crashes out of the lead in qatar, for instance, not under pressure or anything but just not a bike he can trust. but he's also down on pace against hayden early on! i think inevitably there was also... a little bit of a motivation factor there... this is when he's hashing out the details with honda, like he's just disillusioned and it turns into a lame duck season. anyway he does do some set-up magic with his team in aragon that helps them figure out the gp10 and from there on it's a strong finish to the season

though i think the 'three wins and two crashes' also illustrate my point here

now i think in this au jorge does adapt to the ducati marginally better than irl valentino did, mainly because in 2010 he's quite a bit younger. idk how he deals with the crash thing. valentino's problem in 2011-12 was partly... idk man, he was in pain for basically the entirety of 2010, he was on a bike he wasn't comfortable with and was crashing a lot. if you know the absolute maximum you can achieve on that bike is what casey did in 2010 (and that ducati was still better than the following year's) then... it's hard to tell your brain that it's worth it, if you've had valentino's career. it's pretty obvious valentino wasn't willing to crash himself into bits, and casey directly and repeatedly accused him of just that (kinda a funny accusation like wow none of you people are right in the head). jorge is younger and hungrier, but he also clearly suffered from his 2008 season and was really shaken by some of the more horrible crashes. and then you look at something like 2013 assen where... he really struggled mentally even riding at assen in the following years, i still think that crash is also a big reason why his wet weather performances fell off after then (with the exception of aragon 2014). that ducati does a lot of damage to jorge at that stage of his career i think

but anyway nvm that, too depressing. also my apologies to dani, his 2010 season irl was the best in his career up until that point, but i'm going to have as a starting assumption that valentino has him more or less handled on a yamaha over the course of his first season. now when i read this ask for the first time i was kinda thinking that valentino should win 2010 quite comfortably... 2010's the last year until 2015 where yamaha has the best bike (2012 the honda just had a lot of chattering problems first half of the season). you can see from jorge's results what was possible on that bike, and even without the casey factor honda was more competitive in 2011 than 2010. jorge had some very comfortable margins in 2010; valentino missed several races due to breaking his leg and had a barely functional shoulder for all but one race and finished third in that year's standings anyway

the counterargument is... well, the casey factor, he'd be a lot more motivated in that scenario than irl where he was stuck just adversity farming for his revenge arc in 2011 (though a part of me wonders if a reset year after 2009 did help him for 2011). also, irl, after aragon it's 'only' a 56 point gap in the standings between jorge and dani (last race before dani gets injured in motegi with five rounds to go). now obviously that's still a fairly big chunk of points, but it's the consequence of what had been a pretty much perfect season from irl!jorge. no crashes, only one race off the podium. whereas irl!dani had had a meh first race partly due to injury and then crashed out of the lead from laguna. what i'm saying is, i think a good casey season - even accounting for the disparity in machinery - could put him in valentino's ballpark

so when i do stuff like this, either for predictions or for alternate timelines or whatever, i like to rate the tracks by who i think would come on top. but - this bit is key - it's been normalised so that it describes which way i think a track would lean IF after valencia the two contenders were perfectly balanced on points. obviously that is extremely unlikely, obviously this is a very rough made-up measure, it's just a rough guide. 0 is dead even, 1 is a small lean, 2 is a medium lean and 3 is a heavy lean

also important to note - this isn't directly about how i feel about each rider on each track, this is how i feel about them on each track in 2010 if valentino is on a yamaha and casey on a honda. so it's also the bike that factors into the scores. while we're already here and since this post will have to go under a read more anyway, let's go through the circuits (also just to get this out of the way: 2010 a rare season where every race was dry)

qatar: this one was REALLY tough. casey is excellent at qatar, it's a top three track for him, but it's defo more of a yamaha than a honda track. still, he wins on a debut at honda there in 2011... both jorge and valentino are 'pretty decent but not crazy' at qatar, valentino probably had a slight edge in their first teammate stint (2009 sort of the only year where you can fairly compare them) but let's say they're roughly equal. jorge did beat casey in 2012, but casey was struggling with arm pump. so. idk man it's just such a casey track, let's say '1' because it's a race valentino did in fact win and the ducati is theoretically more suited to the track than the honda. (casey crashed out of the lead.) but... well. tough

jerez: a good valentino track, casey's worst on the calendar and marginally more a yamaha than honda track. the only time casey won there was 2012, which he was super proud of. casey's only other premier class podium was in 2009, a race where valentino comfortably had him beat. also, yes it was raining, but casey's a good wet weather racer and it's worth pointing out that jerez 2011 was the only time that year valentino was even close enough to casey to take him out

le mans: this isn't all THAT great a valentino track, but casey's not great there and it's a yamaha track. this one also has the curious claim to fame that it's the one circuit where valentino had a better record on the ducati (p3 and p2) than casey (only one p3) did... a lot of circumstance and rain involved there, but again,, given that casey's a strong wet weather racer, it's notable that his only win at the circuit came in 2011 (wet) and his only duel with valentino in those two ducati!vale years came at le mans in 2012 (also wet, casey lost). 2010 was a rare dry race where even an injured valentino bagged a p2 behind his teammate. so.

mugello: the site of the leg break, except not in this timeline because valentino has a functional shoulder. DEFINITELY more of a yamaha circuit. now... that year dani did win, but jorge was talking about being affected by valentino's leg break (championship basically became his to lose in an instant) and i do think that's probablyyyy true. valentino won seven years in a row, the year where casey finally beat him was a flag to flag race right after valentino's le mans horror show in 2009. and casey never won again after 2009 - by his lofty standards, p3 in 2011 is quite poor. the less said about his 2012 race the better

silverstone: trickyyyyyy TRICKY. idk man!! the problem is this would've been their first year going there. defo more of a yamaha circuit, fast and sweeping, but valentino's only win there was in the wet of 2015, but that was post-prime and jorge was really strong there and valentino still had pretty strong results there even if he didn't win... first time there favours casey, but then again his one win there also came in the wet in 2011... due to the bike difference, marginally giving it valentino

assen: definitely a stronger circuit for both valentino and yamaha than it is for casey and honda on the whole, but yeah. also one where i'm not entirely comfortable. valentino gets that memorable comeback win against casey in 2007, then fucks it completely in 2008 when casey is back in full form, then wins comfortably in 2009 when casey is already mystery illness'd. 2011 was wet and casey comes p2, 2012 casey wins but did describe it as one of his worse circuits and jorge was punted out on the first lap. again i'm basing it on the strength of valentino's record there

catalunya: okay so again, arguably valentino's best track on the calendar, better for yamaha than honda. here i... well. i did almost give it a -3, but there's the little matter of 2007. i had the same problem with laguna which we'll get to in a minute, where really they ARE threes for their respective camps but... the psychology of it all.... so i decided i had to make the same choice for both of them and that choice is a two

sachsenring: hm idk about this one! i actually went against the bike here - sachsenring is certainly more of a honda track than a yamaha. it's also not actually a track valentino particularly likes. but... well, casey's just not great there. his only win is in the wet in 2008, and okay he would've won in any condition but that's also peak confidence casey. he was only third there in 2011, behind both dani and jorge - and you could make an argument that's jorge's worst circuit on the calendar. 2012 obviously he's in contention for the victory until the penultimate lap when he crashes out fighting dani. idk given the honda was so good at that circuit and casey didn't win... and valentino did win there in 2009... let's make it... just about even ig, honda carrying casey here versus valentino's record

laguna: the reverse of the catalunya problem. tbh there's a good argument to be made this is casey's second best track on the calendar. it's his most dominant win in 2007, in 2009 he was mystery illness'd, in 2010 despite all his struggles he gets p2 there, and then wins 2011-12. it suits him, it suits the honda, he's great there. now, obviously, i did skip a year there in the recap. idk, i think casey's more dominant at laguna than valentino is at catalunya because valentino isn't really 'dominant' in the same way at his best circuits, but it's also... the psychology of that... imagine a race where casey KNOWS valentino is trying to close in on him... the slight 'oh boy don't crash out of the lead' uncertainty that creates bumps it to a two

brno: *shrug* idk man, i feel like with that one i just sort of feel like it's so form-dependent. in 2007 by that point casey is locked in and would probably win anywhere, in 2008 he crashes out of the lead but *gestures* race after laguna, in 2009 he isn't there and valentino wins again but because jorge crashes out of the lead. 2010 not particularly exciting from either, 2011 casey wins and 2012 he isn't there due to injury. it's basically a bang average track for both of them, don't feel like either bike has a massive advantage either. zero

indy: valentino wins once, on the track's 2008 debut in the soaking wet when he's just had three consecutive wins and could probably ride on water if he were so inclined. casey is nursing a wrist injury in 2008, misses 2009, crashes 2010, wins 2011 and then limps home with injury to fourth in 2012. more of a honda than yamaha track, this is a bit vibes-y but the vibes give me casey

misano: *shrug* i kind of suspect misano wasn't really a great valentino track but he did a lot with sheer familiarity and enthusiasm. it's always quite close to brno in the calendar so it's had a sort of similar history... like yeah casey dominates in 2007 crashes out of the lead in 2008 and misses 2009 and 2012. you can critique his third place in 2011 but casey was really tired and couldn't sleep properly after indy so faded during the race :(( so yeah. zero it is

aragon: new track, better for honda than yamaha, valentino kinda sucked there, casey won 2/2 races at that circuit and it was the turning point of his season in 2010. easy three

motegi: tbh neither of them are great there. 2007 was a bit of a mess for both of them, 2008 was valentino's fifth consecutive victory just ahead of casey, 2009 wasn't great for either, 2010 casey wins comfortably while valentino with one functioning shoulder attempts to deprive jorge of his last shred of sanity, 2011 casey is a mere third and 2012 is his injury comeback race. i gave casey the slight edge because it's more of a honda track and he did canonically win 2010 but *shrug*

sepang: valentino likes the track a lot, casey i think is fine with the track but ... well, 'casey photos at sepang' is a category you can check out when you see someone looking like they're about to fall over dead. i have a theory that casey is hurt by a track being a testing track, like maybe part of the reason for the jerez thing is that all the teams have so much data on it. but casey's not terrible there!! wins 2007 when, yeah, he's winning most places, rougher 2008, 2009 he wins another flag to flag... not really a track that massively favours either bike, i think it's roughly even and form-dependent but gave valentino's superior record the nod

phillip island: it's a shame we didn't get to see a 2008 race where valentino high on confidence fights it out with casey - unfortunately he crashed in qualifying. 2009 is the closest they've gotten to a duel, though there valentino's championship situation may have played on his mind. and it IS a very good valentino track. but never mind any of that... if any track's a three, it's going to be this one (but imagine if they fought here !!)

estoril: kinda tricky... 2007 valentino wins but that one's such a tyre race, 2008 valentino loses to his rookie teammate while casey fights a camera, 2009 casey comes back from injury and immediately beats a set-up-compromised valentino to the podium... casey finally wins in 2012, the last track he needed to complete his record of winning at every track he'd raced at in the premier class. jorge's the estoril specialist, valentino is Fine. i ended up giving him the nod but *shrug*

valencia: valentino's worst track on the calendar, he has talked many times about how little he likes it, he also sucks there and likes picking up a cute end of season injury at that place. casey is pretty strong there, not unbeatable but it's nice and dusty in the qatar/aragon mould and he's certainly better than valentino. clear three

right. now that that's done. i only colour-coded once i'd gone through them and i didn't do them in order, which means i didn't realise that the tracks were ordered in such a way where valentino should be better in the first half of the season and casey in the second. now obviously most of the calendar remains fairly stable, but unfortunately we don't have enough seasons where both of them are consistently competitive to judge whether this is a trend that would have existed irl. it DID happen in 2007, where valentino was still pretty competitive in the spring european swing and then dropped away when they got to laguna, but it didn't in 2008 (.... though obviously this performance pattern from 2007 is one of the reasons why alarm bells were blaring inside of valentino's head when they got to laguna that year and casey was on three consecutive wins. maybe it would have happened if he hadn't laguna'd casey)

and yes, it's not like any season actually works out that way, that's not how sports works. i also think there's an argument to be made that of the aliens they're... possibly the two most track agnostic riders? but in a tight competitive season, which in my fantasy land i can say that they get, this is roughly how you'd expect those tracks to shake out. what it reminds me of is 2012, where jorge exploited the honda's chattering problems in the first half to build up a pretty comfortable lead that then dani hacked away at in the second half (with casey's season heavily affected by injury). that being said, when you look at the actual title fights between casey and valentino, casey is also enough of a form rider that if he's feeling it he could simply decide everything clicks for him from silverstone onwards and become virtually unbeatable. i also feel like post-2005 valentino wasn't winning titles on pace as much as he was narrative juice and he clearly does like to have his back against the wall, so maybe he needs to engineer a situation of duress for himself with one of his yearly dumbass crashes. given the bike performance levels that season, i do... broadly expect valentino SHOULD have the better of casey in 2010 (while the reverse is true in 2011)

but also... the casey/marc 2013 au was mostly just trying to objectively assess their respective performance profiles, but i would expect THIS one to have some special sauce!! clearly mr 'other riders don't care about me' 'if valentino does that to me again i'd give it back tenfold' stoner WAS kinda waiting for an opportunity to get back at valentino on-track. was ambition outweighing talent an insult casey originally had in his back pocket for when he won a laguna-esque duel against valentino? how much shit would valentino need to get from the italian press for him to decide he needed to do something crazy? i think with both catalunya 2007 and laguna 2008, it's really key that both of those duels rely heavily on the element of surprise. valentino hadn't lost last lap duels with title contenders in four years, he's great at catalunya, casey should never have even BEEN in a duel in laguna with the pace advantage he'd had all weekend. both times, the guy with the bike advantage lost. so in that tradition, when picking circuits for some hypothetical duels in 2010... well, obviously mugello and phillip island jump out at you. journalists were frothing at the mouth at a prospect of another casey/vale title fight early in 2010 like they were THE guys the it girl rivalry even after everything in 2009 - if you could've given them a mugello or phillip island duel... valentino has a proud tradition of dramatic fights in both, they're also both circuits where it's quite hard for the lead rider to break away. obviously they both managed it in the 800cc era but. let's say they don't

my IDEAL season for both of them, the title fight they actually deserved, is casey getting revenge for laguna at mUGELLO in a crazy scary duel and using that momentum + confidence to go on a run of wins. italian press at valentino's THROAT and he's committing to. moving in silence. but casey also wins misano that year, both italian races ... and then the title fight is still open at phillip island and valentino dramatically denies casey and casey wants to murder him!! <33 jb on the podium !!! australians cheering valentino nyhhhhhh ...... giving valentino that season and then casey sets up a crazy 2011 revenge arc

so. to put all those things together. in summary. first of all my sincere apologies to jorge lorenzo for what happens to him in this universe. i also think this is a bit mean to dani because he's very much playing the third man here. but well this is a casey/valentino title fight, i think they can rest easily knowing they had an actual real life title fight that exists outside of a tumblr post. this is how i think they should do the season

casey wins qatar, valentino wins jerez and le mans while casey had a couple of traditional races early in the season where he's wandering around pee fuck end of nowhere and it's not entirely clear why (tbf this may have just been a ducati thing, let's say it's growing pains on a less well-sorted bike than honda's 2011 bike)

mugello!! now, listen, the 800 era didn't have AMAZING races there, but i think we can get something going. even when winning 2007-08, valentino had a traditionally poor start and usually the first half of the race was quite decent. so we have a lil bit of a pack race as casey escapes out front and valentino has to chase him down. he eventually does so but [insert dramatic sequence of events where casey beats him on the last lap]

casey goes on a lil run of races at tracks that should be favourable to valentino, valentino stays calm and brings home the points and remains in lead of the championship. let's throw dani a catalunya win, he's good there too so. valentino has a traditionally ass qualifying and this time loses out to casey for p2. italian press unimpressed. dead heat in the standings

sachsenring they fight for the win. casey has kinda shown valentino up in mugello and catalunya but well it wasn't quite embarrassing enough for his purposes!! he wants humiliation!! they're really going at it, sachsenring nice and scary as a track. but casey CRASHES out of the fight for the victory

is this a repeat of 2008? has casey just not got it? the press once again ready themselves to write career obituaries... and they're going to laguna next... but casey refuses to let history repeat himself and takes home a comfortable victory at laguna. he never even sees valentino, but valentino is very nice to him on the podium

they arrive at brno and valentino, buoyed by a good couple of weekends and feeling in the zone again post sachsenring, brings home a reasonably comfortable win. points looking good for him

then he has his yearly dumbass moment at indy, right behind casey for p2 and wanting to build on his momentum. it's dumb on multiple counts, first of all because it's what he did LAST year and he'd been determined not to do that again, second of all because it's barely better than what casey had just done in germany. idiot + addicted to adversity farming

dani wins both indy and misano. valentino scrapes a home podium behind casey, too spooked to do anything more crazy. then casey wins both aragon and motegi and valentino has mixed results as he gets lost in the set-up juice... very much looks like an open championship

sepang goes valentino's way, in a bit of a dramatic win as he falls back to eleventh in the first corner and casey and dovi fight out ahead until he catches up (as in real life, substituting jorge for casey). very much a 'well done for not throwing your championship away but this does NOT look great for you'. maybe he briefly loses the title lead even before getting it back in sepang, but 2/3 tracks remaining very much favour casey and everyone knows it

then you have a Big Dramatic Race in phillip island. they are willing to kill each other!! valentino DID prove in 2009 that he could hang with casey (albeit presumably versus a slightly physically diminished version) and as long as he manages to stay in the same postcode it's all to play for. phillip island slipstream doing god's work. last lap battle where valentino overtakes casey at... remember that overtake your number one favourite rider aldeguer did at last year's phillip island in moto2 at lukey heights?? (the overtake itself is at 1:44)

casey would i think murder valentino but it'd be very funny and low key i would've liked to see it

anyway valentino also wins estoril and brings the margin for the title decider into one of those 'just don't be stupid and it should be fine' margins (more than he had in either 2006 or 2015, let's say around sixteen points). casey wins in valencia, valentino podiums and wins the title

and then obviously the following season casey does his revenge arc and then maybe both of them can remain healthy and have another go at it in 2012 who says no (jorge lorenzo)

#jorge ends up having a late career revival i am SORRY king we will GET YOU those titles sit right there...

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