MOTOGP » Rossi's 69th makes Indy, MotoGP history

Kwaka
Rossi never rode with Doohan but here are some numbers for your Calculator

1998 Mick Doohan 260 pts Max Biaggi 208 pts
2001 Valentino Rossi 325 pts Max Biaggi 219 pts

Since the two rode with the same rider I know for sure Rossi out smarted Biaggi by a mile

Saran, so you were following the 500cc championship from '90-'94? I certainly wasn't and it would appear than Doohan couldn't beat Rainey. But then dig a bit deeper and you find that Doohan, Rainey, Schwantz were all veeery close in those years. Doohan was just unlucky to have crashed. So was Rainey. End result is that Doohan has 5 champs and Rainey has 3. Both raced each other at their peak and won a similar amount of races against each other. When you consider that all racers give their all at each GP (at least the great ones do), who can really say who was better than who? It's just twists of fate that gave us the stats.

qrim Turtle
by you saying that CS might be able to match Eddie Lawsons 4 world Championships. CS has one in the bag and so 3 more to go in the next 6 years.. Not impossible. But last I heard Rossi just signed with yamaha for another 2 years. He is not going to sit back and relax. He has to fight tooth and nail with his own teammate JL, some 250cc promoters, plus CS and NH and Dani Pedrosa. Thats going to be difficult for VR so needless to say CS will have a hard time too. 3 more championship for CS is gonna be difficult. VR won it at his prime continously 5 times and 1 more on the way.

Wayne Rainey had a great personality like VR. You tube and watch his interviews. Dont tell me u didn't

I totally agree with that one Saran, I think the next 2 years will be 2 of the best ever. Apart from Laguna, my fav bit of racing this year was in Qatar about mid-race when Rossi, Pedrosa, Lorenzo, Stoner and Dovi were all wheel-to-wheel. All those guys are gonna be on factory rides next year and hopefully competitive. If all goes well people may look back on these coming years as Rossi's most challenging victories ever.

More importantly though, with 4 or 5 other riders that strong, hopefully there will be at least 2 being competitive in any given race.

Yes, and one of them will be Rossi

All this talk about Stoner's future seems a bit premature. Yeah he won the first ever 800cc championship and got 10 wins along the way, but Ducati caught the other manufactures out big time. Remember him winning the first race in 07, motoring past on the straight like the others were stuck in 4th gear. There are rule changes being discussed, limiting traction control, a single tyre which might not end up Bridgestone. Casy struggled on Mich, he blamed them in fact for all his crashing. Yes he is demon fast when everything fits but he has not proved he can be flexible. Who is willing to bet Casy would be as fast on a Mich/Dunlop shod Ducati with limited throttle electronics?

Grim turtle
If you say you didn't watch the 90 races. too bad.

Wayne Rainey won the World Championship 3 years battling out with Kevin Schwantz, Mick Doohan, Eddie Lawson and Wayne Gardener

I tried digging a little bit deeper but i couldn't say the same thing. So go figure.

In 1993 when Wayne Rainey had an accident he was 2nd in the Championship. Mick Doohan was 4th with a defecit of 58 points.
what do you think about that.

I think you are completely wrong.
"Doohan began the 1992 series in superb form, winning the first round in Japan by 28.298-seconds at Suzuka in wet weather. He also won the following three races in Japan, Australia, Malaysia, and Spain. Doohan raced to his fifth win in 1992 in the seventh round of the series at Hockenheim in Germany, and at that stage he led the world championship by 53 points.
In qualifying for the eighth round of the series, the Dutch Grand Prix at Assen, Doohan crashed and broke his right leg. He missed four races while recovering from the injury, and Rainey clinched the title in the final round in South Africa with 140 points to Doohan's 136."

mickdoohan . com.au

Oh and talking personalities: What about Federer? Sampras? Schumacher? Bradman? (cricketer if you didn't know), Phelps? they are/were hardly movie stars, but incredibly interesting people. I think Stoner and Pedrosa fall into this category. Such intense mindsets and kind of alien to me. I find it fascinating that people with completely different personalities can achieve such equally great things.

"Doohan began the 1993 championship well below full fitness. He had a restricted range of movement in his lower right leg which created difficulties when using the rear brake on his machine.

However, Doohan's results improved after a hand-operated rear braking system was fitted to his Rothmans Honda. He bounced back to form in the fifth round of the series in Austria, qualifying second and setting a lap record on the way to finishing second in the race. "