Nachlauf wrote:Imho LS11 is a bad example. Jorge could barely walk. His performance was actually surprisingly good there.
I agree, Lorenzo's condition at the end of the race certainly got my admiration for sheer dogged performance and strength of purpose; if he'd been fully fit I don't think the gap would have been anywhere near what it was. However the point I am trying to make is that Stoner played out his strategy extremely well in the face of how the race progressed, and surely it'd be hard to argue that he could have known at what point Lorenzo might physically fade, therefore he had to time his increase of speed fairly finely. That, to me, indicates that Stoner does have the ability to 'see' a race through to the flag and graduate his progress accordingly, which will be a very important factor if tyre life management becomes a factor with the new tyres.
That ability to play out the whole race mentally and make sure he was in the right place at the end (given a capable bike, obviously) has always been one of Rossi's great strengths, and his reputation for the late charge to the line was built on that - completely deservedly. I would not argue that Stoner should be seen yet to have cemented a reputation for a similar ability, but I do believe that we saw a significant change last year from his Ducati days. He now has a more flexible platform on which to demonstrate his various skills, and my contention is that he has already shown he has more arrows in his quiver than just raw speed.
Just going back over this thread, particularly the tyre management discussion and references to LS 2011, I'd say it's been fairly on-topic and well argued.
