© Bruce Allen November 25, 2020
Now that the season is over, here is where we would put the riders at season’s end. The whole tranching thing is about momentum, below Tranche I. Marquez has earned the right to maintain his ranking from last year for obvious reasons, despite not having competed in 2020.
Tranche I: Marc Marquez; Joan Mir; Franco Morbidelli
Tranche II: Jack Miller, Alex Rins, Pol Espargaro, Miguel Oliveira, Johann Zarco, Takaa Nakagami
Tranche III: Andrea Dovizioso, Fabio Quartararo, Valentino Rossi, Maverick Vinales, Brad Binder, Cal Crutchlow
Tranche IV: Danilo Petrucci, Alex Marquez, Pecco Bagnaia, Aleix Espargaro, Iker Lecuona
Tranche V: Tito Rabat, Brad Smith, Stefan Bradl
(Riders whose names are lined through are not returning in 2021.)
A little gratuitous eye candy.
Tags: franco morbidelli, Joan Mir, Marc Marquez, motogp, motogp riders
Late-Braking MotoGP 
November 25, 2020 at 8:35 am |
Three Yamahas
in tranche three
the fourth in one
who could disagree?
they claim it’s the fault
of the 2020 bike
that they chose themselves
but now they don’t like
one got promoted
one’s a head case
one got demoted
one knew how to race
they didn’t show much
but valves that burn
there’ll be even more trouble
when the Ant returns
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November 25, 2020 at 10:28 am |
Is that a haiku? LOL.
Fabio in three? Ouch. Yamaha and Fabio will both be back next season. Dude’s stupidly talented, he was totally hamstrung by his bike this year.
WTF are you smoking putting Zarco in 2? He might have turned up for qualifying a few times this season, but he certainly doesn’t have Taka’s consistency or Pol’s speed. At least he wasn’t trying to kill anybody in the last few races.
Biggest disappointment of 2020 – Pecco Bagnaia. He looked like he might be getting his act together for a couple of races there, before he flamed out again. Hopefully having factory eyes on him next year will smarten him up …
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November 25, 2020 at 10:38 am |
You would have Fabio in 2 and Zarco in 3? I could see that.
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November 25, 2020 at 2:18 pm |
“Is that a haiku?”
Actually, I was thinking more like Aerosmith. I can see why you didn’t get that though because I purposely didn’t put in the Yi, Yi, Yah’s and such. I though I’d let Steven improvise those himself.
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November 25, 2020 at 12:17 pm |
That’s some good Tranching Bruce. Might see Miller moving to 1 soon, we’ll see. I have no idea if Yamaha can make enough progress with that bike to move it’s riders up. I’m thinking Aleix is about to move up as well, we’ll see.
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November 25, 2020 at 1:00 pm |
Allison says I should switch Zarco and Fabio.
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November 25, 2020 at 1:34 pm |
Towards the end of the season, Zarco was looking strong and Fabio looked like he was on a Moto2 bike.
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November 25, 2020 at 2:02 pm |
+1
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November 25, 2020 at 3:25 pm |
That was kind of my thinking. Welcome to the conversation.
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November 25, 2020 at 4:21 pm |
By the way, very high quality selection on the gratuitous eye candy. Kudos.
For balance, here’s one for Allison now that she’s ditched Pop Gun:
https://www.motorsport-total.com/img/2020/200608/287718_w620_h500.jpg?ts=1591638323
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November 26, 2020 at 5:35 pm |
Hey, I never said I was dating Pop Gun (ewww, like even, with that porn star stache). Only that if i HAD been I would have been unimpressed. And if I had to date anybody in the paddock, it would be Frankie. I think he’d be fun at a party.
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November 27, 2020 at 8:15 am |
Well, I just thought what you said was funny and I was having a bit of fun with it, no offense intended. Glad you are here. You are perceptive to note that I took time to think of you.
I took a wild guess that since you were defending El Diablo’s tranching, you might dig a pic of him, but no problem, it certainly won’t be either the first or last time I’ve been wrong. Here you go:
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November 26, 2020 at 5:36 pm |
But I do appreciate your concern for gender balance and my general mental health.
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November 25, 2020 at 8:09 pm |
I’ll get around to considering your tranches one of these days.
Still perusing the eye candy.
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November 26, 2020 at 3:07 pm |
Once again excellent work. Nitpicking. You wrote Marquez didn’t compete in 2020. Didn’t he compete until he broke his arm?
He didn’t finish 2020, that’s for sure.
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November 26, 2020 at 3:09 pm |
Oh and Happy Thanksgiving!
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February 4, 2021 at 3:18 am |
No posts or comments since November? I hope all is well in Bruce-land, and you are resting and sharpening your ePencil for a long season of prognostication and post-race analysis. I hope 2021 is a great year for Late Braking and we get the the treat of reading you on MO as well. Cheers, M4TC
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February 4, 2021 at 6:08 am |
Great hearing from you, y’old biker. The tone of your note suggests all is well, or close to it, in your world. We carry on, having just this week gotten our 1st vaccine shots. Seems like we’ve been ‘sheltering in place’ forever, can’t remember how to go out in the world and actually do some living. We’ve missed two basketball seasons our local grandsons have played (ages 13 and 9), which last year became my #1 favorite sport, nosing out MotoGP. The older, Stevie the point guard with the three-pointers, just made an AAU team (!), we just don’t get to watch them play anymore. One of these days…I miss the yelling.
The big picture here is not great for the long term, but for now it’s fine. We hunker down by the fire ‘of an evening’ and read, stream, walk the dog. I do more cooking in the winter and am trying to collect 10 signature recipes that are so easy my grandkids could make them. I’ve also started building these ridiculous ROKR wood models I get on Amazon and which block out the entire world for, like, an hour at a time. Fitting tiny little wooden nails to connect precision-cut wood pieces–over 200– takes a little concentration.
I zone out on MotoGP every winter despite promising not to do so, and have to pick up the pieces starting around now. Promises to be another invigorating year despite no Brno and two Losails. No COTA, no Argentina. Whatever. It’ll just be on the blog, as Evan doesn’t get back to me much anymore other than on Facebook. John Burns and I have become friends, too.
Stay well, shiny side up, etc. Peace.
Bruce
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February 4, 2021 at 7:12 pm |
Looking forward to your return.
A real shame about COTA.
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