From one pov this all Honda’s fault for not bringing a more competitive bike to start 2015
THAT is true like you can say that marc thinking that vale would roll over for him to take the proverbial crown was him being phenomenally stupid and naive but i think we can cut him some slack about it because vale actually HAD done just that very explicitly and publicly for multiple years. like since they knew each other really.
vale i also do not blame for getting a bit the ick bc i think it’s really funny to read your flop situation circa 2011-2014 and be like sure i might as well make friends with this sexy ass rookie like vale’s fighting for p3/p4 most weekends anyways. AND he gets to play the gracious mentor and avoid looking like a bitter hag and also again the rookie is sexy and also hates jorge lorenzo like cmon. that’s fun! vale likes to have fun he likes a good vibe he only brings the nasty when he can use it and he couldn’t use it at that time. so he’s being friendly and it’s also an incredibly neat way to keep up the relevance/valentino legend and serves as a versionnn of an ending to his own story that wasn’t toooo flat. vale passing the baton to a friend and potentially the best ever… BUTTT then the honda sucked and jorge lorenzo’s helmet tried to kill him for like 4 races and vale was leading the championship and marc was losing points like he had a hole in his pocket. so marc (who does not understand outside narrative significance and has never read a room in his LIFEEE #illiterate) was like okay 👍 im going to never take my hand off the throttle the entire year even though this year clearly isn’t going my way and in fact ☝️ im going to get really pissy about losing and refuse to get out of your way even once in any sense of the word. which i also don’t blame him for as that is his job and i personally thought it was awesome. but i can see how vale was like okay i gave your 20 year old whole-career-ahead-of-you ass a MILE and smiled at laguna seca 2013 even when you CAST ME AS CASEY STONER AND YOURSELF AS IMPERIAL ERA ME (a very rossifumi move tbf) and you won’t give my 36 year old ass even an INCH ? for half a season??? for maybe his LAST TITLE CHARGE??? FOR THE ACTUAL END TO HIS STORY THAT HE WANTS THE MOST…. THE ULTIMATE COMEBACK…. so i can see how that might drive someone a leedle crazy.
so. the real question is. if vale stays charmingly second/third fiddle to marc for every single year post 2013 and all of those weird one sided bargains he makes with marc aren’t expected to be repaid when it’s vale’s turn to win AND passing the baton to marc remains the best truest ending to his self constructed story (as passing it to the academy eventually becomes). do they ever stop fucking.