Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 30 JULY 29, 2014 P119 sweats confidence. If he sweats at all. "He obviously keeps getting more and more confident that he can ride at a certain pace and he's winning at that pace," he said. "As a rider, when you keep putting it to your competitors and you keep gaining confidence… obviously with his bike the way it is and the way that he's riding it currently, it's pretty incredible. I think his bike is a little better and I think mentally he's got a big belief in himself and he actually thinks he can race these guys. And if it comes down to a fight with these guys, he believes he can beat 'em. "So what's it going to take to beat him? That's the big question. To me it seems that Lorenzo's a bit lost as far as his focus goes. He doesn't seem to be as tuned in at each race as much as Mar- quez is. At Assen, Lorenzo was really far off, but at the next race he wasn't too bad. He looked pretty good. I always thought that if somebody could step up the pace it would be Lorenzo, but looking at his pace and mentally where he was from last year, he's just a shadow of where he was last year." Rainey had some hot streaks in his career, but he says they can't compare to what Marquez is currently putting together. But we must remember he had Kevin Schwantz, Eddie Lawson, Fred- die Spencer, Wayne Gardner, Mick Doohan, John Kocinski, etc. on the track with him – all guys who wouldn't have taken lightly to a nine-race win streak. "As far as putting together a string of races like this kid has done, I've never done that," Rain- ey said. "I always believed I had a chance of winning. Sometimes the other guys would have a bit more pace in qualifying or what- ever, but I always knew in the race that I had as good a shot mistake. As it was, he did force Marquez into a few mistakes, but he looked like he didn't put it all together until the last lap and at that point Marquez wasn't going to run wide anywhere. He was riding defensively at that stage." So the million dollar question: What would Wayne do if faced with the likes of this Marquez kid? "[Laughs]… I think you'd have to go all in. You would have to do anything you could to make sure "I still think it's a tall order to go undefeated. I don't think he can." - Wayne Rainey as the other guys did of winning. This kid has put together a nine- race streak… that's a whole other situation than what anybody in my era put together. It was always back and forth and pretty close." Rainey says that it's been Pe- drosa who has showed the most in pushing his young teammate. "You look at Pedrosa. He seems to be strong right now, or stronger. I look at that race Pedrosa had in Barcelona and I thought, 'Wow, that's the most aggressive I've ever seen him ride in a race.' It looked like he was actually riding with a bit of anger. He actually looked pret- ty upset that he didn't win the race and I thought, 'What if he'd done that from the green light.' He would have had many more chances to force Marquez into a this kid didn't… as a competitor, you'd have to do everything you could to make sure that you could put yourself in the best position to either force him into a mistake or race him hard. You have to have no distractions at all – whatsoev- er. I think Lorenzo has too many distractions for whatever reason. Marquez is a kid that if you pass him, he wants to race you right back. You might have to play with him a little bit like Lorenzo did last year – to mess with him a little bit. But you have to take him off his game. Try to get a gap on him in the beginning of the race and pull out a few seconds, not make any mistakes and ride qualifying laps. That might be what it takes, but that's what they should be doing anyway." CN

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