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D-Rider wrote:Does anyone understand how Jonathan Rea has been allowed to pick up Stonor's Factory Ride while he's away injured?
The rookie rule doesn't disappear until next year.

Also, how many other MotoGP riders will Mr Liability take out while he's on the works Honda?

Kwackerz wrote:Rookie rule? How does this apply to Rea? - he is a replacement / stand-in factory rider during a currently running season, not a new team rider at the start of a new season? How can the rookie rule be employed in those circumstances

Within minutes of Valentino Rossi's terrible crash at Mugello, once it became apparent that the Italian's leg was broken, speculation began on who would replace the Italian. During the first update the assembled press received in a hushed media center at Mugello, one journalist, with blatant disregard for taste and decency (mea maxima culpa), pressed the Fiat Yamaha PR spokesperson on whether the team was working on a replacement. The spokesperson rightly pointed out that as the incident had happened less than an hour previously, it was perhaps a little too early to be thinking about this.

Once the dust Rossi's crash had settled, though, and it became clear that The Doctor will be out for the next three to four months, the debate began in earnest. The list of possible replacements was already surprisingly long by Saturday night, and has only grown since then. Disregarding wishful thinking (Troy Bayliss and Garry McCoy) and the downright impossible (Max Biaggi, Toni Elias and Alex de Angelis, all under contract), the two options most commonly named are moving a rider up from the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha team (Ben Spies being most frequently named in this regard) or bringing in one of Yamaha's test riders to take Rossi's place.

Sooner or later, however, all discussions of a replacement for Rossi get bogged down in the same swamp: the muddy wording of the so-called Rookie Rule, which prevents rookies from being signed to factory teams. The exact wording of the rule is as follows:

1.11.11 Riders who enter the Championship for the first time (Rookies) must be entered by a non factory team.

Most interpretations of this rule have focused on a single word, the one between brackets. This is mainly due to Ben Spies, and the broad expectation that Yamaha would want to see how the Texan would go inside of a factory team. As a rookie (having so far only contested 8 MotoGP races), Spies is believed to be ineligible to replace Rossi, as Rossi rides with a factory team, the Texan falling foul of the Rookie Rule.

But the argument is not just true for Spies: If Fiat Yamaha decides to bring in Wataru Yoshikawa, one of their two test riders (Norihiko Fujiwara being the other), he too would fall foul of the Rookie Rule, having only appeared once previously in MotoGP, as a wildcard in 2002. This is also the case for some of the other names being bandied about, such as Sterilgarda Yamaha's World Superbike rider Cal Crutchlow.

D-Rider wrote:Back in 2010 this was much discussed regarding Rossi's replacement having broken his leg.
The Rookie rule was given as the reason that Ben's Peas couldn't take the ride along with a number of other candidates:

Within minutes of Valentino Rossi's terrible crash at Mugello, once it became apparent that the Italian's leg was broken, speculation began on who would replace the Italian. During the first update the assembled press received in a hushed media center at Mugello, one journalist, with blatant disregard for taste and decency (mea maxima culpa), pressed the Fiat Yamaha PR spokesperson on whether the team was working on a replacement. The spokesperson rightly pointed out that as the incident had happened less than an hour previously, it was perhaps a little too early to be thinking about this.

Once the dust Rossi's crash had settled, though, and it became clear that The Doctor will be out for the next three to four months, the debate began in earnest. The list of possible replacements was already surprisingly long by Saturday night, and has only grown since then. Disregarding wishful thinking (Troy Bayliss and Garry McCoy) and the downright impossible (Max Biaggi, Toni Elias and Alex de Angelis, all under contract), the two options most commonly named are moving a rider up from the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha team (Ben Spies being most frequently named in this regard) or bringing in one of Yamaha's test riders to take Rossi's place.

Sooner or later, however, all discussions of a replacement for Rossi get bogged down in the same swamp: the muddy wording of the so-called Rookie Rule, which prevents rookies from being signed to factory teams. The exact wording of the rule is as follows:

1.11.11 Riders who enter the Championship for the first time (Rookies) must be entered by a non factory team.

Most interpretations of this rule have focused on a single word, the one between brackets. This is mainly due to Ben Spies, and the broad expectation that Yamaha would want to see how the Texan would go inside of a factory team. As a rookie (having so far only contested 8 MotoGP races), Spies is believed to be ineligible to replace Rossi, as Rossi rides with a factory team, the Texan falling foul of the Rookie Rule.

But the argument is not just true for Spies: If Fiat Yamaha decides to bring in Wataru Yoshikawa, one of their two test riders (Norihiko Fujiwara being the other), he too would fall foul of the Rookie Rule, having only appeared once previously in MotoGP, as a wildcard in 2002. This is also the case for some of the other names being bandied about, such as Sterilgarda Yamaha's World Superbike rider Cal Crutchlow.

http://www.motomatters.com/opinion/2010 ... _rule.html

That said ...... Yoshikawa got the ride .... so I'm more confused.



Still perplexed as to how Mr Knock-em-all-off Rea has been let loose in the premier skittle alley