I don't think so. Marquez is groomed for the billiard smooth Dorna roundy round follow the leader bland boring circus tracks. His style is to push till he crashes then dial it back - that is a mark of a racer that has learned to exploit the medical, sponsorship and team owners tolerance for financial pain. That push till you crash style is what I see many up and comers use, even at tracks that have not been engineered for the crash and repeat style of racing - sadly many end up with career ending injuries before they even hit the big time. TT style roads racing is the proper measure of the man and machine where as circuit racing to a large part is a measure of the team budgets. I really hope Honda haven't engineered out the traits that made the Fireblade such a great roads and endurance platform.
Sounds like people are trying to compare football and rugby or tennis and squash. Different events with different skill sets. I just love motorcycle racing - period. Dont care if it's on a road course or a race track I just love watching racers do things on or with a bike I can only dream of.
well not really yeah you re absolutely right re: Marquez, thats how you find the limits of what physically possible and this is your measurement and benchmark of how bike performs. good luck doing this in TT like conditions, unless you ran a underground human-clone production farm. what I'm saying is, the best test of machine is closed circuit racing, road doesnt even stand close to it. It's not apple to orange comparison. you can't even use road racing as a comparative, because random error noise that it introduces. Btw, whoever posted Hicky video above, this was a staged video and not the video of his fast lap. Going to have full day with Hicky at Jerez tomorrow, can't wait to break 1:50 there with his help.
Some "random error noise" - like this you mean BMW seem to have made allowances for "random error noise" The Hicky video - the one that has more than 2,800,000 views was not taken during racing - we know that - it was produced with so many cameras on it. It is just to give a demonstration of Hicky riding the HP4 Race. Good luck with your 1:50 at Jerez and I hope you are not planning to have to spend all day crashing in order to achieve it - either way Hicky's 16 minutes 42.778 seconds is better.
Don't agree with testing your bike on a closed circuit is the best way. If you buy a road bike and are going to ride it mostly on the road, surely a road test is best?