As journalists, we are reliant on various sources of information. What riders tell us, what we can spot with our own eyes, and what we can find out through various sources who are not supposed to be speaking to us. Our primary source, however, is the riders. After all, they are contractually obliged to speak to us at the end of every day, with only injury or looming PR disaster to prevent it.
That means they find themselves between a rock and a hard place. The team’s PR staff tell the riders that they have to speak to journalists (under pressure from Dorna). And the team’s PR staff simultaneously tell them not to tell us anything. Which leaves them learning circuitous patterns of speech which are either blatantly or deceptively vacuous. Alex Márquez has learned to be as vague as possible. Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi would also tell us nothing, but do so with so much wit that we didn’t notice until we listened back to the audio to transcribe it.
