MotoGP Blog

Rossi; this place is special to him like no other. Six-times consecutive winner, he displayed his passion for the place on his helmet last year: a large red heart on a white background. Such was his exuberance at winning in what was the worst of his seasons in MotoGP, he flung his helmet far into the crowd from the podium: a very rare event indeed. It is where Rossi-mania is at its peak, the only break in the yellow of the crowd is likely to be the red of the Ducati grandstand.

Such is his crushing dominance of the event, nobody else has won here on a four stroke. It has not even been close.

The circuit is a set in a valley and enjoys some not insignificant elevation changes. In real terms this means a few tricky corner entrances, hard on the brakes with a downhill adverse-camber entry. In the dry, difficult to execute with speed, the tendency being to brake early with the bike as upright as possible. In the wet, a very short, easy to take path to a low-side.

We may see another Italian running up at the sharp end: Capirossi has a good record here (2nd in 2006) and has been looking strong on the Suzuki of late, finding decent set-ups on the blue machine. It will take something of a miracle for another Italian to feature, with both Elias and Melandri struggling.

At last, a competitive outing for the Honda pneumatic engine seems likely with Honda wildcard Tadi Okada coming out of race retirement to run the engine. Big H must be confident in it’s reliability, as they would not risk the public humiliation of an engine failure.

The race is Rossi’s. While others may dare to challenge him, it would be a brave punter who put money on anyone else but Valentino taking the chequered flag.