MotoGP Blog

Stoner is back in the groove. He hit the front part way through the first lap and nobody, but nobody, could get near him. Consistently faster than all the opposition, he simply stretched his lead lap after clockwork lap. When he is in this form, he appears almost robotic in the way he rides the bike - the same line, body position, lean angle - without variation.

Behind Stoner the two Repsol Hondas held the next placings, Pedrosa able to ride away from Hayden through the length of the race. One of racings cruel blows hit Hayden as he exited the final chicane on the last lap - he twisted the throttle and got no response. The TV pictures showed him wringing the grip again and again with no result then, in desperation, adopting as aerodynamic a position as he could to maintain his momentum. Hayden had run out of fuel after the bike’s fuel map and electronics misjudged the length of the race by 50 metres.

Hayden’s efforts were to be without success, as Edwards swept past him to claim the final podium slot. This acts as some sort of compensation for the Texan for 2006 when Hayden and Edwards went head to head into the last lap, and last chicane, Hayden coming of better by overshooting the corner and Edwards almost making the turn before high-siding on the astroturf. Despite this “compensation” I think Edwards would still take Hayden’s win in 2006 over 3rd in 2008.

Indeed, Edwards had a disastrous start despite a decent qualifying, finding himself 12 of 16 at the end of the first lap. With Stoner’s domination up front, much of the TV coverage was of Edwards’ march through the field, slicing through the opposition pretty much as he pleased.

The other focus, given the lack of a scrap up front, was Rossi’s recovery. Losing the back end through the first left hander, the left side of the tyre being relatively cold, Rossi low-sided and took out de Puniet. This was a great shame for the Frenchman as he was having his best weekend for a while - he’d managed to keep the bike upright and qualify impressively - and I don’t think I was alone in assuming de Puniet had gone down and taken Rossi with him at first.

It would emerge at the end of the race that Rossi had bent the handlebars and lost the pedal from his gear change lever and was having to use the stub of the lever to move between gears. Having then been able to post the 3rd fastest lap of the race was quite an achievement, and he later said he thought he could have challenged for the win today. However, the reason for his crash was that he was trying to make up time and places quickly following a dreadful start off the line; he appeared to be almost unprepared for the lights and very slow off the line, so a challenge for the win may well have
been out of even his grasp.

For the second race in succession, Melandri was passed by a rider who had fallen off early on as Rossi nipped past him at the final chicane on lap 19. MotoGPBlog thinks he has two more races to improve before he gets sacked. Today he again looked like a lost soul. I’ve never seen a rider plumb such depths as Marco is at the moment. There is no doubt he has talent, but there is also no doubt that Ducati have cooked up a bike that he just cannot get his head around. Marco should get out, back on a Honda, and back to putting in performances he can be happy about.

Lorenzo had a race of two halves - slow, then fast as he struggled to control the Fiat Yamaha when on cold tyres and full of fuel. He displayed this trait in Donington as well, and perhaps he has got himself into a bit of a headgame following on from his recent crashes, a headgame that is stopping him from pushing hard early on in any session - following that high-side on a cold tyre that damaged his ankles, it is very understandable. It is getting in the way of his podiums, however.

Today was Stoner’s day though. He will no doubt be pissed off at the coverage Rossi gets for his 11th place heroics, but he suddenly looks like he can close the gap on Pedrosa and Rossi, and at the half-way point in the season, the gap between the three is smaller than ever.