MotoGP Blog

The riders and teams arrive in Northern Italy seemingly in advance of the avalanche of rider moves waiting to be announced. Melandri unexpectedly pre-empted the start of the avalanche with his announcement of a move to Kawasaki. As the weekend in Misano approaches ever closer, this seems like a Ducati stage-managed move to clear the air in advance of the Bologna factory’s announcement of the arrival of Nicky Hayden for the 2009 season. As close as it gets to a home race for the Red team, this is the opportunity to announce such a coup-de-grace: two recent world champions in the one team. Ducati can hardly have believed they would achieve so much in just six seasons.

Once Hayden’s move is announced, probably much to Honda’s distaste, the field opens. Dovizioso, Bautista, Elias, Guintoli, even Vermeulen’s future may become more more clear before Sunday evening finally arrives. Before then, though, there is a race to be won. Last year saw Stoner win by a mile and Bridgestone again bitch-slap Michelin, something which Michelin will be trying very hard to prevent happening again. Rossi’s early exit was a massive anti-climax for the Yellow Hoards and there will be more than 46 fingers crossed for a different result this year. We also had extra-ordinary weather on the Friday, casting doubt on the entire event.

For the sake of the championship, it would be good to see a Stoner victory. For the sake of the race, it would be better to see Rossi, Pedrosa and Stoner battle it out as they have all season, injuries and tyres allowing. Pedrosa is the long shot of these three, but with Ducati and Rossi with home advantage, calling the winner is for a better man than I.