MotoGP Shanghai: Just What The Doctor Ordered

Was it daft for Valentino Rossi to switch to Bridgestone tyres? No dafter than it was switching to Yamaha. The Italian won his first race for months, ending a barren period of rubbish Michelin tyres, explosive Yamaha engines and unfamiliar Bridgestone rubber. The Ronnie O'Sullivan of MotoGP has still got what it takes. Rossi was elated at his comeback victory, so back to his old mugging for the camera and kissing the bike. I'm surprised he didn't kiss the tyres too. Valentino also displayed his typical Italian cool by arriving fashionably late in Parc Ferme, having taken about a week to cruise round his slowdown lap and pose for every camera he could find. Now the championship is really starting to get interesting.

Dani Pedrosa is a tiny, sour-faced superstar. Everybody had completely written off the Repsol Honda bikes, and were all made to look very silly when Dani finished 2nd. Seriously, running steel valve springs? That's like, so 2004! You might be able to make peak power, but you'll run out of fuel before the air-sprung engines. Yeah, right. HRC know a thing or two about bikes, and their 19th Century valve technology still kicks some serious rear. It turned out that the miniature championship leader's team had been caught out by the huge tailwind on the idiotically long runway that passes for a straight at Shanghai. Dani was hammering off the rev limiter, the bike geared fractionally too low. Oh, you can't do that with steel springs, etc, etc. Yeah, right.

Casey Stoner is a tiny, sour-faced superstar. OK, not as much as Pedrosa. His Bologna Bullet was screaming down the straight at an outrageous 211mph. If he'd stuck his arms out, he would have taken off without even needing to flap. Still, he was in a huff about his tyre, which had been changed from the one he really wanted to use, relegating him to 3rd. I'm in awe of the reigning champ, but he sure does have a lot of excuses. Especially when he's well adrift of Bridgestone rookie Valentino Rossi.

Jorge Lorenzo finished 4th, the same place as he started. It was by far his most impressive showing of this year. Yep, those 3 pole positions, and 3 podiums including a win were all rubbish compared to this. Having been out in Friday practise for about 5 minutes, he performed the most jaw-dropping highside that's been seen in this sport since Garry McCoy was on the 500cc Yamaha. Miles up in the air. No, the stratosphere. Slams down into the tarmac and cracks both ankles. Misses virtually the whole of Friday practise. Qualifies 4th, battles through to an incredible 4th place. This guy's as quick as Rossi and as hard as Melandri. He's almost as much of a phenomenon as he thinks he is, and that's seriously saying something. When he got back to his garage, The Doctor was there to congratulate him warmly. No, not that doctor, I mean Doctor Costa, who had patched up the arrogant hero in his own inimitable style.

Speaking of Melandri, he managed to pull out an impressive 5th place that's just going to make him look a whole lot worse when he goes back to finishing 10th. Shanghai's a funny track, so I'm not holding my breath about Marco suddenly having a major comeback and winning races. It's far too early to start blowing the trumpets for Macho, but we all live in hope.

Who else? Ah yes, Colin Edwards. Hugely funny and likeable, the Texan has suddenly discovered how to qualify a MotoGP bike. He took pole position with an utterly stunning lap that would have been worthy of The Doctor himself. Of course, Colin still can't race to save himself. Anyone who saw Colin win the WSBK title in an epic battle with Bayliss at Imola will know that it was one of the most incredible last laps in history. Unfortunately, it was Colin's last gasp. For a wide and varied series of excuses, I mean valid reasons, Edwards has never reproduced that form, and still doesn't look like doing so. If only he could string a few qualifying laps together and call them a race, because he sure as hell has the ultimate pace.

Teeny Spaniard number 2, Toni Elias, the interesting teeny Spaniard, managed a hugely creditable 8th on the D'Antin Ducati. This goes to prove that the D'Antin boys are contractually obliged to finish behind Melandri so he doesn't look rubbish.

Terrible races all round for everybody else. John Hopkins had the pace but not the braking point at the end of the straight, doing the proverbial exit the track, go round the roundabout outside and pay to get back in on a couple of occasions. Ah well.

Anyway, the championship has now caught fire. 4 winners in 4 races. All of them champions at some level of GP racing. Enjoy it, because this is a Golden Era.

MotoGP Shanghai: Yes, Stoner Really Is That Good

Is Stoner really the next big thing? You'd better believe it.
Ducati were always going to have a top speed advantage down the enormous 1.2km straight at Shanghai, and an acceleration advantage to go with it. However, the MotoGP race meeting didn't turn into the Ducati whitewash that everybody expected.
Alex Barros turned in some extremely quick lap times. Unfortunately he was doing them from miles behind the pack, after Toni Elias decided to turn from Hero to Zero, giving Nicky Hayden a fright by clipping his back wheel and dropping the Gresini Honda right in front of Barros's Ducati. The well-seasoned Brazilian was forced to a complete halt, ruining his race. The Kentucky Kid went through a gravel trap but kept going.
It was never going to be an amazing race at Shanghai, far and away the worst track on the calendar, its design process poisoned by the overblown, arrogant garbage that is Formula One.
The Japanese contingent tried valiantly to spice things up, with Nakano and Tamada colliding in the braking zone where the fast straight meets the idiotically slow hairpin. It wasn't clear from the TV pictures who was at fault, and the pair trudged off side by side. I can imagine the conversation between the two countrymen, both incandescent with rage:

Nakano: The collision was most unfortunate.
Tamada: I regret our coming-together.

(Unconvincing apologies are the Japanese equivalent of repeatedly beating somebody over the head with a golf club.)
At the front, Colin Edwards had started from the front row, and was rapidly disappearing.
Backwards.
The fight was between Stoner (quelle surprise, as they say in the Kawasaki garage) and Rossi, with Hopkins just about hanging onto them. Rossi had set an incredible pole position, 0.891 seconds faster than 2nd placed Hopkins. Stoner had settled for a 2nd row start, forced to qualify on his spare bike.
When they came to the back straight in the race, the Ducati showed an incredible turn of speed to visibly accelerate away from the Yamaha, shocking everybody who has just woken up after being in a coma for the last several months. The onboard view from Rossi's bike showed the Ducati simply disappearing into the distance. Valentino must have been wondering if his tubby companion Uccio was sitting on the back of his bike, weighing it down.
The young Aussie was his usual unflappable self, reacting with total indifference to Rossi's attempts to unsettle him. The Doctor managed to pass Stoner in the twisty bits a couple of times, and the cocky antipodean calmly followed the Italian, then motored past him on the straight. It was The Doctor who cracked, flying off the track onto the tarmac runoff after missing his braking point.
Hopkins sneaked past while Rossi was taking the scenic route, but the 7-times champion soon retook 2nd place.
Stoner took the chequered flag for his 3rd win in 4 races, now 15 points ahead of Rossi in the championship. Hopper was overjoyed by his first podium finish. Now that monkey is off his back, he should be able to stay calm instead of trying too hard and hopping off into gravel traps.
The second Ducati was Capirossi in 6th. He was riding slightly hurt after a low-speed crash with Vermeulen in qualifying, which left the little Italian with ripped leathers and an injured arm, while the Australian hurt a foot. Still, it showed that simply being on a Ducati was not enough to beat everybody.
MotoGP has discovered a new star in Casey Stoner. He has utterly eclipsed Dani Pedrosa, who everybody thought would challenge Rossi this year. When Stoner talks about racing with Rossi, he says that The Doctor is just another guy to beat. If anybody else said that, I would think "Yeah, right!" But when Stoner says it, he is deadly serious. He doesn't feel any pressure at all from racing with the Greatest Of All Time.
This year's Ducati is one hell of a machine. Stoner is one hell of a rider. This year's championship already looks like a two horse race between the Aussie and Valentino Rossi. One thing's for sure: whichever of them wins the title, nobody will be claiming that he did not deserve it.

MotoGP: Shanghai Preview

Gee, this is a tough one. Deciding who will finish 3rd, that is. Will Alex Barros manage to take a podium? The ancient Brazilian should be in with a chance.
Michelin will have to beat Bridgestone by some margin on the twisty bits if they are going to take the race win, or even take a podium. The Istanbul race showed us that when it comes to tyres, all bets are off, as Bridgestone dominated on what used to be a Michelin track. That should give us hope that Michelin just might win the race.
Valentino Rossi didn't have the best luck in China last year. His front tyre failed, and despite the protests of his identically attired companion Uccio, Vale was sent out with a new rear tyre instead. The poor top speed of his Yamaha will probably be a millstone around Rossi's neck in China.
Atomic automaton Dani Pedrosa is probably the favourite Michelin runner for this race, as his microscopic size and weight tend to give him the best straight-line speed of the Honda riders. He also has the benefit of his dominating victory on the last visit to Shanghai.
Suzuki and Gresini Honda will be fighting to be 2nd best Bridgestone runners. Toni Elias couldn't care less whether his bike is suited to the track or not, while Marco Melandri couldn't find consistency if it was standing right in front of him. As for the Suzuki riders, Hopkins was a bit unlucky to be shuffled down through the pack in Turkey when he looked to be setting a good pace, while Vermeulen was even unluckier, getting punted off the track and setting fastest lap as he attempted to come back. It's impossible to say whether these Bridgestone-shod teams can beat Barros on his d'Antin Ducati. They will e slower than him down the straights and faster round the corners, and who knows where the balance will lie?
The big question is whether the race will be at all exciting, as the track is almost universally condemned as a pile of boring F1-style garbage. Long straights ending in slow corners? Oh, brilliant.
Well, I that something interesting or unexpected happens on the worst track of the 2007 MotoGP calendar, but I'm not holding my breath.