MotoGP: Dani Disappears in Barcelona

Dani Pedrosa, the man who not only uses up all the superlatives in the thesaurus, but also all the synonyms for "short-arse". When he gets on a roll, he's unstoppable. The only thing that could fluster him is somebody giving him a bit of a shove as they overtake, and there was no danger of that in the Catalunya GP.

Dani vanished into thin air, breaking the lap record on his first flying lap and continuing to go faster and faster until he had concocted an 8 second lead. After that he calmed down and finished a mere couple of seconds in front of the chasing pack. Who said there was something wrong with spring valve engines? A lot of people, and they're all idiots. When the 800cc MotoGP rules were pushed through by Honda, everybody thought that Honda would dominate in the first couple of years, what with Honda being the best engine maker in the world, from lawn mowers to outboards.

It took them a while, but the Japanese factory have re-discovered their brilliance. Nobody else can build a spring valve engine that is so smooth, so efficient and so damned quick. That's why the others have all moved to air valves (or stuck with desmodromics in the case of Ducati.) "Oh, you just can't make the power with steel springs," they cried. Then when the Honda started getting ominously quick down the straights it was "Oh, you can make the power, but you'll drink so much fuel you'll never last the race."

Uh-huh. Really. That's odd, because it looked like little Dani on the steel-sprung engine disappeared into the wide blue yonder on a track where you need both flexibility and top end speed. Honda have said that they'll bring out the air valve motor just as soon as it's better than the spring valve version. There's no point using air springs just because they're the technology du jour. You use them when they're quicker than what you've got. Since the steel sprung Honda is quicker than the air valve Suzuki and Kawasaki, on a par with the air valve Yamaha, and just a few K slower than the awesome desmo Ducati, there's no way Honda are going to introduce their own inflatable motor until it's ready.

Of course, Nicky Hayden wants the air sprung engine because he doesn't get on with the steel spring version. In fact, he doesn't get on with the Honda at all. Not the way it handles, not the way it uses its tyres, not the way the electronics kick in, and definitely not the way his manly shoulders stick out past the fairing that was designed for Pedrosa's girlish form. What he really wants is Marco Melandri's seat for next year, and it's looking like a real possibility.

At Barcelona, Valentino Rossi rose from the ashes of 9th on the grid to drag his Yamaha to 2nd spot on the podium in front of Casey Stoner, the only guy who's in the same postcode as the Ducati. Rossi celebrated wildly, leading Randy Mamola to wisecrack that Rossi loves 2nd place almost as much as he does (Mamola having finished 2nd in the 500GP world championship no less than 4 times.) Valentino's daft leathers this weekend were an imitation of the Italian national football kit, with bright pink arms and knees showing. (Fittingly, Italy finished 2nd in their game against Holland in the Euro 2008 tournament, having been horsed 3-0. Yes, I'm days late writing this.)

I'm sure Stoner was complaining about something to excuse finishing in 3rd, but I wasn't paying attention. He was still a full minute in front of his team-mate on an identical bike.

Ummm, who else was good? Let's see, Dovi, Edwards and Toseland (who had never seen the Barcelona track before) in 4th, 5th and 6th respectively. Everybody else was pretty rubbish, though John Hopkins was riding a lot more injured than he let on, after a big practise crash. De Puniet crashed in the race (shock, horror) while Capirossi and de Angelis got tangled up like Dovi and Toseland did at Le Mans, with both Italians ending up in the gravel trap. Capirex has a nasty hand injury that may rule him out of Donington, though we don't know yet because he's an outrageously tough little psycho. Jorge Lorenzo didn't even start, after a very nasty crash in practise left him with a severe concussion. Word is that he thought he was still in China when he woke up. Luckily, he should have recovered by Donington, although he'll need surgery to place a skin graft on a grated finger.

Dani Pedrosa also managed to hurt himself in a testing crash on Monday, but should be OK with a bit of rest.

Conclusions. Pedrosa is stunningly quick when he gets out in front. Honda don't need to rush their pneumatic valved engine out. Rossi is still looking like a real predator.

125GP / 250GP Barcelona: Those Crazy Kids!

Another of my infrequent reviews of the 125cc and 250cc Grand Prix races, this time from Barcelona, where there was another dose of lunacy from the kids in the junior classes.
The 125cc race saw Japanese KTM rider Tommy Koyama win his first ever Grand Prix in nearly 8 years of trying. If you thought Dani Pedrosa was tiny, you should see little "Koyamax", he is tiny! Seriously, he'd pass for an 8 year old, not a 24 year old. Tommy is always there or thereabouts in races, but it has always seemed that the only way he would win is by some freak result where all the really quick guys end up in a tangled heap in a gravel trap. That was not what happened.
Koyama rode a great race, staying on the back of the lead pack at first and then carving his way through the Aspar Aprilia riders to take the victory. His Swiss team-mate Randy Krummenacher proved that KTM had produced excellent bikes for this race by snatching 3rd, a full 10 places better than his previous best.
Splitting the two was Hungarian Gabor Talmasci, who would pass for a 40 year old. Ironically, Talmasci used to ride for KTM, but his contract was not renewed when he overtook his championship-chasing team-mate for a win, despite being ordered not to. He was the highest finishing of the dominant Aspar Aprilia team, with his team-mates Sergio Gadea finishing 5th and Hector Faubel being punted off by Lukas Pesek on the last lap.
The other big news from the 125GP class was the outrageous bad luck of Mattia Pasini, which is now beyond a joke. Last year Sete Gibernau seemed to be the unluckiest man on the planet. His Ducati broke down when he looked like winning. He crashed at Barcelona and broke a collar bone, then his ambulance crashed on the way to hospital, then Casey Stoner took him down, landing on his collar bone again.
Sete's travails are nothing compared to those of Pasini this year. One of the stars of 125GP, he has taken pole positions aplenty, but his Aprilia breaks down constantly, giving him 5 DNF's from 7 starts. (One of those DNF's was when he hit Bradley Smith as he charged through the field, having started from the back of the pack when his Aprilia broke down on the way to the grid!)
This time out, it was another mechanical failure that threw him off in the braking zone for turn 1. Pasini delighted the crowd by losing it altogether. He kicked the bike repeatedly, stopped seemingly to scream inside his helmet, then returned to kicking and stamping on the bike for a while longer. Nobody deserves that kind of luck, especially not somebody who has taken several pole positions and led dozens of laps this year.
In the 250cc class, it was the usual Jorge Lorenzo walkover, a return to form from the Mugello race where he visited the gravel due to a 50-50 racing incident. Lorenzo previously entertained us with his victory celebrations of arrogantly planting a Lorenzo's Land flag in the gravel, and of having a doppelganger dressed in identical leathers and helmet meeting him on the slowdown lap to congratulate him.
This time Lorenzo outdid himself with a truly surreal celebration. Not satisfied with the usual Lorenzo's Land flag-planting, he was met in the gravel trap by a pair of doppelgangers. While the real Jorge grabbed a fake microphone and mimed into it like a rock star, his two clones produced electric guitars and vigorously pretended to play them in the background. It was utterly ridiculous, and funnier than anything that Valentino Rossi has done for quite a while.
The junior classes rarely fail to entertain, and they also show the stars of the future. Great stuff.

MotoGP Barcelona: Battle Royale

Last year's Barcelona MotoGP had a horrific start as local boy Sete Gibernau clipped his team-mate and caused a horrific pile-up that sent himself, Capirossi and Melandri to hospital. This year we were spared the collarbone-crunching antics of the retired Gibernau, as Diminutive Dani Pedrosa took the lead into turn one, followed by Stoner, Hopkins and Rossi, who had started from pole.
Stoner's Ducati soon passed the Repsol Honda of Pedrosa to take the lead, but he couldn't break away from the following riders. Rossi and Hopper had another of their battles in the early laps before The Doctor managed to pass and sneak away. Hopper stayed with the front three for a while before gradually starting to slip backwards, holding 4th place until the flag. Behind them, the Kawasaki of Randy de Puniet was an excellent 5th after his incredible qualifying lap put him 2nd on the grid, just hundredths behind Rossi. The crash-happy young Frenchman stayed on board for once, despite one of his knees doing an impression of a beach ball due to a previous crash, and finished 5th, a career best.
Stoner was now leading from Pedrosa and Rossi. The Ducati is still the fastest bike in a straight line, but the Honda and Yamaha could keep up so long as they stayed in the slipstream. Rossi managed to pass Pedrosa, who was even worse on the brakes than usual (and his usual ain't good, just ask Hayden...) while Rossi reigned supreme in the braking zones. The teeny Spaniard had the overall pace to stick with Casey and Vale, but just didn't have enough confidence in the Honda to brake late and force a way past. He was relegated to watching the race that unfolded in front of him.
Up till now, Rossi and Stoner have had a couple of battles in Qatar and China, where the Ducati's straight line speed advantage let the young Aussie keep his Italian rival at bay like a boxer would use his extra reach to keep an opponent at arm's length.
At Barcelona, the Marquis of Queensberry rules were torn up, and it turned into a full-on streetfight with bare knuckles, iron bars and broken bottles flying.
Rossi passed his young rival for the lead with a brilliant move. It was highly aggressive, but they did not collide and nobody ended up in the gravel. Even so, Stoner later told the press that he was "disappointed" by the brutal pass. The Aussie was using his typical understatement, as his body language showed that he was utterly incandescent. For the next minute or so, Stoner's usual smooth style was gone and he was furiously hurling the bike into corners and jamming on the throttle with such violence that it looked exactly like Troy Bayliss on the Ducati.
What followed was by far the best racing of the season so far, and this race will be remembered for years to come.
In Rossi's slipstream, Stoner was much faster and could overtake. With Casey in the lead, Rossi could slipstream the Ducati down the straight then brake impossibly late to re-take the lead. At one point, Rossi even threw his bike down the inside and overtook on the way onto the main straight, a move that would seem impossible if anybody else tried it.
Stoner led into the last lap, and for the next minute and three quarters, rode to perfection. Rossi had shown that there were two or three places where he could pass, but Stoner shrugged off the enormous pressure and kept in front, never straying more than an inch from an apex. There was nothing that The Doctor could do. All the time, Pedrosa was close behind Rossi, sometimes pulling alongside on the straights but unable to brake late enough to pass. If the pair in front had run wide, Dani would have taken the win, but there was no such opportunity.
Stoner had fought toe to toe with the greatest off all time, and won fair and square.
If there was ever a race that dispelled doubts about a championship contender, this was it. The Ducati and Yamaha were evenly matched on this track, with the Duke's speed cancelled out by the Yam's incredible braking and turn-in. Nor was there any great difference between the Bridgestone and Michelin tyres. This was a straight fight between Rossi and Stoner, and Stoner won.
Valentino Rossi has a real rival at last. Hayden had the consistency and sheer guts, but lacked the speed to beat Rossi fair and square. Biaggi and Gibernau were both unbeatable on their day, but too emotional to challenge The Doctor over a full season. Stoner also has the raw speed, but his bulletproof self-confidence will not be scratched by mind games and gypsy curses. Let's hope Rossi decides not to retire at the end of 2008 after all, because I for one would like to see this kind of battle carry on for a few more years to come.