MotoGP: Valentino A-Go-Go at Brno

Valentino Rossi came to Brno with a healthy championship lead, but Casey Stoner was out for revenge after his defeat at Laguna Seca. The Australian crybaby had complained long and hard about some of Rossi's innocuous overtaking moves in California, but calmed down after a few weeks. He would start from pole position, with Rossi 2nd and the returning John Hopkins in an excellent 3rd on the grid after a wet qualifying session.

It was no surprise to see Stoner vault into a commanding lead when the lights went out, but John Hopkins managed to shoot off the line in front of Rossi. The Italian passed the Anglo-American quickly, but Stoner was already heading for the horizon, and for the first few laps The Doctor could barely hang on to the little Aussie's coat tails, more than a second behind.

Then it happened. For the second time in two races, and the second time in nearly two years, Casey Stoner lobbed it. Wait a minute, Casey Stoner did what??? He dropped his bike onto its right handlebar and footpeg and slid off into the scenery, that's what. Valentino Rossi had been around 1.3 seconds back, but the Italian genius suddenly banged in a fast lap, lopping a quarter of a second from Stoner's lead. The reigning champ saw his pit board, pushed too hard, and hopped off the low side. In other words, Rossi frightened him off the track. One can only presume that Stoner was incredibly determined that he would not let Rossi catch him up and start slapping him around like at Laguna. Casey fell off, pure and simple...

That's the taster, read my MotoGP Brno race report in its entirety at MotorbikeSport.

WSBK Baylisstic at Brno

Troy Bayliss extended his lead in the World Superbike Championship with a double victory at Brno in the Czech Republic, having started his Xerox Ducati from pole position.

Race 1
Max Biaggi has won many times at Brno on many different bikes, and nearly fell off the back of one over the finish line in one of those Youtube moments. It was the little Roman Emperor who led into the first corner on the Sterilgarda Ducati. Next up was Troy Corser on the Santander Yamaha, the veteran Aussie seemingly on a major charge now that he is negotiating for a lucrative BMW contract for next year. Corser has to show that he still has the racing mentality to go with his legendary bike development skills, and persuade the Beemer executives to stick plenty of zeroes on his paycheck. Polesitter Troy Bayliss and his young team-mate Michel Fabrizio were following close behind as the leading four bikes quickly dropped the rest of the pack...

Read the rest of my report for the WSBK races from Brno at Motorbikesport.co.uk, where my race reviews for this weekend's action are appearing. It's a site with news, reviews, a forum and all the great galleries you'd expect from a site run by a pro photographer.

MotoGP: Stoner Wins Brno Snoozefest

Right, that's it. I've had enough. MotoGP needs a control tyre.
Yeah, I know that it's the pinnacle of motorsport and tyre wars mean faster times, but who actually cares? I couldn't give two hoots what kind of tyres they're racing on, and let's not pretend that racing slicks have any relation whatsoever to road tyre development. Use them on the road and racing tyres would have you sliding to your death under a bus before they'd begun to warm up. You wouldn't even get the chance to aquaplane to your death under a bus in an unexpected rain shower.
Control tyres have worked wonders for World Superbikes. Even Boremula One uses them, and they're still pretending to be the pinnacle of motorsport. (Motorsnores, more like.) I don't care who makes the tyres, I just want to see races decided by bikes and riders. Last year, Michelin dominated MotoGP, this year Bridgestone are dominating MotoGP and again we are being robbed of close racing.
Anyway, the Czech GP at Brno. (Stoner Czechs out, Czech-mate to Stoner, etc, etc.) Casey Stoner was blindingly, flawlessly fast as always. His Bridgestone tyres were brilliant, as they have been 66% of the time this year. How fundamentally good the Ducati is, it's hard to say as Stoner was the best by miles and the others had a battery of excuses (Capirossi: lack of grip, Barros: lack of youth, Silva: lack of talent).
John Hopkins rode an impressive race to a best-ever 2nd place, on Bridgestones of course. He stopped pushing in case he fell off, which he does from time to time. Therefore, by about 10 laps to go there was nobody chasing Stoner at all.
Nicky Hayden had a race worthy of a number 1 plate. (I don't care what anybody says, you don't get a World Championship by sending off 6 tokens from packets of Coco Pops.) The Kentucky Kid was on the podium, causing his baby-sized team-mate Dani Pedrosa, finishing 4th, to chuck his toys out of the pram and stomp off after the race. Naturally, we can't tell how good the Honda really was, because the Michelin tyres were a bit rubbish this time out.
Chris Vermeulen was 5th after brilliantly battling through the field on his Bridgestone-shod Rizla Bridgestone Suzuki with Bridgestone stickers on the fairing and Bridgestone tyres on the wheels.
Capirex was 6th, having officially secured a Suzuki ride for next year to pay his 1995 tax bill.
Valentino Rossi was 7th. Since there was no grip from the Michelins, it's impossible to know how rattled he was that he got rumbled for not paying any tax since about 2001. Really rattled, probably.
There was some great racing, but it was way down the field. Guintoli, Checa, Barros, Elias and West were all beating each other up at one time or another. Toni Elias is the one who deserves special mention as he still has a femur that Doctor Costa fashioned out of bailer twine and some of Jorge Lorenzo's discarded lollipop sticks. The little Spaniard can't walk, but he was still a raving lunatic on a motorcycle, finishing 11th after slamming past several people on Brno's high-speed flip-flops. (Well, I'm not calling them chicanes.) It was great to see him back, although we didn't see his team-mate Marco "Macho" Melandri on a bike. Marco has a herniated disc in his neck, which would scare the Bejaysus out of most of us, but just made Marco disappointed that he couldn't move his left arm and therefore couldn't ride.
All in all, a pretty rubbish race. Thank the Lord for guys like Guintoli, Barros and Elias, who will always go for an overtake even if it's only for 10th place. In the next race, I hope that Stoner's as fast as he was at Brno, but that a couple more guys are just as quick so we get some kind of spectacle.
Finally, a word for 250GP rider Taro Sekiguchi. The little Japanese rider is recovering in hospital after an utterly jaw-dropping crash in the 250cc warm-up session, when he emerged from a cloud of dust to find Simoncelli's crashed bike lying in the middle of the track. He hit Simoncelli's bike, took off, flipped over in mid-air, and was thankfully awake and talking after one of the most spectacular crashes I've ever seen. If you don't mind your eyes popping out on stalks, you can watch it here on Youtube.

WSBK: Toseland and Max Share Spoils at Brno

Qualifying for the World Superbike meeting at Brno in the Czech Republic saw Max Biaggi break the lap record, only for Nori Haga to destroy even Biaggi's time with the first ever sub-2 minute lap of Brno on a superbike.
This track is very much Biaggi territory, as he came to the meeting with 7 wins under his belt in 250GP, 500GP and MotoGP, by far the best record of any WSBK runner. If he wanted to add to this tally, he would have to do battle with polesitter Nori Haga, 2006 racewinner Yukio Kagayama and championship leader James Toseland.

Race One saw Biaggi make his usual excellent start on his Corona Suzuki, but he managed to keep up the pace through the opening laps rather than dropping back as he has tended to do this season. A group of four quickly formed at the front, with Toseland's Ten Kate Honda starting to break away at the front, followed by a dogfight between Yamaha rider Haga and Biaggi, with his Suzuki team-mate Kagayama managing to cling on in 4th.
There is no love lost between Nori Haga and Max Biaggi. Last time out at Misano, Max made an optimistic move on Nori that left them both in the gravel trap. The Roman Emperor then enraged his Japanese opponent by refusing to apologize, claiming that he was only 65% responsible for the crash (about 35% less than most observers would say). To a Japanese racer like Nori, crashes are disappointing but the refusal to offer even an unconvincing apology causes grave personal offence. If Haga was Texan, he would surely challenge Max to a duel.
At first, Toseland stretched out a convincing lead, but Max got the better of Haga and set off in pursuit. Biaggi managed to take the lead, and Toseland seemed to be in trouble as he dropped to 4th, then proved he was in no trouble at all as he fought right back to the front when Max ran wide.
Kagayama wasn't giving up on his hopes yet, and made a banzai manoeuvre to slam his bike in front of a clearly unimpressed Haga, who tried to fight back but was suffering tyre problems and dropping off the pace.
On the last lap, Kagayama was in a safe 3rd while Biaggi and Toseland were battling for the win. The Englishman was trying very hard and looking a little ragged, and when he ran off the edge of the track he kicked up a shower of dust and gravel into the Roman's bike. Max visibly flinched as a stone shattered his screen and slammed into his left hand. It was nothing too serious (after the race, Max showed us a bleeding finger), but it might just have distracted him enough to stop a last-ditch pass, and he followed Toseland across the line.
It was a valuable win for Toseland, who increased his championship lead. His rival Troy Bayliss had an awful race, with the Ducati unsuited to this track. He was well down the field when he was hit by Karl Muggeridge's bike. "Muggas" had fallen off was already sliding several yards behind his machine by the time it hit the Ducati. Bayliss didn't seem at all bothered, and later revealed that he had thanked Karl for ending such a miserable race!
Max took his 11th Brno podium with an excellent performance, while his team-mate Kagayama was back on form after spending most of the year falling off and hurting himself.

Race Two started in bizarre fashion as light rain caused the race to be delayed and declared a wet race, only for the clouds to pass and the conditions to remain perfectly dry.
Lorenzo Lanzi made a great start and briefly led before the Ducati inevitably dropped back after a few corners. The two Yamahas of Haga and Corser were leading from Toseland when Corser suffered yet another mechanical failure and dropped out. Biaggi in 3rd place was staying in touch.
Haga looked like he might be able to stay in front this time, but his arch-enemy Max Biaggi was ominously moving forward, first past Toseland then past the Japanese rider into the lead, where he was relatively safe from flying rocks (unless there were any Valentino Rossi fans in the crowd...)
Haga then lost out to the battling Toseland, and then lost his podium place to Michel Fabrizio's DFX Honda. Fabrizio is one of the more infuriating riders in World Superbike, who is highly rated by many, seemingly for his ability to race well at Brno despite being embarrassingly rubbish everywhere else. He kept up this record to grab 3rd.
Up front, Biaggi crossed the line to take his 8th Brno win in all classes, and his second World Superbike victory of the season.
Toseland had to settle for 2nd place, giving him a championship lead of 43 points ahead of Biaggi, who sits just 2 points in front of his pal Haga.
Next time out, Brands Hatch.