MotoGP: Donkey Business as Usual at Misano

Valentino Rossi stopped calling himself The Doctor and started calling himself The Donkey after his silly crash at Indianapolis. He made up for it at Misano, though. His crash hat had a cartoon of a donkey on the top, and at the back were the words "The Donkey" in the same colours and font as his usual "The Doctor".

At the start of the race, he waited a while for everything to settle down, then overtook everyone and disappeared into the distance. His downbeat team-mate Horhay Lorenzo was behind him, with diminutive Dani Pedrosa trundling in 3rd.

Rossi's mechanics met him in parc ferme wearing enormous pairs of donkey ears, and Vale wore a pair on the podium too. It's incredible that he is still coming up with chuckleworthy celebrations, but as an 8-time world champion with number 9 on the way, he's a bit special.

The relative dullness of the race was partly down to the dimwitted actions of local hero, Alex "300 Game" de Angelis. The San Marinese, rainbow-painted yokel showed that bowling isn't just for Americans.

He did this by bowling for Americans, and it was a perfect 300 game as there were no Yanks left when he was finished.

It happened in the first chicaney, flippy-floppy corners, less than 10 seconds into the race. De Angelis braked stupidly late, bumped Colin Edwards, who bumped Nicky Hayden. The two Southerners went down along with de Angelis, and someone tagged Jorge Lorenzo, who managed to stay aboard his Yamaha.

There was a hilarious altercation in the gravel trap, with Nicky Hayden blowing his cool and trying to shake some sense into the miscreant while Colin just raised his eyes to the heavens in despair.

It was disastrous for both the Kentuckian and the Texan. Nicky is just starting to look good on the Bologna Bullet, taking a podium at his home race and being the first 800cc number 2 rider ever to get re-signed by Ducati with his career intact. Colin Edwards has had a surprisingly great year, being top satellite team rider and breathing down the neck of factory Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso in the points table. The likeable, plain-talking Texan has barely had to dip into his big book of excuses at all.

Still, Nicky has inked a Ducati contract for another year so it's not too bad. Colin seemed to be on his way out of Tech 3 Yamaha, but with Benny Elbowz being re-signed by Yamaha for the WSBK campaign, everyone now says that Colin will be staying at Tech 3. That's great news for him, and rubbish news for his hapless team-mate James Toseland, who has been crushed into the dirt by the Texas Tornado this year. It looks like the only thing about Tech 3 that Toseland has to concern himself with is not letting Herve Poncharal's motorhome door hit him in the arse on the way out.

MotoGP Misano: Rossi Wins It, Stoner Bins It

Valentino Rossi equalled Giacomo Agostini's record of 68 wins in the top Grand Prix class as he led his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo home in the San Marino round of the MotoGP championship at Misano. Casey Stoner kept up his recent run of form by crashing out of the race while leading.

As he had done for the last few races, Casey Stoner had taken pole position easily on his Marlboro Ducati. The reigning world champion was in pain from an old injury to his left wrist, but this had no apparent effect except for a few winces in the pit garage. FIAT Yamaha team mates Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo took the next two spots on the front row, proving that for the first time since Assen, there was nothing to choose between the Bridgestone and Michelin tyres. This immediately caused everybody to denounce the proposed one tyre rule, despite the fact that Michelin tyres were a joke in the previous three rounds.

When the red lights went out, Casey Stoner left the grid like a missile. Dani Pedrosa had his usual good start to snatch second place. Valentino Rossi was desperate to get at Stoner, but was bottled up behind the tiny Spaniard, and launched himself well out of the seat as he tried to exit a corner faster than the Repsol Honda. All the time, Stoner was ominously extending his lead.

Randy de Puniet had qualified brilliantly on the second row, but to the amazement of absolutely nobody, he was the first man to have a spectacular crash. As the field rounded the last corner, de Puniet's LCR Honda slammed him into the ground. He was able to stumble away, having had plenty of practise in the previous 30-odd crashes he has had this year. In two years, he still hasn't completed a single race lap at Misano, but at least he didn't take anybody with him this time...

Read the rest of my Misano MotoGP race report at MotorbikeSport.

MotoGP: Casey Stoner Wins Misano Snoozefest

The star of the San Marino MotoGP race at Misano was little Spanish fruit-loop Toni Elias, who is still months away from full fitness with his fragile femur. The Gresini Honda rider seemed to be in trouble during the practise sessions, but when the red lights went out he was the one on form as he battled to 7th place. The fight between Elias and Kawasaki's Ant West was the only thing worth watching, as they passed and re-passed each other like real racers.
His team-mate Marco "Macho" Melandri was also on form as he took 4th place. It was a great performance, considering that in a practise session Marco had managed to run off the edge of the track and highside himself off the Honda. He slid for a distance best measured in football pitches, and by his standards was completely unhurt (i.e. nothing broken). The bike, however, performed some jaw-dropping acrobatics as it cartwheeled through the gravel trap, followed by some jaw-dropping aerobatics as it leapt the tyre wall and bounced back off the debris fence. Melandri is a real showman, he just doesn't have small crashes these days and he stops for nothing short of partial paralysis.
Idiot of the race award goes to Randy de Puniet. He has proved himself to be extremely quick this year, and judging by his speed in qualifying he was in with a shout of a podium. However, he has also proved himself to be a bloody idiot. He somehow managed to leap off his bike about 300 metres into the race, sending Dani Pedrosa tumbling and Nicky Hayden ploughing through the gravel trap. Nicky said it was all he could do to avoid running over de Puniet's head. I don't know why he bothered.
The domino effect of de Puniet's crash also resulted in Kurtis Roberts running through the gravel, letting him get a better look at the Repsol Hondas than he usually gets when they are blasting past about 30mph faster than him down the straight.
With Dani out and Nicky trundling around with a damaged tyre, hope for a good race was fading, and it would be extinguished altogether about 5 laps later when Valentino Rossi's Yamaha gave up the ghost. He had been running a new engine with pneumatic valves in an effort to get within shouting distance of Ducati speed. It conked out and he trundled back to the pits, dejected.
The two Suzuki riders had a great race. Hopkins was in 2nd at first, but his team-mate Vermeulen was faster, and managed to overtake him and set off after the race leader. Hopkins then had trouble with his left knee slider hanging off, but admitted that he wouldn't have caught Vermeulen anyway. This was the first time that two Suzukis had finished together on the podium since the 4-stroke MotoGP rules were brought in. (Admittedly, during the first 2 or 3 years of MotoGP, the Suzukis usually finished together in the gravel trap.) Vermeulen is going from strength to strength, with this 2nd place adding to his 2nd at Laguna and win at Le Mans to put him 4th in the championship, just 4 points ahead of Hopper, who was delighted with his 3rd place and performed a huge stand-up wheelie over the line.
Right, am I forgetting anything?
Oh yeah, Casey Stoner won the race at a canter. No surprise there.
There are a lot of whingers who seem to think that nobody has a right to win races except Valentino Rossi. If anyone else wins, it's due to a massive technical advantage, and to be fair, the Bridgestone tyres are great. However, I think it's clear that Casey Stoner is simply a brilliant 800cc MotoGP rider. He doesn't fall off. He doesn't panic. During qualifying, if there's something wrong with his number one bike, he just sits for 20 minutes while the mechanics fix it, then goes out and qualifies on the front row. If Stoner finds himself out in front and everyone thinks it's dull, what the hell is he supposed to do about it?
The reasons why MotoGP has had some really boring races are as follows:

1. Yamaha's 800cc M1 has a million dollar lawnmower engine.
2. Honda's 800cc RC212V is a total embarrassment.
3. Michelin can't win without the unfair advantage of making tyres overnight.
4. Kawasaki riders keep torpedoing half the field on lap one.
   

If everybody was on Bridgestones, would Stoner be finishing 5th all the time? No chance, he'd be right in there fighting for wins. The kid will be a worthy champion, the only question is whether he wins the title at the next race or the one after.