BLOG MOTO GP

  The Desmosedici GP9 looks like being the bike to beat for 2009 after a successful test at Valencia. Not unusually Casey Stoner set the bar for the rest to aim for with a blazing 1′32.446 lap one tenth faster than his fastest lap in Sunday’s race. There seems to be no end to Stoner’s talent and I must admit at this point I was one of those who thought it was bike but he’s blown that out of the water and at his age we’ve a lot more to look forward to.

The event we’ve all been waiting for, apart from the new GP9, was Nicky Hayden on a GP9. Given his riding style I thought he had a good chance of taming the Ducati and he hasn’t disappointed anyone including his toughest critic, himself. Hayden’s first day on the bike produced an fantastic 1′33.960 only 1.5 seconds behind new teammate Stoner. This is even more impressive as he’s not just getting used to a new ride but new tyres too.

  These two changes coming at the same time will benefit Nicky in the long run as it’s the complete package for next year, unfamiliar but unchanging. The consensus has been that he had taken the worst of all seats in MotoGp in a desperate bid to remain on a competitive factory bike is proven wrong. The powers that be at Ducati must be ecstatic with acquiring Hayden and putting the second rider demons to rest after Melandri and Capirossi. If we remember Melandri’s record from 2008 when he was as much as three or four seconds per lap behind Stoner despite at many times having the fastest speed down the straights.

This is not just a Ducati, Hayden story as with another competitive rider added to the four or five at the top it can only make for more racing which is what we all watch MotoGP to see.   

  After taking his ninth pole for Sundays race Casey Stoner did not disappoint with a return to his get to the front and ride off into the sunset formula. Dani Pedrosa looked a real threat getting past Stoner on the first bend only to passed himself at the next, it looks like Stoner’s learned some new moves after his Laguna carve up with Rossi. That was all she wrote for top spot on the podium as he flew around the Ricardo Tormo circuit snatching another lap record on the way of 1′32.582 .

Dani Pedrosa maintained a reasonable grip on Stoner’s exhaust pipe but couldn’t live with the heat and fell back ending some 3.4 seconds behind.

Eventual third place Valentino Rossi had the most work to do on the day starting from a 10th place and forth row. Rossi picked his way through the field and made and couple of mind blowing out-breaking manoeuvres heading into turn one with his left leg flaying about trying to make the turn. Once clear of the rest of the field his efforts to get up with Pedrosa were a step too far and he settled into third for his sixteenth podium of the year.

  Overall the race was a tad processional but as was uttered more than once, all the big prizes had gone so motivation was at a low. That said some of the early jostling for position was good to watch but it was poor viewing when Hayden’s tyres went off and so did he, backwards ending up fifth.

Andrea Dovisioso produced another quality run coming in forth, twelve second behind Rossi. If he lives up to this seasons fifth place on a customer bike what’s he going to do on a full blooded Repsol Honda, I think this is going to be a highlight we’re all waiting to see.

  I am a member of a distributed computing project called Folding @ Home. This works by using the idle time on you PC to run a program which helps to find possible cures for a lot of diseases. As a get a reasonable amount of visitors to this site I thought I might try to recruit a few of you for the cause.

If you want to participate, click on the image link above and go find out about it for yourself. If you would like to join my team it’s called The_Big_Lebowski and the team number is 84028. You don’t need to go with my team but if you do, try and choose the name of a character or quote from the Movie as your username.

Thanks. 

What shame that  Honda are “letting go” Nicky Hayden. This guy was the world champion just two seasons ago and ever since has been playing second fiddle to Dani Pedrosa. While Dani has impressed he too has struggled to find a consistent run in 2008 with the Honda Michelin combination and has since swapped mid season to Bridgestone. Nicky on the other hand has stuck with it and come back to form too late for Honda to see the error of their ways. Looking back to 2006 and Hayden’s Championship win it was his resilient hard work and consistent placing that gave him the 252 points and 5 point winning margin over Rossi. This seems even more amazing since he only won two races but made it to the podium nine times in all and was taken out in the penultimate round by team mate Pedrosa.

Hayden having now moved to Ducati seems unfazed by it all and hasn’t so far uttered a bad word aimed at Honda, his team mate is another matter. I think Nicky has accepted this move with open arms and is looking forward to getting his hands on the Desmosedici 9 as he has said himself he’s a “point and gun it type of rider”. If his style fits the Ducati and can manage what the previous two Stoner teams mates have failed to do, we all know about that, then he will be able to continue his fight back to the podium more often.

Perhaps it’s the failure of Capirossi and to more of an extent Melandri’s inability to ride the Ducati with any semblance of success that makes me think this is a bad move for Nicky. Is he going to have a disastrous 2009 season on the Desmosedici 9 and end up on a Kawasaki or Gresini in 2010 with little chance of achieving anything but low table ranking results. Maybe I’m just being to negative about the whole thing, we’ll see next year.

  Winning the world championship back after a two year is an unrivaled achievement for Valentino Rossi. The fact that it wasn’t enough just for him to take back  the MotoGP crown but also send a message to all his rivals by pushing for the win rather than settling for second or even third to secure the title. That lingering look back at Stoner as he passed under the tunnel on the final lap lap said it all. We can now look forward to a continuing battle for the final three races as while this season is over in terms of this years title next years has already begun.

The two year winning absence was apologised for by Rossi with a T-shirt that said, “Scusate il retardo” or “Sorry for the delay”. This is typical of how he says he feels that he’s let the fans down by not being winning. That kind of self imposed pressure is insignificant to the pressure he’s not just coped with but conquered on the track. Coming from a few contenders but starting with his Yamaha team mate Jorge Lorenzo who was a real force at the beginning of the year  coming second in race one then first in race two. Rossi must have thought he was in deep trouble at that time but just kept plugging away. Stoner also came out in stunning form again with the Ducati still screaming along in front and untouchable. Pedrosa was waiting in the wings for his chance to chime in, but his season never really grew wings and he’s ended up scuffing along on his arse at the Sachsenring just out of reach of the title. As an aside here I can’t see Pedrosa ever winning the title, I just can’t see him getting it together. No doubt I’ll be proven wrong next year.

  The two year drought has been a wake up call for Rossi and one which he’s answered unreservedly.  Valentino has now admitted in so many words that he took his eye of the ball during 2006 letting Hayden slip the title away from under him. Some blame his foray into F1 with Schumacher and Ferrari and I must agree as he didn’t seem focused early in that season and payed for it. Then last year he had to contend with the never ending tyre saga* and an out of reach Ducati, Stoner combination. Despite these obstacles you could see Rossi was working hard to catch up and with that intensity it had to come together sooner or later. The change to Bridgestone  which a lot of commentators though was a mistake proved the right one in the end again, though backed up by the work of the Yamaha team behind him.

  Lets hope for an exciting end to the season, but I doubt anything will get the adrenalin going like the Laguna Seca race which despite Stoners fall was one the races of all time.

* I made the mistake of trying to talk to my wife about MotoGP considering using only one tyre next season. Her reply to me was, “don’t they need two”.

I’ll never learn!!!!!

  Valentino Rossi notched up his sixty Eighth MotoGP victory to equal Giacomo Agostini’s record. During the practice and qualifying for the Misano San Marino this week it looked likely that Rossi was going to play second fiddle to arch rival Casey Stoner who dominated every session. In a repeat of Brno Rossi was never to far behind and began to increase the pace once he found his rhythm to which Stoner did responded only to low-side off the track breaking his handle bar and retiring him from the race. Rossi had twenty laps left which he managed without error to win for the first time in this class at what is his home circuit.

The super smooth style that Rossi employees means that he can put in a consistently fast lap without riding on the ragged edge. This is now paying him back with the ability to keep pushing Stoner, who lets face it still has a huge advantage over the field. The tyre choice today for Rossi hard front and rear once again plays into his run the race through to the end philosophy. Stoner went for a medium front hard rear and pushed the front end to oblivion as always and eventually into the gravel. I think Stoner has to recognise  that the days of riding off into the sun with no one to push him are gone. Ducati now needs to adopt the Doctors ethos of seeing the whole race and building his plan to reach the last lap in good shape and loose the drag racing mentality.   As Rossi said at Laguna, “this is racing”.   

The threat from the rest of the field came in the form of Yamaha team mate Jorge Lorenzo who held off the advances of Toni Elias on the fastest Ducati of the the day, all be it in Alice form.

  Battles raged  throughout the field and with Rossi winning by three seconds and Lorenzo eight in front of Elias things are still rather spread out. Dani Pedrosa in fourth was some seventeen and a half second behind Rossi which leads us onto another area of controversy in that Dani wants Bridgestone rubber and will have it for Indianapolis. This is a very contentious move especially after today’s result where the tyre used alternated Bridgestone, Michelin all the way down to eleventh with a glut of Bridgestones at the end. Perhaps sticking with the valve spring engine has more to do with Dani’s lack of performance, after all Hayden has improved since going Pneumatic. I thought it was wrong headed of HRC in 2007  to have a preference for Pedrosa when the 2006 reigning World Champion was sitting on the other side of the garage, especially when Hayden won with a grinding hard work ethic and consistency. 

There was a touch of dejavu from Jerez during today’s race when Toseland, Capirossi and Vermeulen fought for fifth place changing places and some paint by the looks of things at times. These three provided most of the entertainment value for us spectators and added to what is now becoming as I’ve said before an F1 parade. That’s touching onto another topic altogether one which I think can only be resolved either by a fuel cut or rev limit or both, we’ll see.

The FIM provisional track calendar for 2009 apart from a couple of order switches has only made one complete track change. China’s Shanghai circuit has lost out to Hungary who are in the process of building the new track at Lake Balaton.

The what will be know as Balatonring situated 180km from Budapest will host the MotoGP for five years from September 2009. The  National Development and Economy Minister Gordon Bajnai who is overseeing the project added that his government would be giving financial help but wouldn’t give an indication actual figures.

The track builders Spanish investment group Sedesa have said that the cost will be in the region of €80 million. The siting of the track near the Lake Balaton Holiday resorts will be a boost to the local economy as well as  creating some 800 additional jobs.

There is a contrived look to the design of the 4650M track but that’s nothing new there’s a few around like that. You can have a look at it at Wikipedia I don’t want to put on here what with all the copyright issues. Crowd capacity is up to a max of 140K huge by any standards.

Dates              Grand Prix                            Circuit
April/avril 12 *             Qatar                                         Doha/Losail
April/avril 26             Japan/Japon                                    Motegi
May/mai 3               Spain/Espagne                      Jerez de la Frontera
May/mai 17                  France                                          Le Mans
May/mai 31                Italy/Italie                                      Mugello
June/juin 14                 Catalunya                                 Catalunya
June/juin 27 **        Netherlands/Pays-Bas                    Assen
July/juillet 5 ***       United States/Etats-Unis             Laguna Seca
July/juillet 19             Germany/Allemagne                  Sachsenring
July/juillet 26    Great Britain/Grande-Bretagne         Donington Park
August/août 16    Czech Rep./Rép. Tchèque                     Brno
August/août 30         Indianapolis                              Indianapolis
September/septembre 13 San Marino & Riviera di Rimini   Misano
September/septembre 20 Hungary/Hongrie             Lake Balaton
October/octobre 4        Portugal                                     Estoril
October/octobre 18   Australia/Australie                   Phillip Island
October/octobre 25   Malaysia/Malaisie                          Sepang
November/novembre 8  Valencia Ricardo Tormo –         Valencia

*: Evening race/course nocturne
**: Saturday/samedi
***: Only MotoGP class/Classe MotoGP seulement

  Mazda raceway Laguna Seca turned out to be the race we’ve all been waiting for between Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner. The two battled right from the get go at time overtaking in places where mere mortals would never consider and passing each other inches apart. At one point on turn three Rossi took to the kerbing to squeeze by Stoner when it seemed there was no room left. Later Stoner returned the favour after Rossi passed him going into the corkscrew then went over the kerbing he tried to go around the outside which ended in the two coming together but somehow the both emerged unscathed and continued the battle.

The race then fell into a cycle of Stoner sitting in then pushing to try to pass but Rossi responded immediately passing a bend or two later. The two bikes seemed equally matched around the circuit as a whole with both benefiting in different sections leading to the back and forth scrap. The culmination of this struggle came later in the race when on the final turn on to the home straight Stoner over ran the corner just managing not to rear end Rossi and going off into the gravel where he fell off at low speed. Stoner remounted still in second but by then Rossi was 16 seconds ahead a lead he held comfortably until the flag. After the win Rossi was ecstatic and stopped to kiss the corkscrew which had spared him earlier in the race. Stoner on the other hand was furious claiming Rossi had ruffed him up and nearly put him in the gravel several time saying, “there was no need for it”. When Rossi first tried to congratulate him he was having none of it and wouldn’t shake his hand. Rossi then commented rightly that, “this is racing, normal”.

My own take on Stoners reaction was that it was unjustified as both were racing hard and it really was a case of sour grapes. Stoner has gotten too used to riding off into the sunset with no challenge but with his experience he should know better. Perhaps it was also the fact that he had lost what could been seen as the decider and not winning his fourth on the bounce in one fail swoop by Rossi.  Rossi on the other hand was ever gracious and looked somewhat disappointed in Casey’s outburst.

By the time they reached the podium Stoner had calmed down a tad and they shook hands but the body language said it all. Almost as an aside they were joined on the podium by third place Chris Vermeulen who was overjoyed a getting up their without the usual downpour.

This Victory which was Ross’ first at Laguna now gives him a full race win 25 point lead over Stoner and with Dani Pedrosa out with injury it’s a solid lead going into the summer break.

Elsewhere in the race, oh yes there were others competing today, the already mentioned Vermeulen and a fantastic fourth from Honda Gresini man Andrea Dovisioso. Dovi’s placing was a real blow Nicky Hayden in fifth as the rumour mill has it that he is displacing him at Repsol Honda. The rumour mill also says that Hayden will be teaming up with Stoner and Ducati, well wait to see. Today however they deserve congratulations as both led the way for the Michelin shod bikes. One who paid with an early tyre assisted high-side was Jorge Lorenzo and as usual he does nothing by half flying some 10 or more feet in the air. As for his own feet he now has a broken meta tarsal in his left foot which compounds his earlier woe’s.

Continuing the tyre theme Bridgestone must be feeling on top of the world with three on top of the podium two weeks on the trot. Michelin it must be said played into their hands by bringing the wrong tyres sets to the race, too hard a compound and no softer ones. Come on Michelin, “fundamentals!”.

More later.

Indianapolis now looks like almost every other circuit on the MotoGP calendar rather than the usual US track covered in cones to show the way. There are a lot of run-off areas and loads of grass rather than sand or pebbles. One area though where there maybe some concern over safety is the main straight which has a wall from the bend onto it to the end but then most tracks have the pit wall anyway. Have a look at what Ben Spies and joie Chitwood have to say about it.

I think that is only right that the US has another GP there give the amount of riders that compete in it now and in the past. The US fans have been kind of starved of live races and it must grate on them that so many are held here in Europe.

It would also be nice to see a return to south America too even if not a return to Brazil then Mexico or Argentina.

  The Assen MotoGP being interesting was as good as it got today after a qualifying session that had promised so much more. Taking nothing away from Casey Stoners fantastic ride on the Ducati which saw him as predicted disappear off into the distance, quite literally according to Pedrosa after the race. In another flawless series of laps Stoner once again proved the he seems to be in a class of his own and once a large enough gap was developed he settles into a maintenance routine. He did occasionally drop a lap time in the 136’s which I think just to show what he could do if pressured.

The pressure what there was of it was applied throughout the race by the two Repsol Hondas of Pedrosa and Hayden, which considering the engine difference was a feat in itself. Both riders were steady lap after lap but never looked like troubling Stoners lead. In the end Hayden missed out on a podium when coming out of the chicane to cross the line the bike ran out of fuel. In a spooky role reversal the one who benefited from this was Colin Edwards. Two years before Edwards had fallen off at the same point and lost out to Hayden who took the win. Today he got payback as he blasted past the now coasting Hayden to take third. If ever there was a deserved podium it was Edwards to claim after coming from twelfth on lap one to third on the last with a bundle of 137’s to get him there. 

The hoped for race that never was between Stoner and Valentino Rossi was lost at the third turn on lap one. Rossi lost the back end after going into the bend too hot and  succeeded in throwing himself off into the gravel taking De Puniet with him who was badly injured. Rossi remounted some twenty four seconds behind Melandri but set about catching him with his usual determination. The fact that he caught Melandri then Elias to take eleventh and post the third fastest lap was a minor miracle given the bent handle bars and the lack of a gear shift which was broken off in the crash.

The main overtaking action of the race apart  from Edwards involved a tussle between Dovisioso, Vermeulen, Nakano and Lorenzo who swapped places more times than I could count. None were ever in the race to the podium but provided an abundance of entertainment which was missing from the sharp end today.