A season like this only comes along once in 20 years (semi-spoiler)

 Just watched the MotoGP from Catalunya.  As well as some superb racing
at the front, with the last couple of laps being as good as I can
recall in the top class, we now have the three contenders equal on the
same number of points, after 6 rounds.

The last time I recall three riders racing at the front for the
championship at this level, it was Lawson, Rainey and Schwantz, in
1989.
--
Champ

ZX10R (road), ZX10R (race; breaking), GPz750 turbo (classic) Hayabusa (touring)
To email me, neal at my domain should work.

 
I thoroughly agree - the Rossi-Lorenzo duel was a very memorable one.
The last 3 rounds were utter insanity. Clearly Yamaha has no peck
order in there, damn, I think they touched each other at least 3 times
on the last 2 laps. Talk about riding hard. Damn. Beautiful race at
the front. And the good news is, 3 guys at the front within a very few
points? And no clear peck order behind, and you know it is important
to those guys to state their claim behind those who enjoy full 100%
factory support.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the season pans out, and
if there'll be a circuit where the Yam, Duc and Honda strengths
coincide, and all of a sudden we have a group of 3-4 riders for the
win - I think it will happen and provide an amazing spectacle before
the season is over. There'll also be a major tumble at the front with
all this hard riding going on - no way these guys can get away with
this every race, at some point they'll put each other down, so let's
just hope no one gets hurt as things heat up in this amazingly close
race to the 2009 title.

More stuff to watch out for - Dovizioso making progress. Pedrosa's
approach ain't cutting it, and it is becoming apparent. The peck order
in Honda is being re-established with every race, too. I think by the
end of the year Pedrosa will increasingly look old guard. And wait
until some of these very aggressive 250 guys make it up. There are
several guys in the grid looking for replacement with younger riders
right now.

Gibernau - man, this is your home circuit. Ouch. It truly was an ill-
advised comeback, or at least it seems thus far. Hayden - looking a
tad better now on race day. But knowing how patient Ducati was with
Melandri (who despite the vicious coverage seemed to be doing better
than Hayden) he has to be thinkng about where he'll ride next year
now. It now seems a very ill-advised move, considering he tested the
bike before making a decision. Edwards can't be feeling to great about
what Lorenzo is doing of that second spot in Yamaha that supposedly
never got any support from anyone because Rossi hogs all the
engineering and team support...

Also interesting to see that, after looking good 2 weeks ago,
melandri's team receded into the spot they would seem to logically
belong.

 On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:21:58 -0700 (PDT), pablo


Pedrosa is pretty seriously beaten up.  I don't think yesterday's
result is what we should expect when he's fit again.


Melandri couldn't find the last few tenths in practice, but was at 5th
on the gri with 15 mins to go on Saturday.  But (despite Mark's
protestations) the class is so competitive nowadays that it's very
east to drop ten places on the grid in few mins of qualifying action.
He then got a great start, and went from 16th on the grid to 9th place
in the first few laps.  But then something happened (not shown or
reported on the Eurosport coverage) and he dropped to near the back.
I still think he and his team are doing a decent enough job.
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

 wrote:


After the 125 and 250 races, I couldn't stand any more of that Carlton
Kirby.  It comes to something when the Charlie Cox on the BBC is a more
preferable alternative.

 
I've taken to watching the TV on Eurosport and then BBC with the
internet commentary from the MotoGP site. Which is ok if you're watching
everything live. But then yesterday, I needed to record the 125 and 250
and Eurosport-Virgin managed to screw up and couldn't decide between
them what was actually being shown on British Europsort 1 and 2. So I
ended up watching the replay on the red button only to find the same
MotoGP commentators. Except of course that you can't use Virgin+ to
record off the red button or use the fast forward or replay.

Grrr... Maybe next year, Dorna will sort out the French and German TV
companies and we can just go back to Eurosport-Moody-Ryder-Mamola.

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
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