At least it wasn't boring...

 The rains come on the warmup, a second attempt all on slicks, the rain
comes back with a vengeance and first bike change under the new rule.
Melandri wins, but a bit of an afterthought as for the championship it
was a wild ride. At the first start something went horribly wrong for
Hayden and he was down in 15th, Rossi about 10th and Pedrosa 5th. The
front was nothing like the grid, the order at the end of one at Nakano,
  Edwards, Melandri, Gibernau, Pedrosa, Roberts, Hopkins, Capirossi.

After several laps of holding station Rossi went on a charge, passing
FIVE guys on lap 5 and getting up to 3rd behind Gibernau, who was a mile
behind the flying Nakano. Then the rains came and they all went in,
except Nakano. The signal was Edwards, in 6th at the time, going down
hard - another bump in his wayward season. Nakano stayed out for one
last lap on slicks, and it ended up hurting him. The bike switched
jumbled the order tremendously with the exception of Nakano and Gibernau
the order on lap 8 looking nothing like lap 9. For Hayden it was up to
9th (he had worked up to 10th on slicks), but only one spot behind
Rossi. And Hayden showed those wet skills he worked on over the winter,
catching Rossi and then passing him as the two of them worked toward the
front, although Rossi got back by later.

Gibernau had a decent lead, 2-2.5 seconds over Vermeulen, but Melandri
worked by Chris and quickly closed on Sete, getting by with ten laps to
go. Chris V followed a lap later, and at that point Gibs had seven
seconds in hand over Stoner, with the pack of Nakano, Rossi, Hayden and
Capirossi right behind. But Rossi and Hayden got by Nakano, still chased
by Stoner, and they hunted down Sete by the end, Rossi getting by on the
last run onto the pit straight, which knocked Sete off the podium,
running his streak to 21 races. And it cut the margin to Nicky by 3 more
points, down to 21, as Nick couldn't get by as well.

Or did it? Hayden said after the race that Rossi passed under a waiving
yellow on that last lap, assumedly when he lapped Pedrosa. So now we
wait to see what happens. All I know is that Rossi has been penalized
for this twice before, back in 2003 (one of them at PI), and both times
they docked him 10 seconds. If that's the call, then he drops to 6th and
Hayden moves up to 4th, a switch of 8 points, leaving Vale 29 down. [And
putting Gibs on the box!] Huge, obviously, and I don't know if the rule
is the same for passing a backmarker (feels good to call Dani that,
somehow) who's letting people by. Seems like it shouldn't matter, given
it's safety measure.

Speaking of Dani, his championship run was pretty much ended by the
rain, as he slowed when it started getting wet and came out of the pits
in 13th and dropped from there. Seems like he may have something to
learn about racing in the rain on a MotoGP bike (he qualified 16th in
Turkey in the rain, for those who immediately point to his knee). A
single point in 15th leaves him in 4th, tied on points with Melandri but
down one race win, and 32 behind Hayden, 11 down on Rossi. Too much with
only three races to go and with a bum leg still. And he could lose 2
more points, depending on how Honda's protest goes. Unless, of course,
Honda doesn't protest...

So what about this bike-switching procedure? Well, I always thought the
dangers were in the pits and someone trying to stay out on slicks too
long. Well, it looked awful hairy on pit lane that one lap, and even on
the entry and exit lanes. And we saw Edwards on a stretcher in the
gravel. But it was exciting, I guess.

Not as much as a dry race would have been, though, at least for a purist
- best track of the year and we get this. Reminds me of Mugello two
years ago. In some ways you have to appreciate all those "no rain"
tracks in the AMA...

 Mark N wrote:


Looked at the rule, and what it prohibits is overtaking. Since Rossi
passing Pedrosa wasn't overtaking, meaning a change of position, that
wouldn't seem to be illegal. Or is that overtaking? If the point is
safety, and it is, it shouldn't matter if the pass is for position or
not, unless the guy being passed is touring and off line. No idea if
Pedrosa would qualify as that. The rule does allow for a rider to back
off and allow the guy passed to retake the position, but obviously that
can't be expected with a guy a lap down. So who knows.

My guess is that nothing will come of this, if for no other reason than
we're talking about Rossi and Hayden here, after all. Home field
advantage should carry the day...

 

I lost the video feed on L16 and had to watch the lap times, I couldn't
understand what happened as Hayden was the quickest guy on the track at the
end. Did Sete slow because of the flag and Pedrosa? Somethin' had to have
happened 'cause he was over a second ahead and Rossi was only .2 faster then
on the last lap Gibs does a .42 to Vale's .41! Regardless of what Honda will
do, I think Duc would be screamin bloody f'ing murder right about now,
doncha' think?

 
What was the flag for? Did anyone fall on the penultimate lap?

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Julian Bond wrote:

As I understand it, Pedrosa was being lapped by the lead group on the
last lap. Apparently there was a waving yellow flag to alert pedrosa of
the leaders or alert the leaders of Pedrosa. Either way, it seems that
Sete must have slowed for this reason and Rossi siezed the opportunity
to make a pass. Hayden later said in the live brodcast that he clearly
saw a waving yellow flag and that is why he didn't try to make a move
as well. I'm not exactly sure about the flags in FIM, but in AMA here
in the States they usually wave a blue flag to warn slower riders of a
faster pack about to pass them.

If there was indeed a yellow flag then of course Rossi should not have
passed. However, i'm not sure that there was a flag and what it was
for. There were clearly no fallen bikes or riders on the last lap. I'd
really like to find out what will come of this and what actually
happened.

GOOD LUCK HAYDEN!!!