Motegi GP

 The main point of this post is to prod Mark to do his post-race
analysis, which I quietly enjoy, even tho I often disagree with his
conclusions  :-)

Anyway, here's my starter for 10...

Lorenzo: The kid has proved that when everything is working, he can be
fast, and can resist a bit of pressure.  His lap times were pretty
consistent too.  Whether he can race when things are not optimal, and
whether he can actually race against the likes of Rossi and Stoner,
remains to be seen (no reason to think he can't - just haven't seen it
yet).

Rossi: Now he's one of the class's older statesmen, he's matured into
Mr-Take-The-Points.  And none the worse for it.

Pedrosa: An impressive ride back from injury, but once again showed
that he can lap fast, but can't necessarily race.  I don't think he'll
ever take the championship.

Stoner: A genuine mystery as to what happened to him this weekend.
Did he suffer most from the lack of dry setup time?

Dovizioso: Another good weekend, but with Pedrosas in 3rd he's going
to have to keep getting better.

Melandri: My ride of the day.  Let's hope it's not a false dawn, and
that Kawasaki really did build a good bike over the winter.  Or maybe
he just got lucky with the settings in a weekend with just 45 mins of
dry practice.

Capirossi and Vermuelen: looked fast all weekend, qualified well, and
then didn't capitalise on it at all well in the race.  The Suzuki team
need to figure out how to translate speed into results.

Kallio: Second Ducati again, but 34 seconds down on Stoner.  Still
good for a rookie, in my book.

Toseland and Edwards:  once again Edwards turned a decent grid place
into a poor result.  And Toseland has nothing to be comfortable about,
finishing 43 seconds behind the winning Yamaha.  That's nearly 2
seconds a lap!

The Rest: The satellite Hondas are looking pretty terrible (what a
turn around from 5 years ago), and I'm not sure Giberbau and Canepa
should even be out there.  There's certainly more deserving riders,
but I doubt those riders would want to be on Ducatis.  I think Mark is
right - there's something wrong with that bike, if only one guy can
make it work - contrast with the Yamaha.  Hayden is maybe making a
better fist of it than Melandri last year, but was still 2 seconds
slower than Stoner in Quali.  Unfortunately, we didn't get chance to
see what Nicky could do in the race, but I'd be surprised, based on
his practice pace, if it had been inside the top 10.

C'mon Mark, take me to pieces :-)
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

 

<snip>


Nothing?  Oh well.
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

 

A 5th at jerez suggests that Motegi wasn't a fluke.  Kawasaki maybe
wondering if this year was the one they shouldn't have pulled out.
--
Champ