...and six races to go in the championship. So who's gonna win it?
Hayden went into the break with his most impressive win, his 2nd in 4
races, and his biggest points lead over 2nd, now 34, and over Rossi, now
51. So his confidence has to be at an all-time high, and the points now
mean he has breathing room, enough to potentially survive that DNF or
near-DNF he's avoided all year.
Alas, the bike is the same, and it will be at Brno, unless HRC has
squeezed some additional horsepower out of it or have come up with some
new electronic trickery. Then the testing, and he can take another crack
at that new chassis or maybe even a newer one. The first impression of
it wasn't that good, so it may not help him any. And HRC may have shut
down much more work on that bike, only six races left in its lifetime
and Nicky chased by two other Hondas now. So what he has there to test
is likely about all he'll see this year.
But what about the others? I think Pedrosa and Melandri have taken a big
step forward over the last three races, coming after a rather disastrous
pair of races, the DNFs at Catalunya, the battered 7th at Assen for
Melandri and the gifted but distant 3rd for Pedrosa in a weakened field.
Dani won impressively at Donington, was in the fight in Germany but lost
out due to a few small errors, then the impressive 2nd at Laguna. But
for .05 second he'd be working on four straight podiums.
Melandri has quietly been more impressive over these rounds, the
still-injured 3rd in the UK that should have been a 2nd, the fighting
2nd in Germany, and the podium at Laguna, a track that seemingly had his
number going in. Given that the only times that he finished higher than
5th in the first eight races were those two rather lucky wins, this
looks like a real turn.
Unfortunately for Rossi, things haven't looked so bright. He hurt
himself at Assen, made the best of that and then some there and in the
UK, won in Germany off the 4th row, but then another disaster over here.
His bike remains decidedly questionable, the chatter mostly gone but
still no good on the Qs - qualified 12th, 11th, 10th the last three
rounds - and no guarantees on race tires either. Given that Yamaha,
Burgess and Rossi simply haven't been able to come to grips with that
bike and the new Michelins, it's hard to imagine that he can throw up
the consistently brilliant results that it would take to leapfrog three
riders and make up 51 points in the remaining six rounds.
You have to assume that Hayden has to DNF somewhere for the others to
get back in it, as 6, 8, 9 points per race is a lot to have to make up
on a guy who has been on the box in 13 of the last 15 races. But drop
25, 20, 16 points in one round and it all changes. For Pedrosa, that and
finishing ahead of Nick in 3 or 4 of the remaining 5 races may do the
trick. For Melandri add the need to win 2 or 3 races, or for Hayden to
have a pair of disasters. For Rossi it probably means winning at least 4
of the 6 - that's 100 points against a maximum of 105 for Nicky the rest
of the way, so he would need to score 56 more in the other two, of
course not possible. He needs help.
Help could come from Capirossi and possibly even Gibernau - for all of
them. Brno is where Bridgestone really stepped it up last year, Loris in
the top three all weekend, and they have to have made progress in the
year since. After that they go to the far east for three rounds, where
Bridgestone will be on at least equal footing to Michelin, then back to
Europe and Estoril, previously their best Euro track. So the Ducati boys
should be in the mix, and perhaps the Suzuki boys and Nakano as well.
This weekend it's Brno, where Rossi beat Capirossi, Biaggi, Barros and
Hayden last year. In 2004 Gibernau comfortably beat Rossi and Biaggi in
the end after Hayden crashed trying to hang, and in '03 it was Rossi
over Gibernau and Bayliss in a tight one. 6th, 9th and 10th are
Melandri's MotoGP results here, and Pedrosa has 4 podiums and 2 wins in
the last 4 years. It's a notorious front-end circuit, but I'm not sure
who it favors... besides Biaggi.
Anyway, a Hayden win means the fat lady is warming up, a podium means
they hold station (at least whoever finishes in front of him), a DNF
means it's a whole new ballgame, and something in between means he's
gotten too conservative and/or it's a wakeup call. Or something else.
And then the test.
Btw, showers are predicted starting Sunday and lasting through the
week...
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