by Barry Russell
Casey Stoner - Phillip Island 2010
With the only significant question in the MotoGP world championship waiting to be answered being whether Valentino Rossi will catch injured Dani Pedrosa for second place, we are into an intriguing part of the season with psychological jockeying for superiority ahead of the winter break. And of course we are in the last throes of the Rossi-Yamaha and Stoner-Ducati eras, with both riders intent on leaving on the highest possible notes.
Casey Stoner has taken most of the season to get confident with the Ducati, but has been on blistering form since the Aragon round. The Australian seems to have no doubt in his own mind that he is the fastest guy out there and his pulverisation of the competition at Phillip Island makes us wonder what he will do when he gets on the fast Honda.
Valentino Rossi has once again used personal rivalry to bring himself back to form, despite his debilitating shoulder injury. His duffing up of Jorge Lorenzo for third place at Motegi was up there with his 2008 Corkscrew move on Stoner at Laguna Seca and his last corner overtake of his teammate to win the 2009 Catalunya round in terms of reminding his rivals and his doubters in the press how ruthlessly competitive he is. Within a few races in 2011 people will remember that he is a brilliant development rider too.
Of the rookies, Ben Spies wins hands down, but Marco Simoncelli is visibly gaining confidence after his pre-season battering and Alvaro Bautista’s self belief will have been buoyed by Suzuki’s endorsement of him as their lone rider next season. Hiroshi Aoyama has had a difficult season because of the horrible spinal injury he sustained at Silverstone, but his quality is showing through again and Honda will ensure that they keep a Japanese rider in MotoGP. It’s hard not to wonder what Japan’s two most naturally gifted racers of the last decade, Dajiro Kato and Shoya Tomizawa, could have done to shift the dynamics of dominant rider nationalities had they not so tragically lost their lives.
At the other end of the age spectrum, Colin Edwards predictably came good just in time to rescue his Tech3 contract for another year and Loris Capirossi, who is expected to be officially announced at Pramac Ducati anyday, which just goes to show how much being part of the MotoGP establishment can prolong your career. With Carlos Checa widely expected to be making a cameo appearance in the team by replacing the defeated Mika Kallio for the last two races, the average age in MotoGP will surely be approaching that of the World Superbike series.
Valentino Rossi - Phillip Island 2010
Also defeated is Marco Melandri, whose MotoGP career hasn’t lived up to its early promise and he is off to WSBK. With no shortage of talent at his disposal, we can only conclude that the former 250cc World Champion he has been underserved by his management. As a tribute to one of my personal favourite riders here is the video clip of his amazing one-handed victory powerslide at Phillip Island in 2006.
Finally, Yamaha boss, Lin Jarvis wins the Amnesia Award for Comedy Mindgames when he said in an interview that he thought Pedrosa would be Jorge Lorenzo’s main rival for the 2011 championship because Rossi and Stoner were moving to new teams. Has he really forgotten how Rossi won his first race on the Yamaha M1 in 2004 at in South Africa and just how uncompetitive the M1 was when he first moved across? What about the fact that he was the first ever rider to win back-to-back races for different manufacturers? And how about what Casey Stoner did in his first season on the Ducati in 2007? He may also have overestimated Ben Spies’s willingness to be Jorge Lorenzo’s wingman. Take a bow, Mr Jarvis!
Jorge Lorenzo was the big winner this year, but the mindgames for the 2011 championship have begun in earnest and should make for interesting on-track battles at Estoril and Valencia.
