MotoGP

Yesterday afternoon I watched the qualifying for todays Italian MotoGP at Mugello on the BBC red button service.

Sadly MotoGP coverage on the BBC is not looked on in the same light as the pre-determined mainly boring procession that has become F1.
This means that one has to search for the qualification sessions and sometimes even the race itself.

Such a shame especially as the BBC presenters for MotoGP are all good at what they do. Suzy Perry in particular is sorely missed by the team, riders and the audiences.

It certainly is a change from the F1 coverage where there seems to be a constant battle for top billing and who irons Eddie Jordans syrup.

For real racing why not have a look see for a few rounds of the championship staring from this afternoon.

Re: MotoGP

The obscene amount of money the BBC paid for F1, makes my blood boil. What exactly is F1? Lots of screaming bits of metal(hardly resembling real cars) hurtling round and round, for what seems forever. Agree about Eddie Jordan, looks like somebody out of Lord Of The Rings. The worst thing in my book, is that criminal waste of good Champagne at the end of this boring racket.

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Agree John, it does seem to be on the screen forever and the inane chatter between the presenters makes it less tolerable.
I always get the distinct impression that Brundle is tolerated by the drivers and crews rather than liked.

I have to admit that he pulled off a neat coup in getting his old mate/client Coultard in as co-commentator at the expense of Legard although he was a bit of a bore.

As to Jordan, good point.
Quite a few characters to pick from in LOR, from Treebeard to Gollum. Not too sure about the Ents rug though, then again

Good bike race today and pretty clear of incidents, even Marco Simoncelli behaved himself.

A surprising result with Lorenzo taking top spot Dovisioso coming in second and Stoner third across the stripe.

Rossi still seems to have a battle on his hands with a beast of a Ducati. Strange really when Casey Stoner could wring its neck last term and still keep it upright.

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This last weekend saw another brilliant race chalked off the MotoGP calender.

We witnessed Dani Pedrosa of Spain win at the Sachsenring circuit, home of the German GP. He was comfortably ahead of fellow Spaniard and defending world champion Jorge Lorenzo.

The defending champion Lorenzo and his Yamaha had a pretty tough battle with championship leader Casey Stoner of Australia on his Honda. The Spaniard passing Stoner, who had started from pole position, on the inside of the final corner of the last lap.

This was only Dani Pedrosa's second outing after missing three races following surgery to repair a fractured collarbone suffered at the French GP on May 15.

It was not the best of conditions but once again we saw everyone engaged in actual racing from the front to the back of the pack.
A great advert for the sport.

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The peerless Casey Stoner notched up his seventh win of 2011 at the Indianapolis Brickyard and further increased his lead by 44 points in the Championship.

Fellow Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa came in second with Ben Spies the Yamaha Factory racer crossing the stripe in third place. The current World Champion, Jorge Lorenzo also a Yamaha rider, came in disappointing fourth.

The newly laid track caused a few problems of grip or adverse tyre wear for the riders but all in all a good contest with some slick and clean riding by all including the much maligned Marco Simocelli.

A pretty essential skill that drivers in F1 could emulate, some of the bike riders were lapping at just over 90 MPH and travelling at 200mph plus on occasions.

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The Motorland circuit in Aragon Spain was certainly a blustery venue for today's MotoGP and could have been quite a nasty time for the competitors.
In the event there were no major incidents and it was back to business for Casey Stoner, the Australian rode a faultless race to win by a good distance even though he had prudently backed down the speed of his Repsol Honda by a good margin.

Dani Pedrosa, Stoner's team mate came home in second place with the current champion, Jorge Lorenzo crossing the stripe in third place on the works Yamaha.
The British rider young Cal Crutchlow made a good account of himself and finished in ninth place, most importantly in front of the experienced Colin Edwards both riding for Yamaha Tech 3.

This latest win by Casey increases his lead over Jorge by 44 points in the title race and with only four races left on the calender I would think that it is his title to lose.
The next meeting will be in Japan and I think all the teams and riders will be there despite earlier concerns over radiation leakage as a result of the tsunami.

Good to see that has been sorted out without too much fuss but then it is two wheels we are talking about not the four wheel posers.

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The rescheduled Japanese MotoGP took place this weekend and it was good to see all the riders turn up for the meet.
Back in July several riders stated that they would not attend because of safety concerns following March's earthquake.The Motegi circuit is situated less than 100 miles from the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant, which suffered nuclear leaks after the tsunami.

It was certainly an incident packed race but whether the vast track re-laying, needed after the earthquake was to blame is open to conjecture.

It certainly did not cause experienced racers like Crutchlow, Dovizioso and Simoncelli to jump the start for which they all received ride-through penalties.
Casey Stoner got away cleanly from his 10th pole position but Valentino Rossi found himself the meat in a Spies / Lorenzo sandwich on the first lap and took no further part after being dumped off his bike.

Stoner soon opened up a comfortable lead only to have an incident and he had to leave the track for a gravel excursion or crash in a big way. He did however manage to finish in third spot.

Race results:

1) Dani Pedrosa (Spain) Repsol Honda

2) Jorge Lorenzo (Spain) Yamaha

3) Casey Stoner (Australia) Repsol Honda

All of this means that Stoner's lead in the Championship has been reduced to 40 points but he can now win his second world title at his home race in Australia in a fortnight's time but needs to claim 10 more points than Lorenzo.

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Thats simply because Rossi is not as good as he is cracked up to be. "Cracked up" is possibly a good expression for him as well...

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I have to confess I don't really watch F1 thesedays not since the good old days of decent racing between Prost, Senna, Mansell ... to name a few. It's become too processional.

Two wheeled versus four wheeled?
Well .. I do like to look at the fellas nice bums on their bikes.

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Hmm, perhaps we should ignore his nine world championships, six of them in MotoGP alone, I somehow think that makes him good enough.