"On Line" - The MotoGP Blog

Crunch Time

From the blustery shores of Phillip Island, the MotoGP paddock have headed north into the tropics, swapping Australia’s chilly spring for Malaysia’s hot and humid northeast monsoon, packing away their quilted jackets and retrieving their lightest cotton shirts once again.

The contrast is not just in the climate, however. The two tracks could hardly be more different, in just about every way imaginable. The Phillip Island circuit sits well away from civilization, at the edge of an island looking out over the great Southern Ocean. Sepang, on the other hand, lies just a handful of miles from Kuala Lumpur, one of the great cities of Southeast Asia.

Matching its isolated location, the facilities at Phillip Island are rather basic, to put it kindly. Not so at Sepang, which boasts ultramodern paddock facilities, large, well-furnished pit garages and an air-conditioned media center, as well as two striking grandstands lining the back and the front straight.

The track layouts are also perfect examples of the difference between the old and the new. While Phillip Island is still based loosely on the public roads which once hosted the racing, Sepang is a purpose-built Tilke-designed CAD masterpiece, with each corner carefully calculated by computer. In this aspect, though, the new simply cannot rival the old, the Malaysian track’s complex layout no match for the glorious flowing ribbon of asphalt the rolls up and down Phillip Island’s landscape.

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The Exception And The Rule

There is an unspoken rule among motorcycle racers: you always ride, no matter what. Broken bones are shrugged off, bruises laughed at and only very severe injury is enough to keep riders off their bikes. There is one exception, and that is one honored more in the breach than in the observance: brain injuries (usually contusions and concussions) and broken vertebrae are taken deadly seriously, and if suspected will make the normally extraordinarily lenient medical staff of the Clinica Mobile hesitate to give a rider the all-clear.

So naturally, when Casey Stoner took two months away from racing to treat an illness that stubbornly refused to be diagnosed despite being examined by a trail of doctors around the world, a blaze of rumors swept through the MotoGP paddock. As there was apparently nothing wrong with the Australian, it had to be something else. Some said he was a broken man, and could no longer cope with the mental pressure being applied to him by Valentino Rossi. Others claimed that he hated Europe and wanted to leave MotoGP altogether, asserting that Stoner’s preferred option was to go and race V8 Supercars in Australia instead. Some alleged that the problem was being caused by Stoner’s poor diet and exercise routine, the 2007 World Champ surviving on chocolate and vitamins, rather than nutritionally-balanced meals. The most bizarre rumors involved friction within the team, caused by Ducati team boss Livio Suppo having made a pass at Stoner’s young wife.

Whatever the real cause of Stoner’s problem, opinion in the paddock was almost unanimous before Stoner’s return to racing at Estoril. No one who had ever taken time away from racing to recover from a series of vague and poorly-defined complaints had ever returned to their pre-absence form, and, it was feared, much the same fate awaited Casey Stoner. Upon his return, the consensus ran, he might turn up at the front every now and again but he would never be the force that he was in 2007 and 2008. Nobody else before him had, so why would Stoner be any different?

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Making A Point

On the face of it, MotoGP is in trouble. There are just 17 bikes on the grid, the lowest number in recent memory; a factory has withdrawn due to financial problems, as has a satellite team; another team has had to swap riders mid-season to bring in someone with sufficient sponsorship to allow the team to continue. Every couple of races MotoGP’s rule-making body meets, trying to find new ways to cut costs and looking for rule changes that might make the series cheaper. And contract negotiations have switched from being about riders extracting large salaries from the teams that are trying to hire them to teams finding the riders who will ride for free and bring in the most sponsorship cash.

Yet take a step back and throw off the shroud the global recession has cast over the MotoGP paddock and the series is looking as healthy as ever. Sure, there may be only 17 bikes on the grid, but there are four riders who are capable of winning at any racetrack we visit. The margin of victory is falling again and last-lap passes and gaps of under a second are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Crowd attendance is up, as are TV audiences; team merchandise sales are extremely brisk; and new outside industry sponsors are trickling into the sport, finding valuable opportunities to promote their brands.

Best of all, perhaps the greatest rider of all time is up against a young apprentice, a rider whose speed matches his and who is learning the master’s tricks at incredible speed. Both men have an insatiable appetite for victory, a keen intelligence, and otherworldly levels of ability. What’s more, both Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo are on exactly the same bike - though Lorenzo might occasionally dispute that assertion.

Injury and illness have kept Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner from interfering too much in this rivalry - Pedrosa and Honda’s progress delayed by the Spaniard’s leg injury suffered during the preseason testing, and Stoner and Ducati’s fierce challenge blunted by the Australian’s mystery illness and his absence from the last three races - but that has only served to make the match up between team mates all the more intense. After two costly mistakes by Jorge Lorenzo gave Rossi the upper hand in the title race, a similarly expensive error at Indianapolis by The Doctor handed back half his championship lead and gave Lorenzo hope of the title once again.

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History In The Making

There is a firmly ingrained belief in Europe that the United States, as a young country, has neither history nor any sense of it. The view back in the Old World is formed almost entirely - and almost entirely incorrectly - from Hollywood and the TV studios, of gleaming glass-fronted buildings, huge and hugely complicated freeway interchanges, and gated communities consisting of a vast sprawl of identikit houses, in the words of the Malvina Reynolds song, little boxes made of ticky tacky.

While it is true that Americans tend to treat their history with a little less respect than Europeans - many a fine 18th or 19th century building has been torn down and replaced with something modern without a second thought, where in Europe zoning regulations and building preservation orders would have made such destruction incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible - the US does have plenty of physical history and a deep understanding and respect for the markers of that history.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a prime example of this European misapprehension. Europe, with its long history and tradition of motorsports, boasts such classic tracks as Monza, Assen and Brooklands. But Brooklands fell into disrepair after the Second World War, the last piece of the original Assen track was pulled up in the changes in 2006, and while both Monza and Assen have a long history, they "only" date back to the 1920s. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, on the other hand, hosted its first race in 1909, some 13 years before Monza and 18 years before racing first took place on the roads south of Assen.

As if celebrating 100 years of racing at the Speedway was not enough, the whole weekend at Indy will be packed with history. On Saturday night, at the Indiana State fairground, the Indy Mile, perhaps the most legendary flat track race of all is to be held. Flat track is a discipline which is itself steeped in history, and the Indy Mile sits at the pinnacle of the sport. Just to add even more texture to the event’s rich tapestry, three-time 500cc World Champion Kenny Roberts will be wheeling out perhaps the most feared motorcycle in racing history, his TZ750-powered dirt tracker. After racing the four-cylinder two stroke - a bizarre configuration in a sport dominated by the endless torque of pushrod V-twins - Roberts uttered the immortal words "They don’t pay me enough to ride that thing."

Modern History

Though the facility itself has a long history, the association between the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and MotoGP is still very new, as the series visits the Speedway for only the second time. But history will still be written here, as a series of announcements are due to change the face and determine the course of MotoGP for the foreseeable future.

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One For The Team

Probably the best-known aphorism in motorcycle racing - or racing of any sort, for that matter - is that the first person you have to beat is your team mate. Your team mate, after all, is on exactly the same equipment with the same support, and so there are no excuses. If you beat him you’re the better rider, if he beats you, he is. No argument.

Reality is always a little more complicated than a simple aphorism, of course. Just because you’re in the same team doesn’t necessarily mean that your bike is the same as your team mate’s; development parts filter through at different rates. You may be on the same team, but like riders, not all team members are equal; your crew chief might be a genius or he might be just very, very smart, which can be the difference between finding three tenths of a second during the warm up on Sunday and losing the race because you’re a tenth a lap too slow.

All the more reason to beat your team mate, then. After all, if you do so regularly, then it is you who will get the pick of the development parts, use of the genius crew chief and hopefully, a serious chunk of the team budget. You get the glory, but more importantly, you get the power. The bike is developed to your tastes rather than anyone else’s, so that the bike naturally suits your style. This in turn allows you to get the most out of the bike, more than anyone else, increasing your advantage over your competition - and especially your team mate - and further tipping the balance of power in your favor.

It is this goal which has been driving Jorge Lorenzo since being beaten by Valentino Rossi at his home race in Barcelona. His contract with the Fiat Yamaha team comes to an end this season and talks on its renewal are in full swing. There are a lot of reasons for Lorenzo to stay with the squad - the bike is clearly the best on the grid, the team is probably the best run team in the paddock, and Yamaha’s R&D department are dedicated to building a motorcycle that riders can win on, rather than a winning motorcycle - but there is one major downside: At Yamaha, Jorge Lorenzo is the number two rider, not the number one.

Number One

For a young man as ambitious as he is talented, that is not good enough. Lorenzo wants to be number one, and the drawn out negotiations, the posturing, the flirtations with other manufacturers, all are aimed at securing that undisputed number one status, preferably with Yamaha. The one minor obstacle in his way is that at Yamaha he shares a garage with a rider who has 101 victories, 8 world titles and 6 MotoGP championships under his belt. Receiving preferential treatment over the man widely reckoned to be the greatest motorcycle racer ever is a very serious, and rather presumptuous, demand to make. There is only one way to ensure that such a demand is heeded: by beating your team mate, and beating him regularly.

Over the past few races, Jorge Lorenzo’s intention to do just this has been increasingly clear. The young Spaniard has gone out at every practice and laid down a ferocious pace, challenging Rossi - and anyone else - to follow. He has demonstrated emphatically that Jorge Lorenzo is the fastest man on the track, and as such, is the man to beat.

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All Change

MotoGP, like all things in life, has its seasons. As an outdoor activity taking place in the northern hemisphere, those seasons closely mirror the seasons of Europe: When the series starts racing in April, there’s the thrill and excitement of things new and full of boundless possibility. In July, as summer hits its peak, the MotoGP field has taken shape, and the title chase is in full flow. In October, the championship starts winding down, and titles are mostly settled. And finally, in December, all activity ceases, as MotoGP embarks on its annual winter hibernation.

So by rights, as the riders return to the paddock at Brno after their short summer break and the championship well into its stride, the season should be rushing headlong along the course already laid out before MotoGP took its summer vacation after Donington. But some shock news and new rules coming into effect have thrown the series into confusion, leaving riders, teams and followers floundering for explanations and with a good deal more to think about than they were expecting.

The most astounding news was Casey Stoner’s astonishing announcement that he will be missing at least the next three races, in a bid to discover the cause of the mystery ailment that has plagued him since Barcelona in mid-June. Although riders will often miss a couple of races to recover from a physical injury, to allow a broken leg or fractured wrist to heal, pulling out because of an undiagnosed complaint whose main symptoms are nausea and fatigue has set paddock tongues wagging. Though both Ducati and Stoner are certain the problem is down to some form of viral infection and the fact that since catching it shortly before Catalunya, Stoner has had no time to recuperate, the paddock gossips are putting it down to mental problems. Stoner and Ducati vehemently deny this, and although the Australian is undoubtedly dejected about being forced to pull out, he is back in his native country working on a training program and consulting doctors. Not the behavior of a broken man.

Opportunity Knocks

Whatever the causes of Stoner’s problems, on the face of it, his withdrawal should make the title race somewhat simpler. With one of the three main candidates eliminated, the championship will surely go to either Valentino Rossi or Jorge Lorenzo. Nothing new in that of course, but in his quest to beat his team mate, Lorenzo had been counting on a little help. The 25 point deficit the Spaniard has to Rossi is a real mountain to climb, especially with just 7 races left in the season. And so Lorenzo had been hoping that Stoner could get between Rossi and himself and take extra points away from the reigning champ, allowing the young pretender to get closer to snatching Rossi’s crown. With Dani Pedrosa back to full health and rapidly regaining fitness, Lorenzo had two potential allies capable of stealing points from his championship rival.

Of course, that’s a sword that cuts both ways. With Valentino Rossi in the rampant form he is in and a resurgent Dani Pedrosa, Lorenzo could just as easily find himself losing 9 points to Rossi instead of just 5. At the Sachsenring, and again at Donington, Lorenzo saw the title slip away from him while Rossi extended his advantage. Lorenzo needs to break that trend right now.

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Round The Left Hand Side

In every form of competition requiring a track, the participants travel around the track in a counter-clockwise direction, making a sequence of left turns. In track cycling, athletics, flat track, speedway, greyhound racing, horse racing, NASCAR and a host of other forms of racing, the competitors just keep turning left. There have been many theories advanced for just why this should be - this was the way the Greeks raced; right-handed people prefer to turn left, as they have more strength in their right leg than their left; even the Coriolis effect, which also causes water to go down a plughole counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere - but none have ever proved satisfactory.

The puzzling exception to this rule are road race circuits. The vast majority of racetracks around the globe buck the counter-clockwise trend, going against almost every other form of racing. Of the 17 tracks on this season’s MotoGP calendar, 12 run clockwise, and just 5 run counter-clockwise, containing a majority of left handers. The MotoGP circus has just come from one of them - Laguna Seca - and now heads into the next, the tight and tortuous Sachsenring circuit.

As if to compensate for the excess of right-handers which the MotoGP circus faces, the Sachsenring crams a whole raft of lefts into its short 3.67 kilometer length. Just three right handers - the sharp right Coca Cola Kurve of Turn 1, the endless right of the Omega Kurve, as it rounds the tree-crested hump at its heart, then a single, blisteringly fast kink at the crest of the hill which runs down to towards the final two corners. That one right hander makes up for a lot, though. Nicky Hayden described it as one of the best corners the MotoGP circus visits, fast, blind, downhill, 5th or 6th gear; It is a corner to test the mettle of any rider.

Left Turn, Clyde

Joining those three right handers are a long sequence of lefts that start at the exit of the Omega Kurve and make their way over a crest, then up the hill again to that one fast right, before plummeting back down towards the final two lefts, the Sachsenkurve and Quickenburgkurve. The last two corners are the most crucial part of the track, the place where most of the passing gets done.

The Sachsenkurve is the most obvious candidate for a pass, as it offers the longest braking zone on the circuit. But it is also a risky move, the plunge down the hill leaving a lot of weight on the front wheel, and little room left to absorb the extra load of outbraking an opponent. Beyond the corner lies a large gravel trap, manned by a lot of tired marshals whose weekend consists of extracting the bikes of overoptimistic riders who have just discovered where the limit was.

But even if you get past at the Sachsenkurve, there’s one more corner to go. And a pass underneath at the Sachsenkurve leaves you on the outside for the Quickenburgkurve, and open in turn to attack. The corner is tight and steeply uphill, and any drive you lose from a pass at the Sachsenkurve kills your speed through the Quickenburgkurve. More than one rider has got past at the first of those two left handers only to find themselves trailing out of the second, and considering a desperate attempt into the tight first right-hand turn.

The abundance of left handers favors riders with a history of turning left. And have more history in that art than the former flat tracker and son of a flat tracker Nicky Hayden. Hayden has had something of a resurgence of form over the past few races, his results improving until he scored an impressive 5th place finish at Laguna Seca. Prior to the Sachsenring race, Hayden said that he was finally starting to feel comfortable with the Ducati, after getting off to a terrible start, and regularly struggling just to score points.

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Returning To The Scene Of The Crime

At heart, every motorcycle race starts fundamentally the same: A group of riders of similar talent on similar equipment line up on the grid with the intention of crossing the line ahead of their rivals at the end of the race. Yet despite its simplicity of concept, once the flag drops, each race develops in a unique direction, taking on a distinctive character all of its own.

That character is often dictated in large part by the nature of the class: in recent years, MotoGP races have tended to resemble a high-speed version of chess, each move carefully considered and rehearsed and several laps in the preparation. World Superbike races, on the other hand, often look more like a bar room brawl than a motor race, with riders wading in wildly more in hope than in expectation, and emerging surprisingly unscathed. And more often than not, races in the 125cc class turn into the nearest thing to a pack of hyenas fighting over a bone, bikes and bodies shooting in every direction, with no order or decorum, and even less chance of making any sense of the fight.

Sometimes, though, a motorcycle race can transcend the ordinary limitations of the class imposed by the nature of the bikes involved, and take on a uniqueness of character that leaves it burned into the collective memory of race fans for many, many years to come. The 2008 Red Bull US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca was just such a race. No high-speed chess here, no careful premeditation or long-rehearsed moves, the race between Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner was a fight to the death, mortal combat between two highly-trained assassins using any and every means at their disposal to inflict a fatal blow on their opponent.

Stone Cold Killers

Their combat was assisted, perhaps even encouraged, by the nature of the Laguna Seca track itself. For the first 24 laps of the race, both Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi used every inch of the track to gain an advantage over the other. Along Laguna’s short front straight, it was Stoner’s Ducati that had the edge, its better drive and horsepower allowing Stoner to catch Rossi.

But too often, it was not quite enough to get past Rossi before heeling over for the most terrifying corner on the track, the 170mph left kink of Turn 1. Rossi got caught out there a couple of times, but on most laps, as they rolled the bikes left over the crest of the hill, The Doctor held the perfect line, in the middle of the track and drifting right. Rossi was leaving the door open for Stoner, but the route it led to was the hardest route of all, the outside line over the rumblestrip, as dangerous as the North Face of the Eiger. Brave as a mountaineer, Stoner accepted the challenge, even passing there on lap 24.

Through Turn 2, the Andretti Hairpin, both men were equal, trying passes through the tight left hander, but both giving up on the exit what they gained on the entry. Turns 3 and 4, the flat right handers, saw passes by both men, as well as the most extraordinary piece of defensive riding, with Rossi holding the outside line while Stoner tried up the inside. On the exit, Stoner found Rossi in his path, and was left with nowhere to go that would not mean running into the Italian and taking both himself and Rossi off into the gravel.

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21st Century Man

Assen Race Report - 21st Century Man

Numbers are funny things. On their own, they are meaningless, just abstract inventions, a way of keeping track, of measuring and quantifying objects. There is no intrinsic difference between the numbers 1, 4, 7, 12, 666 and 26017 other than their size. Yet stop someone on the street and ask them about those numbers and you will hear a host of opinions on those numbers, their meaning and whether they are good or bad, depending on who and where you happened to have stopped.

In most countries, the number 7 is greeted with enthusiasm, being considered lucky almost everywhere round the world. In Europe and America, the number 4 will barely register, but stay in a hotel in Asia, and you’ll notice that there’s no 4th floor, nor 14th or 24th for that matter. For the number 4 is considered very bad luck in Asia, as it sounds like the word for "death" in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. The number 666 will be greeted with fear in the more religious parts of the American Deep South, but go unnoticed in Cambodia. As for 26017, it will almost certainly be met with blank stares, unless the person you should stop to ask happens to be a mathematician, and immediately recognizes it as a prime number, a class of numbers math geeks tend to get terrifically excited about.

As these numbers attach themselves to events, their significance is magnified. One cold, dark winter night a few years ago, the entire world got caught up in a fit of festive abandon celebrating one number being replaced with another. Convention dictates that a new year begins on January 1st, and on that day 9 years ago, the most significant digit of the number used to designate years was incremented, increasing from 1999 to 2000. The 48 hour period spanning that moment saw very few major climatic, social or historical changes, yet almost the entire population of the planet attached a huge significance to that change, speaking endlessly of a new century, a new age and a new era.

History Man

That sense of anticipation, of foreboding almost, hung over Valentino Rossi at Assen. Thirteen days previously, the Italian had taken the 99th victory of his career, and speculation about the 100th had started literally seconds after he had crossed the line at Barcelona. He was getting used to it, for the storm had been brewing for a while.

Victory at Jerez had put him in line to take his 100th win at Mugello, if he could just win at Le Mans first. But a disastrous flag-to-flag race put paid to that plan. Another flag-to-flag race at Mugello saw his seven-year winning streak there dashed by the rain. Since then, talk of 100 victories abated a little, until Rossi crossed the line to take victory number 99 at Catalunya.

The manner of Rossi’s victory at Barcelona helped mitigate some of the pressure. The breathtaking last lap and final corner pass over his team mate and title rival Jorge Lorenzo had the fans and followers full of the excitement of that race, rather than its significance as a stepping stone for Rossi’s century. Even the questions at the pre-race press conference focused more on whether Assen would see a repeat of that blood-curdling last lap than on whether Rossi expected to take his 100th win here.

Rossi downplayed both possibilities. When asked about his 100th victory, he said his focus was on the championship, not winning a particular race. And he concurred with Jorge Lorenzo, who pointed out that Barcelona had been the exception rather than the rule, and that this was the first race since the switch to the 800cc formula that had come down to the last lap.

Hope Springs

The first session of free practice raised the possibility of both a Rossi victory and a close race. Thursday afternoon’s session was saw three men within 0.035 seconds of each other, and eleven riders all under two thirds of a second. Friday morning saw much greater gaps between the riders, but during qualifying in the afternoon, pole was decided by less than a tenth of a second, Rossi taking pole just ahead of Dani Pedrosa.

The gap to Jorge Lorenzo was larger this time, with Casey Stoner further back still. But after qualifying, Stoner had complained bitterly of being balked by other riders on his fast laps, singling out Toni Elias, Sete Gibernau and Loris Capirossi as riders who had sat on the racing line waiting for a tow from the Australian in the hope of improving their own time. Stoner’s times on race tires looked good, Pedrosa was fast but his fitness still uncertain, and Lorenzo was blinding round the first half of the track but less sure-footed through the last, terrifying section. The chances were good that the Fantastic Four would be able to hold each other up and stick together round Assen’s narrow and difficult track. If Rossi wanted his 100th win at Assen, he’d have to work for it.

As the lights dimmed, the shriek of nineteen 800cc engines being tortured to within inches of destruction filled the hallowed vaults of the Cathedral of racing, the vicious howl of Dani Pedrosa’s Honda RC212V leading the wailing chorus into the first corner. Behind Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi had consolidated, getting off the line quickly, but not quickly enough to thwart Pedrosa. Casey Stoner, the other lightning starter, slotted in 3rd, ahead of an unleashed Chris Vermeulen, who had shot through from 7th on the grid to climb up to 4th.

While Stoner and Pedrosa were getting their trademark rocket starts, Jorge Lorenzo was going backwards. The Spaniard had bogged his engine off the line, giving away three places before even reaching the first turn. Lorenzo held his line on the outside of Colin Edwards at the Haarbocht, then hung on there at Madijk, but as they entered the tight loop of the new Ossebroeken corner, he was forced to surrender the position, and retired to Edwards’ tail to await a second chance.

Then There Were Three

Taking a tighter line out of the Strubben hairpin and hugging the inside kerb at the Veenslang, first Rossi and then Stoner drew level with Pedrosa down the back straight, then passed before braking for the Ruskenhoek. Rossi looked like he had the edge, but Stoner waited just a fraction longer before applying the brakes, hogging the inside line into the right hander to take the lead before flicking left again.

With Stoner having taken over the lead, Pedrosa tried holding the inside line into the right part of the Ruskenhoek over Rossi to recover 2nd, but the Spaniard wasn’t far enough ahead through the corner, and as they flicked back, Rossi held the inside line, and Pedrosa was forced to back off and accept 3rd.

Behind Vermeulen in 4th, Jorge Lorenzo had still not given up on getting past Colin Edwards, and tried diving up the inside into the Ruskenhoek, but found himself on the wrong side of the Texan as they rolled back right for the Stekkenwal. His poor position at the right hander did leave him with the chance to get extra drive, and through the narrow kink before De Bult, Lorenzo closed on Edwards, then slid past him into the left hander to take over 5th.

While Lorenzo headed off to start chasing down Vermeulen, Edwards was left fending off Andrea Dovizioso, the Repsol Honda rider pushing round the south end of the Assen circuit. A brave move saw Dovi dive through at the Ramshoek, but Edwards knows Assen well, and was back again on the run into the GT chicane.

Edwards and Dovi scrapping over 6th had allowed the front five to get a gap, and had started to bunch up a freight train of riders behind, with Nicky Hayden, Randy de Puniet, Toni Elias, Marco Melandri, Loris Capirossi and James Toseland bunched together like a giant multi-wheeled, multicolored caterpillar. This group, its composition only slightly altered, was about to embark on an epic scrap which would last all the way to the line.

Ahead of this bunch, Jorge Lorenzo was putting a move on Chris Vermeulen, taking over 4th position going into the Haarbocht. Further forward, Rossi was closing on Casey Stoner through Madijk, and holding a tighter line through the endless loop of Ossebroeken, slipped up the inside of Stoner and into the lead.

Runaway Train

At first, Stoner kept Rossi close, hounding the Italian all the way round the circuit, seeking a way back past and into the lead. But Rossi was putting a plan into effect that he had hatched that morning with his crew chief Jeremy Burgess, and was flying through the fastest part of the Assen circuit, hammering home even the slightest advantage he could find. He eked out a tenth, then a couple of tenths over Stoner, and the first inkling of a gap started to open.

Stoner could do nothing but let Rossi go, neither the Australian nor 3rd place man Dani Pedrosa capable of matching Rossi’s pace. The only rider capable of that feat was behind the Ducati and the Honda, mounted on the other Fiat Yamaha. But though Jorge Lorenzo could match Rossi’s pace, he had a problem, or rather a pair of them, in the shape of Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa.

On lap 4 Lorenzo was past Pedrosa, but he still had Stoner to contend with. Lorenzo’s pass had reignited Pedrosa’s determination, and Pedrosa hung on grimly to Lorenzo, pushing to follow his compatriate forward to Stoner and Rossi. It was too much to ask, though, and braking hard for the Haarbocht, Pedrosa folded the front as he turned in for the corner, sliding harmlessly off over the tarmac and out of the race.

By now, Rossi was starting to escape, a contingency Lorenzo could not allow. Less than a lap after passing Pedrosa, the Spaniard was past Stoner as well, sliding his Fiat Yamaha inside the Ducati into the right hand entry to the Ruskenhoek and clear for the long left that followed. With empty track to Rossi, he could get after his team mate, and with 22 laps to go, he had plenty of time to do it in.

The problem was that Rossi was on fire, and posting lap after lap on or below the existing lap record. Lorenzo was faster in the first half of the track, closing by a tenth or so round the tight first section and the run down to the Stekkenwal. But from that point on, through the long section of right handers, and especially through the terrifyingly fast left-right flick of Hoge Heide and the run into the Ramshoek, Rossi edged away again, stretching his lead by another couple of tenths.

Try as he might, Lorenzo couldn’t close on Rossi, but equally, Rossi couldn’t escape. The lead ebbed and flowed, growing to just over 2 seconds, then dropping back to just over a second and a half. After the gap had grown to 2 seconds on lap 12, Lorenzo pushed once again, and over the course of the next 4 laps seemed to be slowly reeling Rossi in, with time in hand to pass. But on lap 17, Rossi responded once more and Lorenzo faded, exhausted by the effort of forcing his Yamaha through Hoge Heide at full throttle as he’d seen his team mate do. Lorenzo would not catch his veteran team mate today, and was forced to let Rossi go.

Century

Rossi’s lead grew explosively, the Italian now nearly half a second a lap faster than his team mate, and the fastest man on track by a huge margin. Victory was assured, but The Doctor was not content to cruise to a win. He flogged his bike round Assen’s glorious asphalt, old and new, to underline the magnitude of his achievement. At a track which fills so many pages of the history books, Valentino Rossi crossed the line to add yet another chapter, taking his 100th victory and taking his place alongside Giacomo Agostini as only the second rider to do so.

Jorge Lorenzo had long since settled for 2nd, knowing that he had nothing for his team mate on Saturday. Lorenzo was content to leave the spotlights for Valentino Rossi, and give him his day in the sun. He had given his best, but there was nothing he could do to stop his team mate. Once again, though, Lorenzo had underlined his ability, the only man to get close to an unleashed Rossi, only flagging at the end.

Casey Stoner had flagged earlier, the mystery illness which had plagued him at Catalunya making an unwelcome return. Once back in the paddock, Stoner had trouble doing the obligatory TV interviews, finding it hard to speak without vomiting. That he had finished at all was a marvel, to have finished on the podium was an absolute miracle. The Australian struggled on to the podium, but afterwards was whisked straight to the Clinica Mobile, skipping the post-race podium press conference.

The Australian’s health is worrying. Physically extremely fit, yet suffering from some kind of mystery virus which robs his strength once called upon to put in a consistent effort, Stoner’s title challenge is under severe threat. There are just 8 days between the Assen and Laguna races, giving the Australian little time to recover and adding the perils of a germ-infested intercontintental flight to his list of problems. If the medical staff examining Stoner’s health problems don’t find a cause and a solution soon, it will be hard for Stoner to maintain his charge.

Colin Edwards came home in 4th, equaling his best result of the season. The Texan had another strong ride on the Tech 3 Yamaha, confirming the strength of Yamaha’s M1 MotoGP bike and the Texan’s continuing form. Edwards had a little help from Andrea Dovizioso, who had passed him earlier but crashed out in exactly the same place and exactly the same manner as his Repsol Honda team mate Dani Pedrosa, folding the front in turn 1. But a 4th place finish for Edwards is just the fillip the Texan needs going into his home race, and Edwards is surely ready for Laguna Seca.

Chris Vermeulen brought his Rizla Suzuki across the line to a comfortable 5th place finish. Vermeulen had dropped off the pace early, but as the race progressed he consolidated his position, his best finish of the year never in doubt for the remainder. This was just the kind of result that Vermeulen needed, as his name is at the top of a long list of riders expected to be shown the door at the end of the season, and top 5 placings are the only kind of result that can keep the Australian in MotoGP. With Laguna Seca coming up, a track that Vermeulen has podiumed at twice and never finished outside the top 5, the Australian looks set to buy himself some bargaining power.

The Meaningless War

The 97,000 fans who had gathered at Assen on Saturday came hoping for a race to match Catalunya, and they got all that and more. Unfortunately, they got it in the race for 6th rather than the lead, a race-long no-holds-barred slugging match unfolding with never fewer than 6 riders involved. James Toseland, Randy de Puniet, Nicky Hayden, Mika Kallio, Loris Capirossi, Toni Elias and Alex de Angelis neither asked for nor gave any quarter at all, seeking any opportunity to pass or be passed.

At Madijk and Ossebroeken, Strubben and Veenslang, Ruskenhoek and Stekkenwal places changed hands. At Meeuwenmeer and Hoge Heide, passes were planned, riders lining up the pass at the fast left of Ramshoek. But the climax came at the GT chicane, lap after lap, with six or more riders fanning out three or more abreast for the run through the chicane and onto start and finish.

Toseland and Hayden had made the early running, while Kallio came further forward as the race progressed. Elias and Capirossi were the wildcards, shooting forward and dropping back, their positions changing from corner to corner and lap to lap.

In the end it was James Toseland who came out on top, crossing the line in 6th after an outstanding race to make it 4 Yamahas in the top 6, underlining his ability when conditions are right. At Assen, Toseland received help from Masahiko Nakajima with the setup to his bike, making radical changes to handlebar, footpeg and suspension settings, and the assistance from Yamaha’s MotoGP team director immediately paid dividends. A day later, Toseland was in the World Superbike paddock talking about options for 2010, but his strong 6th place finish will have earned him some extra credit in negotiations both in World Superbikes and in MotoGP.

Randy de Puniet put in another solid performance to finish 7th, scoring yet more points and underlining his growing maturity. De Puniet was the first Honda across the line, and the LCR team is showing an ability to score regular and reliable results. Once considered a wild and uncontrollable crasher, de Puniet has now finished 12 races in a row, only crashing twice in practice this season. More is yet to come from the Frenchman.

Nicky Hayden crossed the line in 9th, but was promoted to 8th after Toni Elias was penalized for his last-gasp efforts into the GT chicane. Hayden had his best result of the year, and more importantly, had been able to run with the fight for 6th all race long. Though Ducati is still a long way from being out of the woods, a decent finish is just what Hayden needed in preparation for Laguna Seca.

Loris Capirossi was the victim of Toni Elias’ last-corner pass, running out wide and forcing the Italian off line and across the astroturf. Capirossi was furious, though content enough to have grabbed a decent finish with 9th. The Italian veteran had looked strong in the group, and seems to have a good chance of extending his Rizla Suzuki contract at the end of the year.

The only rider from the group scrapping for 6th not to cross the line was Mika Kallio, cruelly crashing out at the Ramshoek on the final lap, just two corners short of the line. Kallio had once again underlined his potential on the bike, leading the group until he slid off and injured his finger. The Pramac Ducati rider also gave Ducati hope, with both Kallio and Hayden well inside the top 10 for most of the race, showing that maybe the changes they have made to the Desmosedici GP9 are starting to pay off.

Applicants Form A Line Here

Alex de Angelis came home in 10th, having dropped off the back of the big group with a few laps to go, but after several races where the Gresini Honda man has been struggling just to score points, a top 10 finish is a bit of a relief. Gresini announced that they had signed Marco Simoncelli for next season, a team spokesman making it clear that they were unlikely to be retaining the services of either de Angelis or Elias next year, so both men are now auditioning for seats elsewhere.

Marco Melandri, like de Angelis, had been unable to follow the pace of the group and had dropped off the back early, eventually finishing 11th. Melandri is the hot favorite for the Gresini seat alongside Simoncelli, and his consistent results on a bike which is out of development and clearly struggling are showing Melandri’s class every race weekend.

The time penalty Toni Elias received dropped the Spaniard down to 12th, but like his Gresini Honda team mate de Angelis, Elias was happy to be competitive again.

Much further back, Sete Gibernau crossed the line to finish an anonymous 13th, par for the course for the Spaniard. One is left to wonder just what motivates the man who once challenged Rossi for the title to carry on, with no prospect of improvement imminent.

Gibernau had got the better of Niccolo Canepa and Yuki Takahashi in the first half of the race, leaving the Pramac Ducati rider and the Team Scot Honda man to scrap over 14th. Canepa had the upper hand for most of the race, but Takahashi overcame the Italian with 4 laps to go. His victory was a Pyrrhic one, though, as rumors suggest that Assen was his last race for Team Scot. Niccolo Canepa will live to ride another day, but only until the end of the season, and he is shipped off to World Superbikes.

The last man to cross the line was Gabor Talmacsi, due to be the sole rider in the Team Scot garage from Laguna onwards. In just his second race of the season, Talmacsi has continued to make good progress, his fastest lap now within just two tenths of his team mate’s, and closing on the far more experienced riders ahead. It can’t be long before Talmacsi is no longer last across the line and scoring points on his own merit.

Of Statistics, Numerology And Emotion

As forgettable as the racing may have been, the 79th running of the Dutch TT at Assen will go down in the history books forever. Valentino Rossi’s 100th victory was taken in style and in a setting already so steeped in history. As he crossed the line, the crowd knew they would be treated to a special celebration, the question which remained was just what would it be? Rossi stopped in front of his fan club, and together they unrolled a banner showing photos of each of his 99 previous victories, and the number 100 beside it. It was a worthy display celebrating an astonishing career, and underlining just how remarkable this achievement is.

Viewed through the cold eyes of statistics, Rossi’s 100th win was no more significant than his 92nd or 97th. He may have became only the second man in history to have scored 100 wins, but the week before, he had become only the second man in history to have scored 99 wins, and the same could be said of all his victories since Mugello last year, when he finally scored more wins that Angel Nieto.

Rossi’s score is only remarkable because the most significant digit merely rolled round again, turning a two digit number into a three digit number, from 99 to 100. The fuss exists because we count in base 10, not base 8, base 11 or base 16. History will not be written again until Rossi has chalked up another 22 victories, to match Giacomo Agostini’s total of 122 all-class wins.

The cold, rational head may know this, but the heart says something else. The sight of that banner, showing the progress of Rossi from a young boy racer to a MotoGP legend made tangible just what 100 victories actually means. The number 100 may have no significance on its own, but those 100 wins surely do. No records were broken at Assen, but history was made, of that there is no doubt.

The Low Low Lands Of Holland

Ask someone to describe the landscape of Holland, and they won’t usually need more than a single word. "Flat" is the adjective most commonly used in relation to The Netherlands, as anyone who has ever made the trek from Amsterdam up to Assen will acknowledge. Heading southeast out of Amsterdam, past the wooded wealth of Hilversum and ‘t Gooi, then turning northeast at Amersfoort to head through the heart of Holland’s bible belt - Putten, Nunspeet, Staphorst - then past Zwolle, and north to Assen, the countryside may vary - the open fields surrounded by canals east of Diemen, the closely-wooded villas of Hilversum, the thin, sandy soil of the pine woods which form the Veluwe national park - but the inclination rarely does.

The irony is that for most of the trip, you are actually traveling uphill. Along the course of the 180 kilometers from Amsterdam to Assen, you will have gained a full 9 meters of elevation. If you picked up a hire car at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, you can almost double that figure, climbing from 4 meters below sea level to nearly 12 at the TT circuit in Assen. As paltry as that difference may seem, it betrays a fundamental difference between Holland’s coastal region and its more ancient northern towns, and the heart of Dutch motorcycle racing.

The area surrounding Amsterdam truly is flat: reclaimed from the sea and inland lakes just a few hundred years ago, the land and will barely trouble a spirit level. But as you head north and east, you leave the reclaimed land behind and venture into The Netherlands’ glacial past. To the naked eye the land seems as flat as ever, if a little less neatly ordered, but the soil was dumped here by retreating glaciers many thousands of years ago, and then covered by peat bogs and dissected by a maze of creeks, brooks and channels, trickling water away towards the newly returned North Sea.

The World Is Flat

This long and ancient history has added a richness of texture to the land which is absent further west, a texture which lies at the heart of Assen’s TT Circuit. At first glance it too is flat, but as you ride around it, you start to understand, even feel its history. Though the peat bogs and creeks have been drained, they have left their mark indelibly on the landscape. The track rises and falls subtly, sudden dips combining with the harsh camber of certain stretches of the track to generate a synergy aimed at unsettling even the most perfectly setup of bikes and ruining any chance of a smooth line through Assen’s many tire-blistering corners.

Those rises and dips are almost entirely absent from the new North Loop, barely just scar tissue over the memory of its former glory, but once out of the horrifically tight Strubben hairpin, you plunge back through time onto the older part of the track, and ancient geology starts nudging and jolting the bike as once it used to. Down the Veenslang (or Peat Snake, though now one pulled taut, its former sinewy course straightened) and into the Ruskenhoek, the track is still smooth, though the camber starts to return. But once through the Stekkenwal and the fast left at De Bult, the old track regains its full vitality and history is made flesh, or rather asphalt again.

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