This weekend sees the third round of the MotoGP championship with many of the teams battling to catch up to the two teams who have dominated the season so far Yamaha and Honda.
Yamaha have managed to take five out of the six front row grid positions in the first two qualifying sessions. The team has clearly been hard at work in the factory over the off season developing the pneumatic engine and aerodynamics package for the M1 and they are clearly starting to reap the rewards for this with three podiums out of the opening two rounds.
The factory team will be hoping for more success for both of their riders in Portugal as Jorge and Valentino chase down the early leader of the championship Honda’s Dani Pedrosa.
Valentino was ecstatic with his second place in Jerez, a track which has not favoured the Bridgestone tyre in the past. It was the only track that didn’t have a Bridgestone rider on the podium in 2007. Rossi will be hoping to follow up this performance with another this weekend at the last circuit he won a race at.
Yamaha’s satellite team Tech 3 will have even more reason to head into this weekend’s race meeting with optimism. Last year at Estoril proved to be a high point for Tech 3 in what was a difficult year with under developed Dunlop tyres and a lack of development on the struggling M1.For 2008 they head into round three with the whole team riding the crest of the wave that has been the opening two rounds.In Qatar both Edwards and Toseland managed to qualify on the front row, and although their race pace was in question, both managed to finish a respectable sixth and seventh on what was effectively last years package.Jerez proved that the teams new found form wasn’t a fluke as Edwards again managed to qualify in the top three, while Toseland managed to come out of the weekend with a hard fought sixth in the race despite suffering from bronchitis.
Estoril may prove a testing time for Toseland as this will be the first track where he races that he hasn’t tested the M1 before and also there will be the new characteristics of the new pneumatic engine to learn. However Toseland has already proved that he is a well rounded racer and I'm sure he will adapt to the situation at hand.
There were several comments after the Jerez race that Toseland was using excessive force to barge his way through the field, with several riders commenting that Toseland was a little too aggressive.
I found myself bemused by motorcycle riders commenting that a rider was too aggressive.
Granted when your racing at 200mph plus then obviously safety is at the forefront. However if you are competing in a race and you fail to make a move when you have the opportunity then you will spend the whole race looking at the guy in fronts exhaust pipe for the entire race.
In the 800cc era, taking your opportunities is vitally important as performance is so close. Having watched the 125cc and 250cc class I found little wrong with Toselands overtaking manoeuvres at turn five in the race. Maybe some of the field needs to spend some time getting back to their roots of racing, after all nice guys finish second.
Honda has been the surprise package of the season so far. With winter testing leaving them off the pace and being forced to mask performance issues with qualifying tyres. It appeared as though 2008 was going to follow on from the dismal 2007 season, but after an amazing performance by Dani Pedrosa in Qatar on what has been reported to be a vastly tweaked evolution of the new chassis and a resurgent display by both factory riders in Jerez it appears as though Honda is back to claim their crown as kings of bike development.The new RC212V 2008 revision is clearly starting to live up the promise that it showed in early testing at Valencia last year. The worrying fact for the field would appear to be that the bike is still running on a spring valve engine with talk of Honda not releasing the new pneumatic engine until China.Obviously this should provide the RC212V with some added grunt on the straight whilst aiding fuel efficiency. All the other manufactures will be hoping for further development problems from HRC’s new engine as the current model is proving just as hard to catch. Championship leader Pedrosa heads into this weekend hoping he can remain competitive and maybe hope to put one over on his old rival Rossi and reverse the finishing positions from the race in 2007. Where ever he qualifys expect to see Pedrosa leading into turn one, with Honda's new launch control leaving it's rivals for dust in the two opening rounds.
The eyes of the world will be on Casey Stoner this weekend. After an indifferent start to his title defence, with a win in Qatar and then a nightmare weekend at Jerez, the media, fans and his team will be watching closely to see whether he cracks under the pressure or rises to a new high.Casey will be experiencing more pressure than ever before in Estoril. Last year it appeared as though Stoner wasn’t flustered by anything, and although leading the championship brought a certain amount of pressure, Casey wasn’t expected to win the title in 2007 and so the pressure was manageable.Now with the number 1 plate and everyone looking to beat him, Casey finds himself trailing behind his former 250cc compatriot Pedrosa on what appears to be a very capable Honda.
CASEY STONER, Ducati Marlboro Team
"Estoril is a bit of a strange track, with a nice flowing section and some twisty and slow parts. One of my favourite sections is turn two, which is downhill and off-camber - it's difficult but really nice. In general the track has a lot of places where you can overtake so the race should be fun to watch. Last year we did well in practice, we were very close to pole position and then had a slight technical problem in the race but finished on the podium. In theory if we can work well from the start and there are no nasty surprises then we should be in the fight for the win."
At Jerez Casey lost the front of the Ducati and fell off in Friday practice and this seemed to dent his confidence with the bike throughout the weekend. If a similar incident were to occur at Estoril then Ducati may need to go back to the drawing board with their electronics package. At Jerez the back row was made up of three of the four Ducati’s with many of the riders claiming that its aggressive power delivery is making the bike unmanagable. Casey is now going to learn what being a champion is all about and will have to show some of his predecessor’s grit to battle back to the head of the Championship.
Two teams that will be hoping to get their seasons underway at Estoril will be Kawasaki and Suzuki. Both teams have suffered setbacks over the winter with rider injury or chassis problems and both find themselves needing to make up for lost ground. Maybe Estoril will provide them with the big break that they have been hoping for.Suzuki appears to have made some head way with the chassis problems they had over the winter with Capirossi scoring an impressive fifth in Jerez, While John Hopkins will be hoping to get the best out of the Kawasaki after finishing seventh whilst still nursing a testing injury.
This weekends race provides a testing balance of fast straights and tight twisting curves which should leave most teams with an opportunity for overtaking and close racing. Estoril should be a good gauge as to who the main contenders for the season will be. If teams or riders haven’t got into a good rhythm by the end of the race on Sunday then it’s going to be hard to mount a challenge to this years front runners.
