The say that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, well we’ve reached the 1/3 stage in the MotoGP championship and with silly season just around the corner, I’m going to be brutally honest in my report of the season so far and give my opinion on possible rumours and possible team changes for 2009. Yes I know we’re only six races in but believe me, there are already backstage murmurs of rider changes and contract negotiations taking place in the paddock.
Dorna & the 800cc Era
Last year Dorna was on the back foot a lot of the time defending its decision to reduce the capacity of the bikes from 990cc to 800cc. It appeared that overtaking was down, some riders were struggling to adapt and some manufacturers were just too restrained in the development of their new breed of motorcycles. This meant that a lot of the riders, teams and fans vented their frustrations at the governing body, claiming that the racing was not fun anymore and there was a drastic need for a review of the rules.
However less than one year on and the picture couldn’t be more different. With Honda and Yamaha working hard to develop their next generation of bike over the winter, the gap at the front has reduced and with Michelins extra input, MotoGP is back to its very best.
2007 was always going to be a strange year for MotoGP, when the last change came in back in 2001 Rossi and Honda ran away with the title for the first year, then over the next few seasons, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki all started to catch up until in 2006 most of the bikes were just about on a level playing field. I think that the championship will get stronger from here on out and the riders and fans have a lot to look forward to. Good things do come to those who wait.
Factory teams
Team Ducati – World Champion Casey Stoner & Marco Melandri
Ducati and Stoner also came in for a lot of criticism in 2007. Clearly Ducati had built a fantastic bike and had stolen a lead over their rivals. However the onslaught that Stoner took at times was a little unjustified. Stoner was simple making the best out of the opportunity that was presented to him. It’s not Ducati’s or Stoner’s fault that Honda and Yamaha had built a bike that was blown into the wind on the straights.
Also after all three of the other Ducati riders struggled to find form with the Desmosedici Casey was labelled a robot, with people claiming he was too reliant on the Ducati’s traction control.
We must not forget that Casey was a very good 250cc rider and gave Dani Pedrosa a close run in the 2005 world championship over the first half of the season. I believe that a lot the frustrations shown towards Stoner in 2007 were more to do with the fact that the others teams had managed to get it so wrong. Stoner like Dorna became a source for everyone’s anger.
I believe Stoner will win back some of the fans this year with some battling performances against Rossi and Pedrosa on what now is equal machinery. As far as the robot label goes, I don’t know what Stoner does when he’s on the bike and sometimes it does look like the bike is out of control. All I will say is whether or not there is any major traction control aid on that bike, Stoner is still the only rider who has been able to tame it and whether you like him or not you have to respect his efforts. It’s clearly not a case of just pinning the throttle open as if it was someone would have tried that by now.
So far Capirossi, Barros, Hoffman, Davies, Elias, Guintoli and Melandri have all failed to impress on a regular basis on the Ducati.
Melandri sadly is starting to look like a defeated man. In the wet session on Friday Melandri was running around at one stage 20 – 30 seconds off the pace and slower than some of the 125cc riders had been going. I think everyone is feeling for Marco at the moment, he clearly has the talent as he showed for several seasons on a Honda just what he is capable of, and I feel that this is more likely were Melandri’s future lies.
There have been several rumours already this season that Ducati will fire Melandri or Melandri will attempt to buy out his contract to end his nightmare season. I personally think that unfortunately if his results don’t improve shortly Ducati will look to release Marco at the end of the season. Qualifying on the back row is not good for Marco’s confidence nor is it good for Ducati’s sales. There may be light at the end of the tunnel for Melandri though with a possible switch which I will go into later.
Fiat Yamaha – Valentino Rossi & Jorge Lorenzo
The return of the Doctor and the arrival of the surgeon has been the story in the Fiat Yamaha garage in 2008. Rossi gave the Yamaha engineers 1 year to restore his faith in them at the end of 2007. Thankfully with some careful treatment over the winter it looks like the operation has been a success. The new M1 has been a drastic improvement over the ’07 model and while it has taken Rossi and his team a little while to figure out the formula for success with the new Bridgestone tyres, after three back to back victories it appears as though the Doctor is back to his mercurial best.
Its going to take something very special to battle with Rossi in this type of form, which is exactly what Fiat Yamaha have on the other side of the garage, Lorenzo has been like a surgeon clinically dissecting and cutting through the pack with precision. Three pole positions and three podiums in his first three races including a victory. Even a broken bone in his ankle couldn’t stop him in China or France as he managed to stay in contention just three points back for his seven times world champion team mate heading into Mugello.
Lorenzo has been the star of the season so far and can be forgiven for his mistake in the race at Mugello. He may say that he’s a Biaggi fan, but Rossi and Lorenzo were cut from the same cloth. They are two peas from the same pod and love him or hate him this charismatic entertainer will be wowing the crowds after the Doctor has decided to retire.
Repsol Honda – Dani Pedrosa & Nicky Hayden
Ever since these two got together there seems to have been a story floating around about disruption in the garage, but it didn’t really kick off until Estoril ’06 since then there seems to have been some bad blood between the two riders, with Nicky claiming the RC212V was made around Pedrosa and Dani slating Nicky in the press about his development skills in the run up to the 2008 season.Regardless of this Honda has kept faith with the partnership for 3 seasons now, but maybe 2008 could be the last.Pedrosa despite missing most of pre season through injury has made a phenomenal start to the season, only failing to appear on the podium once so far this season at Le Man. He has managed to turn around the fortunes of a bike which appeared to be struggling for pace in testing, and has turned it into a championship challenging dream machine.Nicky on the other hand has still struggled with the 800cc evolution of the RCV.
The crowd felt for Nicky in 2007 as the champion struggled to obtain a decent result with a bike which Honda admitted was a failure by scrapping it and modifying it several times through the season, and although Nicky Hayden has a work ethic which is matched by few in the MotoGP paddock, HRC want results and I’m afraid that Nicky hasn’t delivered.
Nicky has managed 3 wins and a world championship over five seasons, but HRC have fired champions before (Biaggi for example) and they may do again. However this may be the making of Nicky Hayden in my opinion as I will explain later.
Rizla Suzuki – Chris Vermuelen & Loris Capirossi
Suzuki has had a mixed start to the season, with both riders only really finding their feet with the bike in the last two rounds of the championship.
Loris has been reborn since his move from Ducati, he’s been showing all the doubters that he still has what it takes to compete at this level and has often been outpacing his team mate.For Vermuelen this really is the season where he needs to shine. There has been talk that Vermuelen is upset with the level of development of the bike and rumours state that he may be open to offers if things don’t improve.I think Suzuki have been caught out like Kawasaki this season. While both teams finished the season in good form and merely tweaked their bikes for the new campaign, Honda and Yamaha went back to the drawing board and effectively moved the goal posts. Now both teams are in a chase to catch up with the new baseline, which I fully expect them to do in 2009.
Kawasaki – Anthony West & John Hopkins
Kawasaki have been struck with some problems over the opening rounds of the championship with an injured Hopkins and some bike failures it has left the team struggling around the back half of the field.There is promise in the fact that Kawasaki are looking into development of a screamer engine.Anthony West has been struggling with the latest evolution of the ZXRR and although the team appears to have his back at the moment, if his results don’t start to improve I fear that Kawasaki may look for another big name in 2009.
Satellite teams
Tech 3 - Colin Edwards & James Toseland
Herve Poncharal's team is certainly benefiting from the situation of being Jorge Lorenzo’s team mate. Although not a part of the Factory team, the factory support received has helped the team join the front runners and if the situation remains the same for 2009 then there will only be good things to come from this team.Colin Edwards has already scored a podium this year and I think there will be a few more to come as yet.
I’ll openly admit that when Toseland signed with Tech 3 back in August 2007 I personally felt he had made a mistake. At the time the Yamaha was the slowest bike through the speed traps, the Michelin tyres weren’t working and I wasn’t convinced that the team would be able to turn that situation around. However I’m more than pleased to admit that I got it terribly wrong and I offer Tech 3 and James Toseland a huge apology. I’m delighted to see that he is on a package that will allow him to compete with the leaders in the toughest two wheel championship in the world.
Gresini Honda – Alex de Angelis & Shinya Nakano
After a tough start to the 2008 campaign, Honda’s only Bridgestone supplied team has suddenly started to find their way over the last few gp’s. Shinya needs a good season after Honda kept faith with him after a troublesome season in the Konica Minolta setup in ’07. Shinya’s struggle to adapt back to the Bridgestone tyres has been helped by the fact that de Angelis has also failed to perform. Apart from his recent showing in Mugello, Alex has had an unimpressive debut to his MotoGP career, with Lorenzo, Dovisozo and Toseland all running near the front. Clearly de Angelis has the talent to run near the front but at the moment the Bridgestone Honda package appears to be faltering as it did at time in ’07 in the hands of Melandri and Elias.
LCR + JiR Scot – Randy de Puniet & Andrea Dovizioso
Both riders have shown great pace on a Honda that is in affect a year old, fairing much better than their Gresini counterparts.
These two Michelin shod riders have been able to run near the front in the races and have certainly done enough to justify the replacement of the previous rider in their respective teams (Carlos Checa and Shinya Nakano.)De Puniet is still a little too eager at times and has a tendency to throw away a good position, but it would be interesting to see what either of these riders could do on the ’08 spec Honda.
D’Antin Ducati – Tony Elias & Sylvain Guintoli
When the rider line up was announced for D’Antin, I thought that it would be a productive season for them, but like Melandri, both D’Antin riders have been struggling around with the back row of the grid often being made up of the three Ducati’s. I’m not sure what Luis D’Antin is going to do. Clearly the riders have the ability to run in the top ten, but running around at the back of the pack is not helping the team to generate money. Ducati need to find a fix for their bike or they may as well shut it down to a one man factory team as it appears no one else can ride it.
The Rumour Mill – Silly Season
Dovizioso
- After the end of the first race there were murmurs around the paddock and now merely six races in that murmur has picked up a head of steam and is rolling. Dovi has made it clear that he would like to be involved in the factory Honda effort in 2009 and will be making a play for Nicky Hayden’s seat in the Repsol garage. Hayden hasn’t helped his cause by being beaten by Dovi in a majority of the races so far and he’ll have to work hard to keep his seat in the factory team. At the same time I don’t expect his team mate will be making any pleas for Hayden to stay. The only thing that might save Hayden is if HRC offer Dovi’s team full factory support like they did to Melandri in ’07.
Hayden
- Nicky has made it clear that he won’t talk to other teams until he knows a deal with Honda is dead in the water. Personally I think leaving Honda may be a blessing in disguise for Hayden. He’s clearly been struggling with the new 800cc bikes. Hayden loves a powerful bike, he likes to sling it around and back it in, which funnily enough are the characteristics of the Ducati. If Marco fails to perform over the next 12 races then surely Ducati will offer Marco a deal to look elsewhere while they try to find a replacement team mate for Casey. I think Hayden would fit right in at Ducati. It would give the team a good selling point of having two world champions and it might just revive Hayden’s career.
Melandri
- If Melandri is offered a release from his contract and Hayden takes Marco’s place at Ducati it would leave the door open for Marco to move back to Honda either with the factory Repsol team or into the spare space at JiR Honda if Dovi leaves. Again I think this would help Marco repair the damage done and reassert himself on the world stage.
Edwards
- Colin had stated that this would probably be his last season in MotoGP before he moved back to the states to compete in the AMA championship. However after a fantastic start to the season and with less pressure on his shoulders now he’s not part of the factory team, Edwards has hinted that he would be keen to continue on for a further season. Yamaha would be the obvious choice but Colin had hinted recently that money might be an issue. Colin’s other option was a ride at Kawasaki.
Rossi
- It now appears almost certain that Rossi will pen another 1 or 2 year extension to his Yamaha contract around the middle of the season. Despite the fact that everything appears to be fine in the Yamaha garage, rumours won’t seem to disappear about Rossi making a shock switch to Kawasaki or Suzuki. These rumours seemed to emerge at the tail of last season when Rossi switched to Bridgestone tyres, with many claiming he was setting up for a switch in 2009 to a Bridgestone team (Suzuki, Kawasaki, Ducati)However with the M1 working well and Rossi now winning 3 out of the 6 races so far it appears that the smart money is on Rossi extending with Yamaha.
Spies/Bautista
- Both riders have been linked with a MotoGP ride in 2009 with a satellite Suzuki ride set up by Aspar.
- Suzuki appear keen that double AMA superbike rider Spies take the ride while Aspar is keen to have Bautista. The sticking point appears to be that Suzuki is only offering one extra bike to its MotoGP effort.
- Personally I think its too early for Spies to make the jump to MotoGP. Clearly he is a talented rider, but if I was managing Spies I would have placed him in the WSB championship for a year first. The main reason for this is because it would give Spies the opportunity to prove himself on a world level while at the same time it allows him to learn some of the tracks on the MotoGP calendar.
- Moving into MotoGP on a mid pack bike, knowing none of the tracks will only ever end up with one result.
- At the same time though Bautista is doing everything possible to throw away the 250cc world championship this year and he will not have impressed Suzuki with his performances so far.
My Predictions
- Hayden will leave Repsol Honda and will sign with Ducati who have shown interest in signing Hayden before his signed his last contract extension in 2006.
- Dovisiozo will make the move from JiR Scot Honda to Repsol Honda, I believe that although Honda hold Marco in high regard, Dovi has been a Honda rider through and through and will take the factory seat.
- Marco will make a move back to a Honda team possibly JiR Scot
- Edwards will sign an extension for another year but possibly with Kawasaki
- Bautista could then make the move to Tech 3 Yamaha leaving Spies the ride on Satellite Suzuki.
- That’s my prediction of how it looks right now, but we all know this is silly season and it is called silly season for a reason. Expect many more changes before the end of the season.
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