Misano 2008 Qualifying

Very exciting qualifying session, here's hoping it's an indication of what the race is going to be like tomorrow.

Stoner and Rossi, 1 and 2 again. Stoner will try as always to create a gap between him and the rest of the team, including Rossi. It's fairly obvious he's not a fan of close racing, but he's definitely got the fastest bike, so Stoner if you wanna win tomorrow, spend the race on Rossi's arse and over take him at the last minute. Rossi, do what you did at Laguna Seca and don't let him overtake you.

Lorenzo back in the front row after quiet a few races, he mentions in the interview after qualifying that he has got his flow back. He's probably on a sugar high after too many Chupa Chups.

And in the second row we have Randy de Puniet, Toni Elias and Dani Pedrosa. All Randy needs to concentrate on is NOT CRASHING! Toni will be looking for a nice followup from Brno and Pedrobot will be shooting newly installed death rays from his eyes at anyone who dares to be in front of him.

Top 10 is rounded out with Verm, Nakano, Toseland and Edwards. Edwards might want to improve slightly tomorrow otherwise he might get a few abusive comments on YouTube. Oh and if you haven't heard Colin Edwards is answering all your MotoGP questions here.

MotoGP LD.

Misano 2008 FP3

Free Practice 3 ended up similar to yesterday's morning session. Chris Vermulen has improved slowly throughout the weekend ending up in 4th place. Hopefully this puts him in good stead with the folks over at Suzuki who are planning of halving his salary for next year if he want to stay on. They sure have an odd way of rewarding people over there. Capirossi gets signed for next year and is currently 10th in the Championship, oh but their not sure about Vermulen who is 7th. Crazy Suzuki logic, I'm just glad they didn't made by motorbike backwards.

Turns out the Kawasaki DOES suck with West and Hopper in 17th and 18th positions. Doesn't bode well for Melandri next year, although in 16th position after FP3 I guess there's really nowhere else to go but up. At least he's in good company down bottom with the current Kawasaki Team.

James Toseland doing a bit average finishing in 13th. He started off the session fairly well spending a bit of time in the top 5 but slowly descended into normalcy. Nicky Hayden in 15th seems to be acting like an employee who knows he's got another job lined up for next year. Oh that's right his heel is still hurting, If you say so Nicky.

Oh and Stoner finished in first with Rossi in second.

MotoGP LD.

Misano 2008 FP2

Free practice 2 over for another MotoGP race. Stoner and Rossi are in their usual positions, although Rossi has upped the anti and is only 0.418 seconds behind the default pole position getter.

The next couple are Capirossi and de Puniet and despite Randy not actually crashing for once the wonderful MotoGP crew have managed to capture and post a video of him getting a bit of tank slappage. Apparently that's what the fans want, Sir Crashalot doing what he does best.

Also interesting, the official times have put Colin Edwards in 8th position, however for those that watched the live video you may have noticed that he clocked a time somewhere between Capirossi and de Puniet right at the end of the session but was obviously too late to be recorded. Will be watching out for him tomorrow.

And so much for Ant West and his fabulous 5th place finish at Brno, he's back to the form we're all used to, nearly 4 seconds behind the paddock leader. Although unfortunately Hopkins has skipped todays festivities because of sore ribs (and I though that Australian's were known for bludging) so we are unable to make an educated statement if this is because of the bike or West's Shiteous riding. I will however make an educated guess and say it's the latter.

Other's to note include a crap performance from the usually robotic like Pedrosa, me thinks he needs to man up and start riding the pneumatic engine. Dovizioso just behind Pedrobot in 13th posy, probably not where you wanna be if you want a factory ride *cough* Repsol Honda *cough* next year.

MotoGP LD.

Misano 2008 FP1

Still early days yet, hopefully the first practice session won't be too foreboding for the rest of the weekend. Mostly because I have my fingers crossed for Rossi to come through with the goods on Sunday afternoon, for various reasons: It's the only MotoGP track that he hasn't won on, it's his home track, he's looking to equal the premier class win record of 68 set by Giacomo Agostini, etc, etc...

VALE! VALE! VALE!

And moving back to what happen during Free Practice number 1... Stoner... in front as usual. Colin Edwards a bit of a surprise in 2nd position, don't get me wrong, I do love a bit of Texas Tornado, but he's on a Michelin shod Satellite Machine, which are not the things winners are made of.

Alex de Angelis, drawing a bit of motivation from his home crowd finishes up in 3rd and Lorenzo looks to be back to form in 4th, yay for him, poor boy needs to get his confidence back. And that leads us to Rossi in 5th place...1.042 seconds behind Stoner. I'm pretty damn sure that Rossi will find that second and a few more before the weekend is out, he's probably playing those Rossi mind games and giving his rivals a false sense of security. sneaky sneaky.

Nicky Hayden has finally returned from a longer than usual summer break *cough* slacker *cough*. Oh that's right he's got a bung heel and it still in crutches aka is moving to Ducati next year and can't be stuffed.

And finally it looks like Michelin have finally gotten their acts together with the field evenly spread between the French and Japanese tyres. Also me personally think that it's maybe too little too late.

MotoGP LD.

Brno 2008 Race

Well is was an interesting race to say the least. Of course Rossi was going to win (awesome job btw) but I can't say I could have predicted the rest of the top 5.

Good results for the MotoGP veterans Capirossi and Nakano. Just goes to prove that if you want something bad enough then it doesn't matter if your bones are loosing density. And speaking of bones, Westy seems to have found something that neither of us thought he had...a spine.

Interesting talk with Ant West at the end of the race, he mentioned that being in the front pack gave him the motivation to keep pushing, where as being at the back only made him depressed. Firstly, you'd think he'd be used to being at the back by now and secondly, if sucking so badly that you're entire MotoGP career may be reduced to 1 year doesn't give you motivation to maybe try and get a few points then the boy has problems.

I suppose I should also touch on Stoners crash.......HAHAHA!
I know, I know he's an Aussie and we are supposed to support him, but lets not forget the tall poppie syndrome. Also interesting he didn't seem to find anything to complain about at the end of the race.

Other than those few surprises (including Toni Elias managing to come through the pack from 13th position on the grid) the race ended up like most of us expected, taking into consideration the Michelin vs Bridgestone issues. And I'm sure most of the Michelin riders could empathise with Pedrosa when he said at the end of the race "I am berry berry disappointed".

MotoGP LD.

Brno 2008 Qualifying

It's Qualifying time and the track is looking nice and wet, umbrella's are in abundance in the crowd.
Temp is 13 degrees and there is some light rain.
Nicky Hayden's bikes are sittings riderless in the garage?!?

Nakano looks to be first out of the gates, eager to improve on his quite good times so far this weekend. First few laps and lap times are slowly decreasing,
The MotoGp commentators seem to be remincing about John Hopkins joining them in the commentators box at Laguna Seca, not quite sure I want to know what happened there.

And Capirossi is the first off for the session but manages to get himself back onto the track.
Stoner is back in the pits after 4 laps
de Puniet is off.....again, maybe he could borrow one of Hayden's bikes, although kudos to him as he currently is the top Michelin rider half way through the session. And de Puniet's crash doesn't seem to have disadvantaged him and it looks like most of the other riders are hiding from the rain in the pits anyway.
Toseland is the 3rd one off, his bike suddenly decided it could probably do better without him. Note to Toseland's Bike... You can't.

20 minutes to go and Edwards, Melandri and de Angelis are the only ones out in the rain, which you wonder why they bother coz no-one has improved their laptimes for quiet awhile.

Almost 10 minutes to go and everyone seems to be heading back out.
Commentators are wondering if The annoying little spaniard can put in a "special" lap before the end of the session, I'm quite confident that he can, he is after all very "special".
Still not seeing much of a difference in times, looks like the track has gotten worse throughout the session so the few people that pulled out a couple of good laps at the beginning may have the advantage tomorrow.
Hopkins is finally back out, his last lap was 38 minutes...
And the front row is decided: Stoner, Rossi and Hopkins.

I'm going to have to eat my words from this morning regarding Ant West, not only has he stayed in the top 10, he's managed to go from 9th to 6th, although me thinks it's not going to help his situation for next year (or even tomorrow if the track is dry). It's off to Superbikes for you Westy, that is if they'll have you.

MotoGP LD.

Brno 2008 FP3

A moist cold morning at Brno didn't make for the most exciting of free practice sessions. Although it does turn out that Michelin Tyres also suck in the cold. (Btw I recommend checking out the Michelin plug free video on motogp.com staring none other that Sir Crashalot himself)

Everyone was at least 10 seconds slower than yesterday afternoon so there was no way to gauge how well they'll do in qualifying this afternoon or the race tomorrow. For Example: Ant West finished 10th... like there's any chance of that happening this afternoon.
It was however interesting to see how many laps each of the riders completed in their hour practice. The Factory Ducati boys had a nice relaxing morning with Stoner only managing to complete 4 laps and his tentative team mate only completing 5. And yes I've heard all about Stoner's illness, as far as I'm concerned he just needs to Man Up!
Ahead in the amount of laps were Capirossi and Rossi, both comfortably completing 21 laps. Obviously these boys are aware of the fact that they get paid to ride, not sit on their kangaroo skin covered arses, a concept they might want to share with some of the other riders including the Tech 3 Yamaha team who managed 12 laps each.

Oh and back to the tyre debacle, here's how Bridgestone and Michelin were spread out among the field at the end of the 3rd Practice:

1. Bridgestone
2. Bridgestone
3. Bridgestone
4. Bridgestone
5. Bridgestone
6. Bridgestone
7. Bridgestone
8. Michelin
9. Bridgestone
10. Bridgestone
11. Michelin
12. Bridgestone
13. Bridgestone
14. Michelin
15. Michelin
16. Michelin
17. Michelin

MotoGP LD.

Brno 2008 FP2

2nd practice and de Puniet seems to be going for some kind of record on how many times a person can crash during a practice session, he is however restricted considering his limited amount of spare bikes. One more practice session to go though and I reckon he just may make it to 3 crashes. Go for Gold Randy, Go for Gold.
Rossi fell just short of pulling it out of his arse (unlike his underwear which he manages to do quite frequently).
Stoner again on top after falling just short after the first practice, although I'm sure he will find something to complain about.
Pedrosa still down the bottom of the rung with Ant West. And on a more serious note I'm assuming he is still feeling the effects of Sachsenring and wonder if he will pull out of the race altogether. Don't imagine Repsol Honda will be too pleased if that happens.
It is also interesting to note that the Bridgestone riders seem to be doing a lot better than the Michelin riders apart from Edwards who came a respectable 7th. But I mean seriously...all of the top 10 after the second practice except for the Texas Tornado are on Bridgestones. Michelin, its time to start firing people.

MotoGP LD.

Brno 2008 FP1

First day back from Summer Break and there's varying form out on the field during the first practice. Rossi finished FP1 in front of Stoner, which as far as I'm concerned is good for everyone, at least it will give Stoner something to moan about.
Hopkins appeared to be returning in good form and even managed to spend some good'ol quality time with the gravel he loves so much.
Pedrosa aka The Annoying Little Spaniard (TALS) has managed to finish the first practice last, which I'm sure is keeping many a MotoGP fan happy, good for him.
Other's to note include Marco Melandri who surprisingly is middle of the pack, me thinks Ducati may have sneakily replaced his engine with an old Honda, which is probably what he's going to be on next year anyway, so might as well get some practice in.
Oh and big shock Ant West is keeping TALS company down the bottom, so much for working over the summer break, he most likely took part in the long time Australian tradition of Bludging.

MotoGP LD.