In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Eurosport MotoGP commentator Toby Moody reviews an unbelievably dramatic Portuguese Grand Prix - including that collision between Dani Pedrosa and world championship leading team-mate Nicky Hayden, which has handed Valentino Rossi an eight-point advantage heading into the Valencia season finale...
Someone up in the heavens is rewiring motorsports championships this autumn. Hondas crash into each other handing the lead to Rossi, Schumacher blows up making things easier for Alonso, Kevin Curtain crashes in Supersport to hand the title to Charpentier, Leon Haslam's plan for the last round of the
BSB goes to pot because someone crashes and brings out the red flags, whilst WRC leader Loeb breaks his arm and can't drive. What is going on!?
MotoGP's part of this happened in Estoril last weekend where the paddock was braced for rain, wind, no crowd and a tiring race weekend. Nothing could have been further from the truth come Sunday night. The sun shone all through practice with not a single cloud in the sky, nor hardly a breath of wind. Sunday was overcast but ultimately dry giving us the best 250 race seen for yonks with a rejuvenated Dovizioso winning and stoking up a championship (and a hangover!) whilst the
MotoGP race was just incredible. Words leave me. Never before has my phone lit up with so many people saying how they enjoyed a race. Just amazing...
The Repsol Honda fightback starts here. They've had 16 races, and now it starts.
Nicky can still do it. He has to put his Laguna head on and stuff 'em. Maybe the best thing about Valencia is that it is in Spain and that'll give him extra motivation to stick it ahead of Pedrosa and ahead of Rossi - whom he beat last year. Whatever happens, Honda has to have a plan for Valencia.
Well, the Hayden/Pedrosa mess just goes to prove that Yamaha were clever enough to have a plan, and Honda weren't. Estoril was actually the second time this season where Yamaha have out smarted Honda in the planning department after having the balls to change their initial M1 to a mish-mash of an evo 2005 chassis, whereas Honda stuck with an especially different V5 engine for Hayden that does not have a bearing on the 2007 800cc motor.
"The clutch is a bit better after Motegi, but I wish I was saying that after the first race not the 15th race..." Hayden said on Saturday afternoon. After the race he said, whilst choking back the tears...
"I do think that we (Honda) should have had a plan. Do you really think that Colin was going to pass Rossi?"
After Japan, Yamaha instigated their plan and were clever enough to bring out some extra bits of suspension, tyres and engine for Edwards, which meant he could run second in qualifying and up there in the race.
"I could have beaten Elias today, but they didn't tell me during the race that the Repsols were out..." he lamented on Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, on the subject of parts, poor Hayden said on Friday evening that Honda had booked an airfield to run some practice starts on Monday before Estoril, but the parts didn't arrive until Wednesday. That's over two weeks from when the bike was last ridden. I find it difficult to comprehend that the Honda Motor Company with its trillion dollar infrastructure could not have got a part brought forward by 48 hours. Or maybe not. You rather fancy that if it was Pedrosa having all these problems from the first race of the year, the private jet would have been laid on from Japan bringing clutch parts over to Europe throughout the 2006 summer.
Away from technicalities, at Honda there was
maybe a quick chat from the masters to their two riders about the race ahead, but it doesn't even matter what was said as there is one golden rule in motorsport that 6-year-old mini-moto riders learn early on.
You don't knock off your own team-mate. It is not even a discussion. You just don't do it.
