But it's rare for a rider new to a series, on a new bike, to mount a season-long championship challenge. And how will Biaggi adapt to some of the tracks he has not yet ridden, including
Brands Hatch's 2.6-mile long circuit, with those earth banks way closer than anything he's been used to in grand prix racing? Meanwhile, Bayliss' V-twin Ducati is going to get out-dragged by the Japanese fours from many corners. This may be as good a chance as Toseland will ever get to regain the Superbike crown.
CASEY STONER is my kind of racer - fast, fearless, and loaded-up with self-belief. Some preferred to call the latter quality gobbiness last year.
But then, racing fans and media can be unbelievably bitchy towards people who don't fit into a conventional box. They also slammed Stoner for lobbing Lucio Cecchinello's Team LCR Honda down the road too many times. This, despite him taking a pole and a podium, and scoring points in ten out of 17 races on his way to eighth place in the
MotoGP championship in his debut year. If only Britain produced soaring 21-year-olds like this.
In fact he never said anything that he didn't back up on the track, and there were contributing factors to the crashes.
"All through practice last year we were confident, but in the race the bike felt nothing like it did in practice," he told me at the
Jerez tests. Why, exactly, I asked.
"I can't discuss that - it's classified!" he rapped with that trademark Stoner sparkiness across the metal table in Ducati's hospitality unit.
The boy fears nobody and no situation.
Stoner finished sixth fastest at Jerez - and then satisfied his critics by falling off the Desmosedici. Happily, Marlboro Ducati's project manager Livio Suppo is one of those who knows that it's easier to mould a hot, feisty talent into a consistent winner than it is to drag aggression from a calmer, more cautious soul who keeps the carbon-fibre pristine.
Casey Stoner is one of the greatest characters in the MotoGP paddock. And that's me being gobby, not him.
