The Doctor has suffered two cruel and frustrating years, but his appetite for putting on what he calls "the show" burns undimmed, and he remains the most charismatic figure in MotoGP racing.
Sunday pm – Britain Sinks to New GP Low
Chaz Davies' practice crash at Valencia on his Pramac Ducati robs him of the chance of scoring a solitary point in this afternoon's MotoGP race – a circumstance that says much about the sad state of British motorcycle racing today.
It means that this season will be the first since the world championships began in 1949 that no British rider has scored in the premier class, according to Martin Raines,
MotoGP's official statistician.
Britain once dominated 500cc racing (the equivalent of MotoGP until 2002), providing 17 of the 29 champions until 1977, when Barry Sheene was our last hero. Since then we've hit the doldrums, and we're getting even worse.
Thank goodness for
James Toseland, who had the guts to get out of British racing when he was 17, and will be repaid with a place in MotoGP in 2008 with the Yamaha Tech 3 lineup.
Unfortunately, we have no one big enough to fill his shoes in the World Superbike Championship that he's leaving, so the country that has provided seven of that series' title-holders won't be repeating those successes any time soon.
It's just so much safer staying with a comfy British Supersport ride...
Sunday am – Yamaha Rejects V4 and Pneumatic Valves for 2008
In its struggle to win back the MotoGP world championship, Yamaha will NOT build a V4 engine, will NOT adopt pneumatic valve gear, and will NOT copy Ducati's desmosdromic valve operation.
This extraordinary series of apparently negative decisions - which fly in the face of rival manufacturers' experiences - has been revealed at Valencia by Masao Furusawa, Yamaha's head of engineering.
Furusawa said that he has investigated alternatives for the YZR-M1, but will stick with an in-line four-cylinder layout, using traditional valve spring technology.
