Stoner's night dream, Rossi's nightmare.

I must admit to my prediction of Stoner,Rossi, Pedrosa, being slighty wrong!. Stoner and Pedrosa carried on from where they left off last year, Lorenzo and Dovi rode like MotoGP champions,and Toseland on the slower spring valve yamaha made me proud to be the son of a "£10 POM",now that admitting to something! ;) no excuse for Rossi, he was outclassed by all the above riders.

Prototype bikes (like F1 cars) must be designed during the previous season with the specific behaviour of the tyres they will be using in mind. Presumably, for the Yamaha, these would have been Michelins. You can't just bolt on a totally different construction and make on a bike designed for another tyre. The other Yamahas are on Michelins, including Rossi's team-mate. So every weekend will be a learning experience - in the middle of a championship fight and they have NO data from previous seasons or from other bikes to work with. He's on his own. A combination of the problems Ferrari had as the only leading team on Bridgestones; and Renault had in a car designed for Michelins.

Stoner rode like a God, and Rossi rode like a has been.

end of story!

Michelins apparently had an advantage in the colder temps. (Rossi and Stoner were the only Bridgestones at the top). Stoner still won by 5 secs (yes, a genius!). Lorenzo beat Rossi convincingly. In the past Rossi's talent would have overcome this, but the skill level in MotoGP has gone up. So on days when Lorenzo has an advantage, he will beat Rossi. Rossi is faced with a package in the 'zone': Ducati/Stoner/Bridgestone. Plus 3 other Ducatis to help with data. No way out for Rossi: He can't go back to Michelins - humiliation; can't quit - humiliation; expect murmurs about the other Yamahas (at least Lorenzo) switching to Bridgestones for next season. Either way, Rossi's in trouble.

"the skill level in MotoGP has gone up."
Shows how muchyou know cap, thers no more skill in MotoGP than there is in World Superbikes now with all this traction ******
Bring back 990's, they were spot on!!

i dont think its a issue for rossi just yet, lets see. but the person who does have to worry is Hayden, to be blown away by Dovitsey thingy on a satelite bike from last year is not good. Hayden has been making hard work of racing for quite awhile now, watch your *** boy.

Let us not forget how much testing michelin had just before the race, they will not have that for the rest of the year...expect different results next time out

Lets see how the next few races go. This was a)the first race of the season and b)the first ever night race.

which doesn't exactly make for the best data when trying to do analysis for the season

500's were spot on, 990's belong in superbikes.

Rossi will be back at Jerez. He was the best performer there on race tyres at the recent tests and the Ducati has not been right at the front in the dry there.

Regarding Stoner and the Ducati well for a bike that is meant to be controlled by electronic everything his bike always looks like it is on the ragged edge mainly because that is the way Stoner rides it.

The reason Stoner is so good is because he is consistently fast lap after lap after lap after lap after lap.

Ask Lorenzo who was complaining about physical problems brought on by the pace.

The race pace was such that it was 26 seconds faster than last year.

2008 will be an interesting year.

.

AH AH SAID THE CLOWN, MY TYRES HAVE LET ME DOWN. Rossi got the tyres he wanted, come on you Rossi groupes, he has beaten fair and square

What actually impresses me is that although -supposedly- Rossi and Stoner had the same tyres, Casey needed 4 or 5 laps to get them to temperature (according to his saying) and lost ground up to that moment whereas Rossi did the opposite thing: He was faster than the rest in the opening laps but then his tyre degraded and he lost places. Doesn't seem to me that they chose the same rubber as TV said (Medium-F, medium-R for both).

Jack is right, TV doesn't show the "reality" behind the tyre selection... anyone could notice that Rossi was pretty fast until lap 6 or 7 and then started to slowdown... rubber degradation? maybe. Remember that Yamaha has been running Michelin's years ago and start using a new rubber would take... maybe a year to adapt good to the bike (check out when Ducati switch to Bridgestone rubber, they were a castaway bike for sooo many races).
Thats the complexity of this sport. Rubber, electronics, chassis stiffness, balance and a lot of other things got SO much to do with the result (much like what happen in F1).
BTW, I been reading that Stone Ducati's was 10 Km/h faster than Rossi...

....stoner clowns..my bat my ball you can't play, jesus the aussie fanboys really have their toungues up the kids ****hole... dig deeper fanboys

I was surprised in the start of the race how Dani Pedrosa managed to snatch P1 from P8 but then again Pedrosa only weighs about 50KG so I guess it would give his bike just that extra boost in acceleration. After a disappointing start for Nicky Hayden on the '07 bike I'm assuming that he'll switch to the '08 bike in the next race.

But what also surprised me in this race is how well Andrea Dovizioso performed considering that he was using a slick soft front Michelin tyre. I'm assuming that since it was a night race and the track temperature was around 17 degrees celcius then it certainly did help prolong the grip of his front tyre.

Rossi fought and he lost. You can ridicule him, mock him, anything you want
but he fought his way to the front like the lion he is and you can't blame him for that ;-)
Read his comment and you know that he is just on a steep learning curve with the Bridgestones.
The fact that so many Yamahas are up there now is very encouraging and I am happy Dani Pedrosa is back,
very brave ride from him. It proves that he is the one Honda need to focus on!

Is pedrosa one of the "snotnoses" ?

What happened to the respect you ask of others Morgue ?

Cheers.

Dani Pedrosa proved he can handle a big bike, he even won races on the 990,
even though many people mocked him because of his size and weight,
Does that answer your question?

No, it doesn't answer my questions,I asked 2 questions and you replied to neither .

Cheers.

While it was disappointing for Rossi, it proves that his bike needs more development especially in adapting to the Bridgestones. The Ducati still appears to have more power and obviously better ability to maintain its tires throughout the race. It appears that Lorenzo has lived up to his preseason results. However, it's early days in the season so Stoner fanboys shouldn't crown him yet and don't count Rossi out either.