'Defensive' Rossi turns to China.

Lets hope so, to come 3rd at the track bridgestone had claimed to be their worst is pretty good.

As for this dovi and hayden fallin off, and rossi being lucky, dovi admitted he was pushing hard and thats why he fell, so he couldnt keep the pace, thats his own fault, not rossi's good luck.

As for hayden, he's no good when he doesnt have someone to follow in a race, he loses concentration to easily, he's done it plenty of times before, again though, not rossi's good luck, its the riders own fault for falling.

Just like stoner wasnt lucky to come 6th when it shud have been 8th or 9th, he stayed on the bike and got some points which could turn out to be priceless at the end.

i agree, nicky and dovi couldnt stand the pace and went down. rossi could and came 3rd

after China Rossi or Casey in 3rd or behind podium it'll finish the dream of vitory.

I'm not so sure. Rossi lost 12 seconds to Lorenzo and Pedrosa over the last 14 laps.

Dovi and Hayden were within 2 seconds of Rossi when those last 14 laps started.

Rossi's Bridgetsone's were clearly struggling in the second half of the race so there's definitely a reasonable chance that Dovi and/or Hayden would have got by him, even if they dropped their pace.

Yes, they may have been able to catch him, but they crashed, like i've said, thats not rossi's problem.

Also, i think rossi rode for 3rd towards the end of the race, he had edwards behind him with a big enough gap to just make sure he got the bike home.

None of us will ever know what it feels like to ride a bike like that when the tyre's are shot, but we all know it cant be easy.

Either way, he wasnt lucky to come 3rd, he rode his race and stayed on.

Who said Rossi was lucky?

Watching the race you could tell exactly in which lap Valentino's tire started its step down, then the electronics kicked in to stop him from wasting it even more and his lap time went up. 3rd place on a track where Bridgestone had said it would have big problems isn't that bad, it also conferms what Rossi was doing all weekend in wet and dry.weather conditions. China is going to be the turning point, if Michelin places a lot of riders in the first places than we'll know that Rossi should have swallowed his pride (and made peace with Weber)and stayed with the French manufacturer.

Exactly. The race actually reminded me of Qatar- Rossi leading and suddenly a drop of pace occurs and everyone close enough goes past him.

Hadn't Hayden-Dovizioso fallen I'm sure he would be off the podium. Doing so well in practice and then making an off-target tyre choice is surely a side-effect of his lack of Bridgestone data.

However, even if he and his team manage to gain a deeper understanding of the Japanese rubber, every race will be more or less a white paper settings-wise. No data with the Yam-BS combo and no team-mate to work together... Pretty hard, maybe too hard to ultimately allow him to compete for the championship.

I don't know if China will be a turning point or not (yet) but it is very interesting to recognize two points:
1- Michelin has wakened up and recovered from the situation that they faced last year with the rules that have been introduced; part of this motivation have probably been Rossi departure.
2- As usually Rossi team is improving quickly and steadily; we have a new kind in town that is this package Rossi/Yam/Bstones.
The pressure is mounting, the progress is moving (Honda will also be very important) and Rossi team is handling it very well.
Let's watch how others can cope with that.
I saw this weekend Casey body language somehow negative.
Jorge Lorenzo is being really astonishing.

Third position, terrible result for Rossi. Now he can blame the tyres, but in Qatar Stoner won by a big margin and Rossi could only get fifth.

After 3 races he's been beaten 3 times by Pedrosa, and his rookie "teammate" Lorenzo has won a race.

He has to be worried.

Alberto that's is bit premature to say because these were all bad tracks for BS...also Qatar was the first race for him using the BS's so he might have been overly cautious...

if you see in Jerez he did get good momeumtum in the practice sessions but lost out on qualifying since BS does not have good qualifiers...

in Estoril the momemtum was even higher and i think it will continue this way for the rest of the season...

Jorge is a good rider but there will always be a question mark because the bike and tyres were developed by Rossi and team...

i think we need to wait for a couple of races more.....

Like i said, so far race wins have gone to same make of tyre's as they did last season, so nothing's changed yet.

It's gonna be the places where bridgestone ran away with wins, like laguna seca, brno and donnington...if michelin can show well there, rossi may have made a mistake when switching, but either way, im sure rossi is far from worried.

He knows he has a winning bike underneath him, its just getting the set up with the tyre's now.

It's his first season, no data at any of the circuits and so far he's 3rd in the championship, 14 points behind the first two riders.

God knows how many times that has been mentioned, but clearly the rossi haters wont take it in.

So, what did he do in preseason?

You speak as if Rossi being worried was something terrible.

He should be worried because things are not working, whether you like it or not. I mean, if he wants to win the championship. If he doesn't want to win the championship, then he shouldn't worry because everything's ok so far.

"We needed this result for myself and all the team". That's what Rossi said after Jerez. Relieved? why? he's too arrogant to be worried, right? don't worry, I'll win for sure -he's thinking-, just like in 2006 and 2007. No reason to worry.

Its all tyre talk again the Bstones are crap here the michelin are best here and then the other way round. Should have been a 1 make tyre then this talk could of been put to bed,but saying this surprised Rossi used a medium compound tyre when it did'n see the qatar race out??

Lol, another rossi hater...

there's not much to say really, your blinded by your hate of the bloke to see what he's actually doing this season so far.

Yes, I'm a Rossi hater because I said he has reasons to be worried and that's just terrible.

You know what? I changed my mind, now I agree with you.Great season for him so far. If things keep going like this, he can repeat last year's third position in the championship. Brilliant. He must be really happy, third is great for him.

Alberto Gomez, why do you think Lorenzo can ride the way he does?

He is a very, very talented rider, BUT also because he has about the best bike on the grid and the best tires (developed with input from you know who)

Lorenzo is a little bit in the same position that Stoner was in last year. He has a good team, very good bike and, until now, the tires that make the "other brand" look old. That can change anytime.

Look at the final position relative to the conditions. An absolute statement on the finishing position is worthless. Hence your comment is. In fact, you sound like MC (and that's no compliment even if you feel flattered). ;)

Try keeping things in perspective.

If Rossi doesn't have data for this year with Bridgestone" so it is the same for Lorenzo because he has no data at all,he was riding a 250 last year, everything is new for him, Pedrosa and Hayden are running the new Honda and no data from last year either, I am not a Rossi hater but since last year he has made a lot of noise, now he is saying to be surprised by Michelin reaction?????????????

All the teams keep their data from the previous years so they have a base for the next year. So I think Lorenzo has data enough (from Rossi in 2007) to rely on. Rossi thus, has NO data from the previous year coz he's on different tyre brand. This is the same for Pedrosa and Hayden, they too have their data from the previous years, so is Stoner and some others.
Rossi WILL be up there. When he gets it totaly together with the BS tyres he will be hard to beat.

It's pretty obvious, that Bridgestone is not up to the job. Michelin may have underestimated the effort required for the 800 ccm bikes last year. But the loss of the championship and the stupid behaviour of Rossi brought them back on track, and presto this year they are back on top. This settles also the debate, who won the championship last year: for certain not Bridgestone.