By Matt Roberts
BBC Sport, Laguna Seca |
 I might as well start this week's column by getting all my Tom Cruise puns out of the way. At Laguna Seca, Valentino Rossi proved that he is by Far and Away the best rider in MotoGP after completing Mission Impossible and showing Casey Stoner who is Top Gun.  Mission Impossible? Stoner hangs out with the Cruises |
That's better. To be honest, we had expected Stoner to be in Cruise control after another sensational showing in free practice, something I touched on in my last column. At Sachsenring he went inside race lap record pace in FP1 and at Laguna he was inside his own pole record within 14 laps on Friday morning, five of which were quicker than the next best effort of the session, set by Rossi on his 33rd and final attempt. Eleven of Stoner's 19 flying laps in FP2 were closer than his nearest challenger, Nicky Hayden, while on Saturday morning he sat out the first 15 minutes of a fog-hit FP3 before casually taking to the track and going even faster. His final time of one minute 21.461 seconds left Rossi trailing by over half a second, a huge gap highlighted by the fact that the next ten riders were covered by less than a second.  | 606: DEBATE |
A fifth consecutive pole position, the only rider of the MotoGP four-stroke era to do so other than Rossi, made us think that the race was something of a foregone conclusion. Asked what he could do to stop Stoner, Rossi's tactic was clear: "Start 30 seconds early!" As it happened, Rossi had plenty of other tricks up his sleeve - mainly barging past Stoner on the brakes at every opportunity - although the main difference was the extra three to four tenths he managed to shave off his lap time in warm-up. In parc ferme, Rossi offered his hand to Stoner, which was rejected. "Come on, this is racing," he said. "This is racing, huh?" replied Stoner. "We'll see."
If Stoner needed reminding what a truly bad day at the office meant, at least he had Marco Melandri on the other side of the garage to put things into perspective.  Melandri improved, but he may have driven his last race for Ducati |
After crashing out just moments after setting the fastest lap of the race at Sachsenring last week, Melandri reacted to confirmation that his contract will be annulled at the end of the season with an improved showing at Laguna. Starting from 15th on the grid he followed up some impressive practice form by moving to ninth place by lap 10, before bizarrely catching his hand on one of the markers that indicate pit-lane exit at the end of the main straight. This actually knocked his hand off the bars and forced him to run straight into the gravel and crash. Not knowing how bad the injury was, although clearly in a lot of pain, Melandri got back in the race but took a couple of laps to get going again and eventually crossed the line just out of the points in 16th place. That could well be the last time we see Melandri in Ducati colours, with a widely expected parting of the ways during the summer break. The word amongst Sete Gibernau's paddock contacts is that he is back in full training, in anticipation of such a move. Satellite Ducati pair Toni Elias and Syvlain Guintoli had their best weekend of the year, with seventh and 12th place finishes, respectively. However, it may be too late for Elias to save his MotoGP career, with a move to Yamaha's World Superbike effort reported to be a done deal. Guintoli's position is also under threat, with strong rumours linking factory test rider Niccolo Canepa and 250cc title contender Mika Kallio to those two rides for 2009.
Fans of the old Transatlantic Match races, which pitted the likes of Kenny Roberts against Barry Sheene back in the 1970s before Kevin Schwantz, Wayne Rainey and Randy Mamola took on Ron Haslam and co. in the 1980s, will be interested to hear of a return, of sorts, at Indianapolis later this year. The top 10 riders from the Red Bull AMA US Rookies Cup (a teenage talent search) are set to do battle against the top 10 from the European equivalent, with a rematch scheduled for the final round of the MotoGP season at Valencia in October. Schwantz is the rider mentor for the American version and he made a surprise appearance in free practice for the rookies' race at Laguna, lapping third fastest.
After leaving Germany empty handed, the only points Dani Pedrosa picked up in the US were on his frequent flyer card after the Spaniard trailed all the way from Barcelona to Laguna only to withdraw following the first day of free practice.  Dani Pedrosa crashes into the fence and loses the overall lead |
Riding around Laguna is scary enough without a fractured finger, wrist and sprained ankle, but as Pedrosa spends the summer break at the physio's, at least his conscience will be clear: "If I'd stayed at home I'd never have known if I could have ridden," he explained. "I did a nine-lap run and it felt like 40 laps. It was a difficult decision to take but there was no alternative. Now I have three weeks to recover and do all the necessary rehabilitation to race in Brno." One person who will be hoping to see Pedrosa back will be Stoner, who needs to put another run of victories together and hope somebody can finish in front of the Italian. The only rider who has looked capable of doing that this season is Pedrosa. In the words of the world champion: "We'll see."
| 
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 
Bookmark with:
What are these?