The British traditionally love an underdog. Step forward Dani Pedrosa. More an under-puppy, you might think, and (as a public personality vacuum) an unlikely candidate to rely on people power.
Never mind. He’s limping; he’s in trouble and he needs some support.
Dani was dominant on smaller bikes and on his day he’s been invincible on the big ones. Six times. He was leading on points last year when he crashed and got hurt.
Now he’s done it again (left leg and wrist) at Qatar. He’ll miss the final Jerez tests, and maybe the first one or two races. A major blow to any title hopes.
Dani faces another major difficulty this year. His new team-mate Andrea Dovizioso is likely to run him ragged. Dovi has looked like the real thing for some time; now he has a real factory Honda on which to prove it.
Dani’s seniority in the team, so far simply assumed as if by right, is under threat and he may not be there to defend it.
Dani has won few paddock friends over the years with his morose reaction to serial success, and an apparent reluctance to fight for race wins – all his MotoGP successes have been runaways. His already shaky popularity took a dive last year when his manager/mentor/puppet master Alberto Puig started messing with Honda’s factory team management, eventually forcing a mid-championship switch to Bridgestones for Dani alone, an unusual move in the extreme.
Can Dani fight back? I’m guessing he’s not sleeping too well, asking himself the same question over and over again. But Britain has its own underdog. James Toseland made a fine MotoGP start last year, grabbing a string of rookie fifths and impressing his rivals with a fearsome take-no-prisoners riding style.
Musician JT finished the year vivace (lively and fast), with a crescendo of competitive strength. But his second year with the team began with a crash of cymbals and a touch of ritartando (slowing down). And has been ever so slightly tremolo ever since.
The irony is that JT was so rampant last year that he managed a coup: snitching crew chief Gary Reynders away from team-mate Colin Edwards (aka the Texan Windbag). Now the once-friendly Tech 3 team is riven by no-speaks and angry glares. Toseland and Edwards officially hate each other.
At early tests, however, the fortunes of the two riders have been reversed. Edwards seemed to be slowing down seriously by the end of last year, and was reckoned lucky to have kept his ride. At the Qatar tests he was second quickest on the second night, and still well in the hunt on the third. JT, recovering from a heavy crash at first Sepang tests, was a tentative 15th.
Even class rookies Mika Kallio and Niccolò Canepa were quicker.
Let’s hope it’s just a ritenuto (temporary holding back), and that JT will be where he belongs when the racing starts for real.
Pity also Marco Melandri. Once a Honda-mounted five-times race winner, he thought a switch to Kawasaki would be his rescue after a shockingly bad 2008 on the factory Ducati. Then Kawasaki pulled out.
It may look as though his career was rescued when Kawasaki agreed to support a one-rider survival team. Melandri got the job, while prospective team-mate John Hopkins was left hanging out to dry.
But look at it this way.
Kawasaki has struggled to find the pace in MotoGP, and last year’s machines showed no progress. Only a triumph of hope over experience would assume that the 2009 upgrade would be much better.
Kawasaki seems to share this view, at least in only allowing the bike to race under a different name: Hayate. It means hurricane or volcano or typhoon or cadenza, or something like that. The most conspicuous thing about the Hayate badge, however, is that it is not Kawasaki.
This is the Kawasaki that dare not speak its name.
Is Casey Stoner in trouble, or is he just being wristy? News broke in the Australian media a couple of weeks back that he thought he might have to skip the season opener for more surgery on his
left scaphoid.
It was all over in a flurry, with denials from Ducati, and Stoner staying cagey. But there’s certainly a
question in the air as the season draws closer. Stoner dominated the Sepang and Qatar tests but can he manage a race distance?
If this is intended to unsettle Rossi, it doesn’t seem to be working. He’s right on the Duke’s heels, and looks ready as ever.
