, and on lap 4, the Australian was already running high 1'42s. Last year, that would have made Stoner half a second quicker than the rest of the field. But that was last year. This year, Dani Pedrosa was running almost a second a lap quicker than 2007

races in a row. But the underlying problem remained: The margin of victory was never less than 1.8 seconds, and most races were still being decided by half way. And after Ducati found some fixes to the problems that plagued Casey Stoner's early season

without a win for 9 races, their longest streak since 1990. Honda are having their worst season for nearly 20 years, and if things don't start looking up, it could be their worst season ever.The next Honda home was Marco Melandri in 10th, riding another

, the weather along the East China Sea coast can be extremely changeable, and both previous visits have been plagued by rain. The 2005 race took place in a genuine downpour, while during the 2006 weekend, almost every practice session saw some kind of rain

it to maximum effect. Stoner was pushing harder and harder every lap, as he became more and more frustrated at not being able to get by Rossi. The OmenOn lap 14, the first signs of Stoner's frustration showed. Closing right on Rossi at Turn 11 again, he once

caused by a different gear are propagated through the chain, to the different loads placed on the edge of a tire by a different torque level and a different gear ratio. So generally, a racing motorcycle will have usable torque between 10,000 and 17,000

in living memory. The single MotoGP race at Estoril in 2006 had more drama than a library full of Shakespeare plays, and a winner who saved his seat in MotoGP with that ride.So the 2007 edition of the Portuguese Grand Prix has a lot to live up to

intake of 112,000 breaths, the memory of last year's first corner catastrophe still fresh in the minds of the thronged spectators, but this year, good sense prevailed. The field sailed through in a neat procession, the spectacle provided by tight racing

. The next lap, he was 1.6 seconds behind Pedrosa, then 1.75, then 2 seconds, then 2.4 seconds. Dani Pedrosa was pushing, and nothing Rossi did made a blind bit of difference. By the half way mark, Pedrosa was 4 seconds ahead, and still pulling away

at Donington was to recover some of his confidence, and he got a big chunk of that back on the first lap. Starting from a lowly 17th place on the grid, the reigning 250 world champion was up into 10th by the end of lap 1.As the pack thundered across the line