IS THERE A rider in living memory who has been quite so thoroughly traduced and assassinated as Max Biaggi? He's a difficult character who had a bum year riding the factory Honda, but for a notorious prima-donna and machine-blamer, was actually fairly restrained in his criticism ...

The final visit to Donington Park after 23 years of British GPs there was not exactly a sentimental journey. The East Midlands stepped in after bikers fell from favour at Silverstone – something to do with the torching of hamburger stalls and being unruly and bikerish, way back i...

-mate Hayden early in the Portugese GP, handing the championship lead to Rossi, nobody had ever seen anything like it. Least of all Hayden, who explained in very clear terms to Dani how he could put it right - keep Rossi two places back at the final round. HRC

imitating the Rossi-Stoner trick of hanging out one leg during braking, even though neither of these riders can actually explain why they do it. Looks good anyway, and some people even try it on the road. So here’s a cautionary tale.Some years ago a

winner Gabor Talmacsi tried to explain why he'd snatched victory from his team mate Mika Kallio in the final yards. The championship could hinge upon it, making it reminiscent of that '60s spat when Phil Read ignored team orders to steal Bill Ivy's 125

, and the switch from Bridgestone is to do with commercial expediency rather than competitiveness. But my fancy takes me at least part of the way along with the fervent comments of team manager Livio Suppo. On Michies, he explains, they could only ever equal

obvious - just look at the way he's adapted from Bridgestone to Michelin tyres, been fastest at the Losail tests, and is burning bright.Or does that opinion simply explain why I'm not running a factory MotoGP team?Kenny, the carcasses, his compounds

in the paddock."The wrong passport turned into the right passport," explains a grateful McWilliams. "It's now important for Dorna to have British riders on the podium."This marketing push to rebuild GP racing in Britain was highly successful, by the evidence

weeks later, when more or less the same thing happened, only this time Rossi was merely holding a yawning three-second gap rather than catching up. Stoner explained how he’d done a couple of laps on that tyre in warm-up to scrub it in, but had instead

.In fact, with current engine-life restrictions, power-down bikes should be generally easier to ride and to set-up. And back in the old days, most of the testing was of tyres rather than engines or suspension. As one veteran team manager explained: “We had