I'm guessing, BUT I predict that by the time you read this, Rossi will have one or even both hands on his third consecutive top-class championship.This year, however, has been a little different from last. 2002, the first year of the four-strokes, was a stroll and he finished the...

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quipped in an interview directly after the race.We already know Scott Redding – last year’s first British 125 winner in 35 years – is a talent to watch, and that Kentish kid Danny Webb is knocking on the door of similar success, too.What with poor James

The best proverbs work both ways. For every silver lining, there’s always a cloud. It’s always dawn just after it’s darkest.Here’s one I think I made up. Every age has its Titan. Or … every Titan shows his age.The question left in the air at the end of last year was simply this: ...

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Shakespeare wrote that. And he knew a thing or two when he wasn’t waffling on.Rossi knows it too. But five races into the 2009 season, it’s not his head that’s worrying him most. It’s the other end that keeps getting kicked. By his own t...

The 117,000 fans who packed the stands at Valencia should have asked for their money back, after a dismal drear-fest procession of a MotoGP race. Asked afterwards, none of the top three riders - Stoner, Rossi, Pedrosa - thought control tyres would make much difference. Unless, as...

Someone cleverer THAN I put a name to it - the Frankenstein Syndrome, in which the victim creates his own monster. It happens to successful people in all walks of life, I guess. But seldom is it as pronounced as in the premier class of motorcycle racing.Over the years, I've watch...

It was Suzuki's team manager Garry Taylor who first exhumed an old but still serviceable idea in the wake of the Pacific GP at Motegi - that GP bikes should be converted to two-seaters. Then each rider could carry a lawyer on his pillion.Someone else suggested that bikes should b...

Has Rossi got Stoner undone? Surely looks a bit like that, after three forced errors in a row. The only thing that argues against it is Stoner’s own impassive calm, after his two crash-outs at Brno and Misano. Both in the wake of his lippy performance at Laguna, where it definite...

There are some things the Spanish do better than anyone. Taking over GP racing is one, but that’s beside the point. The other is to hold grudges.The antagonists are “Downbeat Dani” Pedrosa and “Gorgeous Jorge” Lorenzo. And right now, the paddock isn’t quite big enough for the bot...