Grand Prix of China: Math is not an opinion

“ …It was another perfect day …” Casey Stoner - 1st place

“… I have never raced in my career against a bike with such a difference of speed versus the rest of the competition …” Valentino Rossi - 2nd place


What happened in China? Very simple: Stoner with his Ducati has smoked the ex Camel Boy. Rossi's perfectly balanced FIAT Yamaha looked almost like a Toyota sedan challenging a red Ferrari. The difference in speed and in acceleration between the two bikes was huge. If we agree that at the end of the 1.2 km stretch Stoner was giving 30 meters or so to Rossi after 20 laps the gap would be 600m! And I am not taking in consideration the other straight! On Saturday the qualification with super sticky Michelin made all of us to dream. We thought that Rossi’s bionic skills along with some good rubber could offset the huge advantage in speed that the Ducatis had over the rest of the field. At the end of the day Stoner won but even Capirossi had very easy time to go from the 14th place to the 6th place and probably Barros would have done better without the accident at the beginning of the race. In a racetrack designed for a F1 where you do not see anymore a single overtake, the incredible speed of the Italian red missile Ducati made once again the difference. Stoner has won 3 races out of four; he is not that American Kid that won a Championship with just a couple of victories during the year. He is proving to be a mature and damn fast 21 year old “man”. It seems that he is not suffering the responsibility of the moment, inside and outside the track: he just goes out and does the job with his red missile, plain and simple. Yes, it looks so easy that I really wonder why Capirossi has not been able to do the same so far. On the other end the stress is only for Valentino. Again, once again, last Sunday he proved to be the best, absolutely the best rider in MotoGp. He could have set for the second position since the start of the race without fighting too much because it was evident that he had not chances against the Aussie. Still he tried to win, with the best strategy? I do not know. In USA the commentator at a certain point asked what Rossi had in his mind given the fact that his passes on the brakes were regularly wiped out with no effort by Stoner on the following straight. He looked more like a club event with the 1000 passing on the gas the small 600s than a MotoGp race! Indeed the commentator has never suggested an answer to his question, because he didn’t know or he couldn’t voice what he thought. His awkward situation was then solved when Rossi missed a turn point on the brakes ending up on the run off: a mistake that gave Stoner the chance to win the race by himself.
Rossi has too much experience and brain to waste front tires and brakes in those stunts. Someone can think that he wanted to make Stoner nervous and so more prone to make a mistake, but what kind of mistake he could have made in those types of hairpins? Personally, I think that the last accident with Elias had somehow suggested to Rossi his Chinese game, a very typical strategy in any type of racing: carry a lot of speed into the inside of your opponent and if he closes the door you can be sure that he will go for the tangent. Do you remember his pass on Gibernau, with the Spaniard going for daises? He would have been criticized, but the at the end of the day it was the only way to challenge a mathematical certainty: Stoner first, Rossi second place.


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