Gran Premi De Catalunia: 7th round to Stoner

Last Sunday we watched the 7th round of the match between Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi, the only two contenders to the 2007 MotoGp World Championship. Stoner has won this bout but without a knockout, a clear triumph that wouldn’t leave space to different interpretations.
Rossi had the pole, but as usual, a slow start relegated him in fourth position so it took two laps for him to pass Hopper and another eight, almost half race, to overtake Pedrosa. Only at this point he was able to start giving pressure to Stoner: initially he tried a few times in a double left turn and then at the end of the long straight of the Catalunya circuit. I have said “pressure” because he didn’t have enough speed to build a real gap from the Australian kid. Rossi’s M1 seemed extremely stable on the brakes and able to keep the line even under heavy trail braking but more than once the Italian went a bit wide as result of his overtaking and Stoner grabbed the opportunity to pass him again. Everybody knows that Ducati is the fastest bike, even when the Italian factory team limits its top speed for gas consumption reasons in certain racetrack, but Sunday we noticed the extra acceleration too. So far Stoner has been able to master the acceleration of his bike by edging tires and throttle to the perfection. Vice versa Capirossi, his teammate, has been struggling with the extra power: it seems that on the high speed turns he carries more speed up to the apex but then he is slower than the Aussie in opening the throttle .
Going back to our match, until the end Valentino tried to induce an error from his competitor and even when, at three laps from the end, he was able to gain a few bikes from Casey, the small advantage was immediately filled on the following long stretch. The 21 year old Ducati rider is living a magic moment with flawless performance on the best bike on the grid. Sunday, Capirossi on the Ducati was able to go from the 17th place to 7th, an incredible performance but the same couldn’t be said for Edwards who started in 5th position to end the race in 10th. Curiously Edward was the first Michelin rider after Rossi and Pedrosa.
The Spaniard got the third position, a great result considering that he was the only rider able to stay with the two leaders the whole race but, honestly, I was surprised that he didn’t try to mix his cards again with an aggressive move whenever he had the opportunity. Unless Pedrosa was hoping in a contact or big mistake by Rossi and Stoner that could have opened the road to an easy victory, something that it could have happened after all ….
Randy De Puniet was the big surprise of the day: fourth with a broken collarbone and a knee swollen to the point that he could barely walk!!!!! I do not know what kind of fracture, if any, he has suffered but last fall I broke my collarbone and I couldn't ride my bike for several weeks so, once again, I praise the magic work performed by Doct. Claudio Costa’s Clinica Mobile.
Finally, let's give a standing ovation to the fast and courageous John Hopkins: he stormed to a well-deserved fourth place after setting the fastest lap during the race and an unofficial lap record at the testing session held at the Catalunya track the day after the MotoGp race. Hopper is really getting confident with his Suzuki and the Bridgestone tire package so I am positive that he will be one of the protagonists of the end of the season, one of those riders that will be stealing precious points to the leaders of the World Championship.
Ten days to Donnington, to the next round …..Only 14 points separate the two contenders …..I am betting on Rossi