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Moody Blues: Torpedoed by a team-mate.
In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Eurosport MotoGP commentator Toby Moody reviews an unbelievably dramatic Portuguese Grand Prix - including that collision between Dani Pedrosa and world championship leading team-mate Nicky Hayden, which has handed Valentino Rossi an eight-point advantage heading into the Valencia season finale...
Someone up in the heavens is rewiring motorsports championships this autumn. Hondas crash into each other handing the lead to Rossi, Schumacher blows up making things easier for Alonso, Kevin Curtain crashes in Supersport to hand the title to Charpentier, Leon Haslam's plan for the last round of the BSB goes to pot because someone crashes and brings out the red flags, whilst WRC leader Loeb breaks his arm and can't drive. What is going on!?
MotoGP's part of this happened in Estoril last weekend where the paddock was braced for rain, wind, no crowd and a tiring race weekend. Nothing could have been further from the truth come Sunday night. The sun shone all through practice with not a single cloud in the sky, nor hardly a breath of wind. Sunday was overcast but ultimately dry giving us the best 250 race seen for yonks with a rejuvenated Dovizioso winning and stoking up a championship (and a hangover!) whilst the MotoGP race was just incredible. Words leave me. Never before has my phone lit up with so many people saying how they enjoyed a race. Just amazing...
The Repsol Honda fightback starts here. They've had 16 races, and now it starts.
Nicky can still do it. He has to put his Laguna head on and stuff 'em. Maybe the best thing about Valencia is that it is in Spain and that'll give him extra motivation to stick it ahead of Pedrosa and ahead of Rossi - whom he beat last year. Whatever happens, Honda has to have a plan for Valencia.
Well, the Hayden/Pedrosa mess just goes to prove that Yamaha were clever enough to have a plan, and Honda weren't. Estoril was actually the second time this season where Yamaha have out smarted Honda in the planning department after having the balls to change their initial M1 to a mish-mash of an evo 2005 chassis, whereas Honda stuck with an especially different V5 engine for Hayden that does not have a bearing on the 2007 800cc motor.
"The clutch is a bit better after Motegi, but I wish I was saying that after the first race not the 15th race..." Hayden said on Saturday afternoon. After the race he said, whilst choking back the tears... "I do think that we (Honda) should have had a plan. Do you really think that Colin was going to pass Rossi?"
After Japan, Yamaha instigated their plan and were clever enough to bring out some extra bits of suspension, tyres and engine for Edwards, which meant he could run second in qualifying and up there in the race. "I could have beaten Elias today, but they didn't tell me during the race that the Repsols were out..." he lamented on Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, on the subject of parts, poor Hayden said on Friday evening that Honda had booked an airfield to run some practice starts on Monday before Estoril, but the parts didn't arrive until Wednesday. That's over two weeks from when the bike was last ridden. I find it difficult to comprehend that the Honda Motor Company with its trillion dollar infrastructure could not have got a part brought forward by 48 hours. Or maybe not. You rather fancy that if it was Pedrosa having all these problems from the first race of the year, the private jet would have been laid on from Japan bringing clutch parts over to Europe throughout the 2006 summer.
Away from technicalities, at Honda there was maybe a quick chat from the masters to their two riders about the race ahead, but it doesn't even matter what was said as there is one golden rule in motorsport that 6-year-old mini-moto riders learn early on. You don't knock off your own team-mate. It is not even a discussion. You just don't do it.
So just what did come over Pedrosa going into that corner? He may well have been annoyed by Hayden's manoeuvre into the same corner two laps before, but then the reason that Dani picked the bike up to avoid contact with Nicky, was because Nicky was actually alongside him, then ahead way before the apex; which is why Pedrosa could actually see him to pick the bike up. When the accident happened, Pedrosa was out of control. End of story. As Rossi says about Pedrosa; "There are times when I see his front wheel, and I don't know if he is in control or not."
Pedrosa's body language as he rose to his feet in the gravel trap was disgraceful. Barely looking over to see if Nicky was injured, he just flicked his hands in the direction of the incident as if brushing a wasp away. Not an apology at all. It looked just so wrong that maybe it was some malicious plan all along... I sincerely hope not.
When Kenny Jr knocked off Tamada in exactly the same incident at Sachsenring, Jr rushed over to Tamada to see if he was OK. Kenny asked him in Japanese as such, but all it caused was laughter from Tamada because of the American's terrible formulation of the Japanese language. The difference between the older generation and the younger one!
I do not condone violence, but one wag said that Nicky should have just whacked him over the head with his Arai, foregone his new two-year Honda contract and gone to Ducati there and then. Ducati may have asked Hayden if he was sure that the deal for 2007 and 2008 was concrete. They may have swung him there and then as Hayden signed with Honda not just for 2007/8, but also for the remaining three races of 2006, and so far it doesn't look like there's been much help.
Has Pedrosa shown an element of the Schwantz/Rainey duel of just not being able to function rationally with that rival rider in front of him? Hey, although we saw a right mess in the gravel at Estoril, we may well have in front of us the best year of two team-mates fighting on track with equal machinery at Honda during 2007. Rossi will think that's fantastic as he takes all the Yamaha points to another title...!
Now getting into the garage, the Puig/Pedrosa relationship is strong, but I wrote after China, race number four, that it was a very 'different' way of being an International sportsman, but according to Puig I got it all wrong and Pedrosa is actually the "heart and soul of the party" (cannot comment on that as not been to a party with him) and a "racer" (couldn't agree more) but Puig himself - and I quote you - "doesn't care about these sponsors"... For a member of a mega team to say that was in my view, incredible.
Honda thought it correct to complain about my comments after China, but did so by writing a letter to the TV company that doesn't actually publish this column rather than facing me directly. I thought that rather odd...
...So now Estoril has happened, it could mean that Honda are going to loose a championship to Rossi's Yamaha unless they pull out all of the stops in the next 10 days. The fact that Honda's Golden Boy #26 has let Rossi ahead for the first time this season is the biggest dilemma they've had for a long time. But is it? Not really. They can pull the other riders together in a moment of team spirit, but that is a bit F1, and we actually don't want that to be too prevalent. It will not be fair on Nicky's conscience nor his image for the future; he is above that. He's battled all season to prove that and I hope he can battle head-to-head with Rossi for the title.
No-one ever wrote off Rossi's title chances when he was 51 points behind Hayden after America, so why should people when Nicky is just eight back of Rossi now.
Boy oh boy this is going to be a heart stopper!
Elias
If Toni Elias never wins another grand prix, at least he can show his kids one day on a DVD that Estoril 2006 was his day. The charming little fighter of a guy blitzed even Valentino Rossi on a level playing field. The former fellow Movistar Honda Junior team rider may now just have got the upper hand over Pedrosa now he's won a race fair and square against Valentino. Just brilliant.
More Ilmor
Ilmor made their debut and did a superb job. Having only done seven tests before coming to Estoril, two of which on Michelins, it was excellent to see some fresh thinking. Old school 'cars are rubbish, bikes are everything' people were impressed right from the word go. At last...!
Only once did the bike fail in public over three days and that was in the race when a front-wheel sensor thought the wheel wasn't moving and so kicked in a large amount of traction control for McCoy. With the rules stipulating that you have to complete 75% of race distanced to be in with a shout of points, they got points and could potentially win the 2006 800cc World Championship!
The question is now who wants to pay for it? Sponsor or someone to rebadge the machine? "We're available to partnerships," was the reply from managing director Steve Miller.
Personally, I think it's an ideal platform for BMW to get in on. Munich's PR line of doing something purely themselves in MotoGP is a bit thin as they've bought into an existing facility at Sauber F1, so why not this chance?
KTM could easily get involved, but their fingers are still a burning from the Roberts fall out. Shame as the squared off Ilmor bike looks a bit like the KTM RC8 with which they may do some SBK races with!
Why didn't Kawasaki do that bike, as Eckl had initially agreed with them in the early stages? Because Team Green wanted to keep a straight four layout? Well that's total rubbish. All this 'we need to race what we sell' is tosh. Do Ducati make a V4 you can purchase? Suzuki? Do Honda make a V5? No. It doesn't matter what the layout is, people just want to buy into the brand, the image or the technology. Other manufacturers should see that it is a golden opportunity for them to buy something that is a little gem.
Ilmor have a workforce of 60 in Northampton, and a workforce in the USA of 52. These guys are busy tending to Honda's IRL effort (sole engine supplier), Team Penske's Dodge badged NASCAR engines, Formula Nippon in Japan (Japan's GP2 series). Now they designed, built and continue to service the Honda IRL engines in America, and that's quite something if you think about it. Honda, asking someone else to do their engines for them!
My knowledge of F1 and the number of how few dyed in the wool bike people have actually seen an F1 car go around Barcelona 27.2 seconds a lap faster says that the whole Ilmor MotoGP thing could be the break the whole sport needs to get rid of the Japanese stranglehold of the MSMA. Their blue-sky open mindedness could be the key for the next step for MotoGP, just as it was from 500cc to four-stroke 990cc.
Good luck Eskil and Mario and Roger Penske.
The return of Troy
Word has it that Bayliss could well be on the injured Sete Gibernau's Ducati for Valenica. With his former chief engineer running the test team, there is plenty of scope for him to get some miles in before Spain.
...and the arrival of the 800?
Now that Capirossi cannot win the title, there is the opportunity for the 800cc bike to come to Valencia and get some track time/PR. With a short straight such as there is at Valencia, coupled with the tight track, it could be a ripper of a bike to have.
At the Motegi test the bike was quicker onto the home straight by a click than the 990, and indeed at Mugello, with the works riders on board, it is now only losing 5/6kph to the 990. Up to 305kph the 800 is ahead of the 990, but then sheer horsepower takes over - and that would be just at the last yards of the straight, as pole last year by Gibernau saw him break the speed trap into the first corner at 310.2kph.
Go on Ducati – do it!
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