Estoril Review: Crystal Balls

We started the 2007 MotoGP season heralding a brand-new 800cc formula with Dani Pedrosa on a Honda as favourite, a nose ahead of Valentino Rossi's Yamaha and Loris Capirossi's Ducati. No one else was realistically within a shout,. less for maybe Marco Melandri who had a Honda on Bridgestones.

A Ducati won the first race, but it was the other one. He kept on winning too. At times it looked like it got boring, according to the nay-sayers.

Piffle.

Qatar was an thrilling race; new era, new bikes, new winner beating the master. Jerez was a bit flat. In Turkey it was good to see Elias battle through, but Pedrosa was toppled on the first lap.

In China it was exciting to watch Rossi try to outwit Casey Stoner, while at Le Mans it rained and hooligans led the race from nowhere on the grid. Plus, we had a new winner in Chris Vermeulen.

Italy was an example in how to win without the fastest bike, with Rossi engineering the bike to be quick through the corners not the straights - the opposite to what Ducati were doing.

Randy de Puniet and Sylvain Guintoli lead the French Grand Prix © DPPI

Catalunya was three riders over the line in less than 0.4s. Say no more. Donington was wet and a bit of an odd one as it wasn't as dramatic as a normal wet-fest, but Rossi did get whupped by team-mate Colin Edwards.

Assen was an example of classic Rossi, the Italian winning from 11th place on the grid. He even had a whacky colour scheme, and while the German and American races weren't thrillers, Honda finally won while their potential homegrown winner in America, Nicky Hayden, was punted off at the first corner.

Brno was a bore and Misano was too, but both Repsol Hondas were punted out at the first corner and Rossi blew up.

That left Portugal to produce a renaissance, and boy did it come up trumps. The track has only been on the schedule for eight years now, but already it's given us some cracking races.

Motorcycle fans who witnessed last year's MotoGP race at Estoril will never forget the most amazing day ever seen since Sheene and Roberts at Silverstone. Pedrosa knocked off his world championship-leading team-mate, and then Toni Elias fought through the order to win the race from 11th on the grid by just 0.002s.

It was an emotional day's racing!

In this year's race we saw a demonstration of what we all thought was going to happen from start of the season - Rossi versus Pedrosa.

Everyone was buzzing around the paddock on Sunday night, happy that all this talk of changing the tyre rule, or even one bizarre rumour about forcing the each manufacturer with four or more bikes to have to take Michelin and Bridgestone, was all rubbish. Hallelujah.

Rossi had returned from his two-race 'absence' at Brno and then Misano where he had a hollow look, worried that the world was upon him following allegations of non-payment of taxes in Italy.

He was back on form, fooling people into thinking that normal service had been resumed. Maybe it has, but Stoner will disagree with that, as the new order in MotoGP is that normal service is actually Casey Stoner winning.

His clutch faltered during the race, forcing the Aussie to temper his entry speed into corners, and neutralised an attack on Pedrosa and Rossi ahead of him. It was 'what might have been' for the red bike.

Casey Stoner © Reuters

However, the result of the race will not matter in the long run for Stoner, because it will not change the outcome of the world championship.

This weekend's race at Motegi may well be a difficult one for Stoner because of its stop-start nature; you need acceleration out of the corners.

This is something that may well play into the hands of the Hondas - who even Stoner said had some extra poke out of the slower corners way back at the Sachsenring in July.

Stoner also said earlier this week in that regards to acceleration, 'we still need to improve'. It is no secret that the 2008 Ducati's screamer engine has paid dividends, but maybe the Honda has that low down grunt for the reason that it has been tested and developed at Motegi!

Now the Bridgestones have had pole and won the race there for the past three years, so maybe a Honda on Bridgestones, as Makoto Tamada had there when winning in 2004, will be the key for Marco Melandri and Toni Elias.

All three tyre companies have had tests there in the past three weeks so there is a chance, as we saw at Estoril, that Michelin have stopped complaining about the tyre rule and have caught up with the winning ways of Stoner.

The other long-term forecast, and I never believe them too much, is that there is going to be rain over Motegi on Saturday and Sunday.

That can always going to upset the apple cart, just as Stoner did to the form book coming into the 2007 season when Rossi and Pedrosa were favourites.