Jerez Review: Bases Uncovered

Don't drop the basket if it's full of eggs. Sometimes you need a back-up plan.

Honda said after Valentino Rossi left at the end of 2003 that they would make a better motorcycle in order to beat the man who had the temerity to leave HRC for Yamaha, which had hardly won much in ages.

It was very bold and very Honda; exactly what we like about them. Trouble is, Valentino went and won the first race of the next season, proceeding to a tally of nine wins from seventeen races that year, nearly equalling the eleven wins that Yamaha had got from the previous four seasons.

HRC, and indeed us with a perspective on the sport, are still reeling.

The 2008 Repsol Honda RC212V of Dani Pedrosa © DPPI

Honda fought back with the odd-ball V5 Evo of 2006 underneath Nicky Hayden. It frustrated the hell out of him, but it did take him to a world championship. As Kenny Roberts Sr says, "you never get gifted a race win let alone a world title."

Hayden worked harder on that bike than many of us realised at the time. Only now is the long view of hindsight showing what a stunning job he did.

But the age of 125 and 250 super kids was already upon us. Daijiro Kato had got onto a V5 at Brno in 2003, putting it straight onto the podium in second place, but we only saw him for seven races on a four stroke before he died at Suzuka, the first race of 2003.

Dani Pedrosa was equally as tiny and essentially the next Kato in the eyes of HRC. It was simple - there's weight penalty with the jockey who is 49 kilos. Riders of that size are an engineers dream. His team-mate Nicky Hayden was 20kg heavier and riding the same bike.

They went to town with the anticipation of the new 800cc rules, and you can't blame them for relishing the chance at getting the title back fair and square with Pedrosa after he won his fourth-ever MotoGP race at China in 2006. Things were looking rather good.

The 800cc bike came out and the magazines went to town, saying it was a bike built for the smaller Pedrosa over the more normal-sized Hayden. But it didn't win a race, being beaten all the way until mid-July at the Sachsenring when Pedrosa blew them all away.

That was a race that suited the Michelins, no different from other places being suited towards the Bridgestones, but a tyre race nonetheless.

Pole positions at the end of the season were the things that should have happened at the start of the year, but bad luck had intervened for the little guy with accidents in Turkey and Misano not being of his doing.

Indeed, Pedrosa had won the Motegi race on Friday lunchtime, only for it to rain on race day and dampen a firework that was now getting angry at having just one race win to his name at that point in time.

He won at the last 2007 round in Valencia by a mile, spelling out a brilliant 'what if' just before the winter got underway.

Dani Pedrosa leads Casey Stoner to victory in the 2007 Grand Prix of Valencia © DPPI

But then at the test in Sepang in November there was no Pedrosa because 'there was nothing to test' from either Honda or Michelin. What was the point in risking oneself for nowt? He could have had a point, but Hayden thought otherwise and barreled around for hours ...

The testing ban kicked in on December 1st through to January 20th, with riders kicking the door down to get into Sepang for the first chance to blast the Christmas turkey off at the end of January. Before the end of the day Pedrosa was in hospital with a broken hand after slamming down hard onto the tarmac.

And to cheer him up it was his right hand, too.

He had tested for one day as the rest of the big hitters tested and tested, twice in Malaysia and once in Australia including a wet morning in Australia to hone those wet weather riding senses that, as Sylvain Guintoli says, "enable you to just push and push without the fear of losing points."

Grand Prix Zero at Jerez got underway two weeks ago and Pedrosa was on a bike for the very first time in nearly a month, riding bravely with a plate still in his right hand, small dressings just covering the scars that will soon be opened in order to get the scrap metal out when it all stops wobbling inside.

I felt for the guy, as the pressure upon his shoulders must not only be crushing through being a Spaniard in Spain with a Spanish sponsor, but he also knows darn well he could have won more races last year. That carries over to this year, not just to assert Honda's way over the rest, but assert his own. Important, that ...

Incredibly Honda has still not decided whether or not it is going to risk running its pneumatic engine while Michelin has new tyres to throw at people as they fight back from being stung by Rossi leaving them, just as he had done to Honda.

But all of this is while their golden child has got an injured hand that gives jolts of pain about which we can only imagine.

The new-for-2008 Honda V4 bike is proper prototype porn. There are no off-the-shelf parts, no bits from the bin and no botching. Seeing it on Saturday with its fairing off, being warmed up in the pitlane at Jerez, made the hairs stand up on the back of bits I didn't know had hair.

The bike is made with one thing in mind, and that's getting that title back from not just Stoner and Ducati, but from Rossi and his Italian mates in the uno-moto FIAT Yamaha garage. Winning it with Hayden was not enough for the Japanese. It must be done with Pedrosa.

But the trouble is that Stoner and Ducati got their stars aligned and stunned the paddock last year. Some said that they knew it was going to happen from round six. Rubbish.

Casey Stoner © DPPI

Everyone got trounced by the spikey haired, slightly nervous eyed kid from Australia. That left series favourites Rossi and Pedrosa behind the eight-ball and looking to get in the mix again for 2008.

Rossi got his own way by stamping his foot hard enough to get the Bridgestones while Pedrosa, and indeed Hayden, said that they would be happy to go to Bridgestones one minute ... but were then being forced to stay with Michelin the next.

Then within four races at the end of last year the Honda/Pedrosa/Michelin triangle got very strong indeed, with four pole positions.

It was all lined up for the season until Dani crashed at Sepang in January, leaving Pedrosa to have tested for one day fully fit from twelve testing days so far this year. Rossi alone did 98 laps at Jerez on the Friday before last. In a grid decided by hundredths, giving time away to others like that is huge.

What surprises me is that there doesn't seem to be an immediate back-up plan for big red. There was in the past, with lots of bikes and people like Alex Barros, Sete Gibernau, Loris Capirossi and Marco Melandri, who were there to win races and run second in the championship only to Rossi.

I've had my differences with the Pedrosa camp over the years, but is it a bit unfair of Honda to put him under such pressure, bad luck aside with this current injury?

I wish him well as I want to see him ride a bike like only the uber-good can, and there is nothing better to see than a race with the uber-good such as we had in Barcelona last year, but when you put all your eggs in one basket things can go wrong.

Maybe Andrea Dovizioso or Alex de Angelis will get some parts sooner rather than later to cover for the hole that Pedrosa might make if his hand is not ready for some races yet?

Is that a back-up plan?