Phillip Island Review: Revenge of the Nerds

Overlooked and square, he didn't hang out with the trendy guys and was always behind the 8-ball. We all knew one of those kids at school, didn't we?

And now they pop up at friend's weddings and parties and they've made it big-time with something that makes you sit up and think, 'fair play'.

That's what seems to be happening with quite a few rides at the moment in various classes in Grand Prix motorcycle racing. A prime example is Anthony West, who started the year tugging around on a bike that qualified second-last at the weekend in Australia.

Ant West © DPPI

After winning two World Supersport rounds at Silverstone and Misano midway through the season, he then got the stand-in ride on the second Kawasaki after Olivier Jacque fell in Barcelona.

West tested the bike the day after, and got the ride for the remainder of the season at Assen - the venue of his 250cc wet weather victory in 2003.

Then there is Chaz Davies, who has finally got a MotoGP ride for the remaining three races of the season on the D'Antin Ducati after they fell out with German Alex Hofmann in Portugal.

Davies, naturally a little shy and reticent, was never going to be anything but a sail in the wind on a 250 bike - his long legs and inherent ability to have an advantage with leverage was always destined to be a bigger bike rider.

It was heartening to see the 20-year-old being badgered for autographs by the hugely knowledgeable Aussie fans all around the paddock, or the edge of the car park where some legions had cleverly placed themselves to 'autograph-jack' their heroes.

Britain's Dan Linfoot was unceremoniously hoofed out of the Sicilia 250 team after he'd just risked his life and limb through the Japanese GP. They are now onto their third rider of the season after West, Linfoot and now Federico Sandi who qualified second-last at Phillip Island last Saturday.

Amazing how perception changes people's minds when deciding their slots for next year, but thank goodness some teams are not proud when it comes to picking people for their bikes.

Remember how Casey Stoner was fourth in line for the Ducati ride this year, and has now romped the 2007 MotoGP World Championship with nine wins from 16 races. And still there are two races remaining for him to blitz and get eleven wins from eighteen. Inspiring stuff for young riders out there...

Usually the younger lot of 250 riders haven't properly hurt themselves and have no concept of what it was like to dump the clutch off the line on a 990cc bike, babying the lever all the way up to 100 mph plus.

If they can play PlayStation, have a decent engine, get on with the team, have a bit of a swagger and have huge balls, then they usually do well.

Michelin tyres of Valentino Rossi © DPPI

And of course it works the other way. Some people deserve to get their chance, and others have had their time and need to move on to make way for the next crop of whipper snappers to come through.

Places are becoming available in the MotoGP class next year, with Carlos Checa, Alex Barros, maybe two Team Roberts bikes and, at the time of writing, perhaps a Gresini bike if it doesn't go to Toni Elias or Shinya Nakano.

So, Valentino Rossi is going to get Bridgestones in the tremendously fickle and trendy world that is MotoGP? Wanting what the next person has got because he is beating you is natural for racers. Want, want, want is a mantra, even if it was designed for another bike and that that team/rider/bike/tyre combination have just got it right through millions of man hours.

If only it were that simple, to just bolt on winning tyres and then go to the grid. We'd all be world champions if it were that easy.

Bridgestone may well take half a year to get a tyre that suits Rossi. The are all tailor-made to each rider. What may actually happen is that instead of 31 tyres being allowed for each rider for the weekend, there may be, say, 40 and that could let teams take two or three extra rears.

That might enable Michelin to make their tyres suit a wider range of conditions for race day, and so covering themselves for all weather possibilities, and therefore having a chance to get back up to the sharp end.

Yamaha may look a little weak in potentially capitulating to an employee - I repeat, employee, in his final year of a contract - who has not been at the height of his powers for the past two years.

But maybe there is another twist to this that is actually quite a clever wheeze, and that's Yamaha's hiring of Jorge Lorenzo for 2008, the soon to be two-time 250cc World Champion.

Rossi has hardly been pushed to break sweat by teammate Colin Edwards, who occaisionally gets a pole and a podium, but is doing the supreme number two job in doing as he's told, being a PR dream and taking the money without complaining.

Yamaha will have to go a long way before they find another one like him but instead they have got Lorenzo, who has been groomed from the year dot to be a world champion. His father even wrote a book about doing it after Alex Criville became Spain's first premier class champion in 1999.

2006 250cc World Champion Jorge Lorenzo © DPPI

But actually, Yamaha may well have given Rossi the hurry-up regardless of what tyres he takes into 2008. The Japanese have stuck an invisible rocket up number 46 in order to get their last year's moneys worth out of the Italian by hiring Lorenzo, who has already won the same number of 250cc GPs in a season than Rossi did in 1999 - and there are two races left.

Rossi may well be fashionable and trendy by going with the flow in taking Bridgestones, but if it all goes wrong and he gets beaten by his teammate, it will all go very wrong.

Rossi has never been beaten by any teammate. Ever. Because like Michael Schumacher, he's had easy teammates to beat.

Well done Yamaha for being a little bit geeky, and always behind the eight-ball since Wayne Rainey won the title in 1992. But then Rossi signed for you and you were trendy again as you beat the all-powerful Honda.

Now on the wane following Ducati's dominance, the only way to try and beat Bologna is to get the fastest man in 250 on board, and while Honda are down, he may well beat Dani Pedrosa's Honda to the title.

Now that would be the stuff of heroes, and something that nobody has thought of - just as we didn't see Casey Stoner coming through to win the 2007 MotoGP title...