Estoril Review: The Golden Child

I will never forget when I was doing some rallying coverage for Eurosport some years ago, on the weekend when Marcus Gronholm scored his first-ever WRC win on the slippery Swedish Rally in 2000.

He came into the service area to cheers from the crowd before emerging out of his car to even louder Gallic cheers from his crew. Reporters were hesitating while the hugging was going on, but I piled in and got the first question in.

"You've won your first rally, but can you do it now?" Gronholm knew exactly what I meant but was polite in his answer, saying that 'We'll see how the season goes, blah blah blah ...'

Marcus Gronholm at the 2000 Rally Sweden © LAT

He won the world title that year.

I saw Jorge Lorenzo in the paddock after the Portuguese race on Sunday evening. Just him, with a friend. I shook his hand and made sure I repeated to him what I'd said on air when he came across the line.

He smiled and gave me an even stronger handshake, his eyes glinting even from underneath his sunglasses. He knew exactly what I meant with regards to him being a real contender for winning this year's MotoGP title.

That means that in MotoGP, we have got another Alonso/Hamilton situation on our hands here - Pedrosa must be thinking he might just be Raikkonen ...

Lorenzo can really do it. After the three races, three podiums including a win on only his third race. Just incredible.

How can he do it? Yes, because he's thrown the record books out of the window with those stats so far this year. Stoner did the same thing to the stats this time last year, eventually going on to win the title, but the reason Lorenzo can do it is simple.

It has nothing to do with the tyres, a bit to do with the bike and a lot to do with him. The Michelins are good because Valentino Rossi left them in a set of terribly orchestrated circumstances that are backfiring on him at present.

He left Clermont Ferrand full of engineers with nothing to do after their withdrawal from the WRC and F1, meaning that there are many new faces in the MotoGP paddock wearing blue and yellow.

That also left the chief Michelin engineer for Rossi, Pierre Alves, free of duties in the No.46 garage and therefore available to use all of the Yamaha Michelin data with the young Jorge.

Plus, there is the fact that Yamaha has now got possibly the strongest package as a manufacturer that we have ever seen in MotoGP because it had four bikes inside the top seven last weekend, and all with very strong riders.

Obviously Honda had massive strength at the height of its 990cc years, but there was only Rossi who had the realistic possibility to actually win the title, much as Sete Gibernau pushed him.

Jorge Lorenzo passes Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi for the lead in Estoril © DPPI

The difference this year is that Yamaha has got two riders who can realistically win the title, something that was never the case with Rossi/Ukawa, Rossi/Hayden, Barros/Hayden, Biaggi/Hayden. This year's works Honda line-up is strong, but is it as even as the FIAT Yamaha line-up? I think not.

It is easy to say that the younger riders such as Lorenzo are having an easier time in MotoGP over the Biaggis and the Rossis who arrived on 500s, let alone the Gardners and the Schwantzs who won on the most evil creatures ever hewn from metal. But the principal of racing stays the same; get the most out of the machine that is available to you.

If technology was the deciding factor in racing then bikes would line up on the grid two by two, but with a MotoGP bike the rider makes more of a difference, something that was demonstrated by Rossi when he jumped onto the Yamaha in 2004. He won races and two titles while not on the best bike, and it may well be that Lorenzo is about to do the same.

The slow-mo shown of Rossi and Lorenzo shaking hands in the Estoril parc ferme was wooden and in danger of, as I said earlier, turning into something similar to the McLaren nightmare of 2007.

Dear God above, I hope that it doesn't as the pair of them are better than that, and the sport does not need to get wrapped up in messy tit-for-tat politics. Yamaha and Dorna need to be on top of this now, already baking a cake for the possibilities of meltdown.

And besides, Bridgestone is yet to fight back, and that may push Lorenzo even further up the road if Rossi gets into his stride. But what has Lorenzo got left? What about Honda, with its air valve engine? When is it going to appear and blow everyone into the weeds?

In the meantime, Pedrosa and Rossi must be praying for rain as it seems the only way to slow him down, while Stoner must have wondered what the hell happened. They all must think they have Alonso's luck from 2007.

Roll on China, roll on what is going to be a fantastic season, but most of all roll on a clean fight to the finish.

Sport on TV

I tuned into some brand-new coverage of an established motorsport in January only to be treated with the 'now this is a such-and-such-a-car and it goes very quickly'.

This was followed by an annoying lesson from the presenter on where the country was situated in Europe, a country to which I have driven in less than a day from my own UK base.

Then the lessons started on what the cars are like, where the engine goes and how fast they go.

Randy Mamola interviews Valentino Rossi on the grid © DPPI

Off button

I didn't finish watching the broadcast after muttering things at the screen, leaving me now of a mind that there are now two types of coverage of motorsport; hardcore petrol heads such as the person reading this article, and the 'floating viewer' who thinks Valentino Rossi rides that 'Supers-bikes thing' and that the RAC Rally still goes to Chatsworth.

Sport on TV is an emotive subject, particularly with its commentary, and I am one of the few who can comment on what it is like to hear what people think about how a sport should be purveyed.

What is interesting is that with the raft of channels available on the Sky Digital platform in the UK (how many channels are there now?) sports rights holders have got outlets on which they can send the 'hardcore petrol head' programmes to.

It is essential that big TV channels such as TVE (Spain), Media Set (Italy) and the BBC (UK) give MotoGP coverage, but in this day and age with technology making things easier to do anything in life, the set-top digital box makes sports fans almost spoilt for choice, and that's before we've come over to the internet, podcasts, and forums.

Having come from a four-wheeled up-bringing, what immediately struck me was the knowledge of the average bike Grand Prix punter. There is massive awareness of the product they're watching because they can go out and buy a Kawasaki, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha or Ducati and truly have a part of that bike very recently developed on the MotoGP circuit within their own machine.

The car manufacturers do this too on a car like a Ferrari Enzo (£250,000) or a BMW M5 (£65,000) but the bikers can get hold of a new Ducati 1098S for £14,000 or a new Honda CBR1000 Fireblade for £9,000.

Both bikes will break any national speed limit in first gear and lap Donington within 15 seconds of Valentino Rossi's MotoGP pole position.

I can't easily lay my hands on any car that will lap Silverstone within 30 seconds, or maybe even a minute, of Lewis Hamilton's pole last year, let alone be able to walk down to the nearest car dealership and drive it home this afternoon.

Bike fans know their Ohlins from their Brembos from their radially-mounted calipers from their twin-compound rears. You are the people who buy the bikes and the product from the manufacturers going around the MotoGP tracks.

You, the modern day bike fan, have a raft of TV available where you can absorb either middle of the road or hardcore in-yer-face action, and MotoGP has just this where many other major sports do not. Enjoy it.