It's three hours after the race here in the Laguna Seca press office, and my chest still hurts from a quite incredible race. Just where in heaven's name did that come from?!
Ducati and Casey Stoner had the US GP won on Friday morning. End of story. Or so we thought. We had stupidly forgotten the genius that is Valentino Rossi and the brains of Yamaha's Jerry Burgess to outwit an Aussie on a faster bike.
I should have remembered the words of Joe Skidd, the Ohlins suspension technician for Rossi when he was at Aprilia 250 back in 1999: "Sometimes we'd sit down on Saturday night and really not have a clue where we were going to find the lap time for the race the next day. We'd sort of chuck a setting in and just know that Valentino would do the rest."
![]() Loris Capirossi leads Valentino Rossi in the 1999 250cc Dutch TT at Assen © DPPI |
Last Sunday at Laguna was one of those days, and to a massive degree.