Now that the dust has settled after the championship-opening MotoGP round at Suzuka things are becoming much clearer.
Valentino Rossi and Honda have proved that their successes haven’t made them complacent. Ducati has made it clear to all that they don’t intend taking a year or two to settle down in the premier class of motorcycle racing, and the riders who made the transition from World Superbike racing to MotoGP now have an idea of just how tough it’s going to be to win in a class where almost half of the competitors have won world championships in one class or another on their trek to the top. And the death of Japanese superstar Daijiro Kato last weekend, following his crash at Suzuka, has served as a reminder that this can be a lethal sport.
Whatever happens on Sunday, there’s no doubt that the Italians are going to stamp their mark on the proceedings. Reigning champion Rossi wants to win because, well, he can, and he knows it. Loris Capirossi will ride his heart out to improve upon his third place in Japan because he very badly wants to make a further point for himself, Italy and Ducati.
Max Biaggi simply regards a victory by anybody else as a huge personal affront. Especially if the rider in front of him is Rossi, who he regards as his own personal anti-Christ.
Biaggi claimed to be satisfied with the second place he took behind Rossi at Suzuka, but, like most of us, he lies a little when he has to.
Another factor in favour of the Mafiosi is that all three, who between them have 12 world-championship titles, have shaped well at Phakisa before.
Biaggi won the 500cc GP there in 1999, while Capirossi has finished on the podium in his past three appearances here. Rossi won the 250 GP in 1999, swept to victory in the 500cc class in 2001 and was narrowly beaten into second place by team-mate Tohru Ukawa in the inaugural 1 000cc four-stroke class last year.
But racing is always unpredictable, and there are a lot of supremely talented young men out there with immense balls and huge egos who all rightly see themselves as potential race winners. In the three weeks since Suzuka their teams have been working flat-out to give them the tools for the job.
2001 World Superbike champion Troy Bayliss said that he hadn’t really come to grips with the handling of his works Ducati in Japan, where he still achieved an impressive fifth place, and he and Capirossi have been experimenting with various frame and suspension modifications to improve things.
Yamaha has given their two top riders, Carlos Checa and Alex Barros, new frames to try at Welkom, and their team manager says that during preliminary testing at Suzuka after the last GP they believed that traction, braking and handling predictability were all improved. That could be significant at Phakisa, where the hot, dry conditions often lead to a dusty track and poor grip.
Whoever wins on Sunday, one thing’s for sure. Spectators are in for an audio treat. Last year, the first time that four-stroke machines had been seen in GP racing for three decades, the regulations limited the decibel levels emitted by the machines to a disappointing level. Now sanity has prevailed and the fans will get what they really want — the glorious sound of 220 horsepower multi-cylinder motorcycles at full cry!