THIRD?!
I can’t believe it! Valentino came third to 31 year old Yamaha team mate Colin Edwards and 23 year old Nicky Hayden from Repsol Honda!!!
From the very beginning Nicky was doing well at Laguna Seca, starting from poll position and beating Valentino around the 115.5km track by 0.354 in qualifying then by leading the warm up with Valentino in position 7.
Valentino followed the 23 year old American (Nicky’s from Kentucky) around the circuit for 15 laps but on the sixteenth, Colin (from Texas) got past Rossi on the corkscrew.
Barros (3rd on the starting grid) and Melandri (11th on the grid) were never going to be a problem-they got tangled not long into the race and crashed.
Neither Hayden nor Edwards have won a GP before, but Edwards has had two thirds this season (one in Le Mans the other in Dutch TT) and Hayden has had 4 podiums in his whole career.
For Vale, he was the only competitor in the top 8 qualifiers who has never raced at Laguna Seca, and as he said:
“…I have never ridden here before so I am very happy…” (with coming third)
Valentino really had to learn the track on Friday and had made a big improvement by Saturday.
On the track Valentino said:
“It is a very particular circuit, compared to any other that I’ve been to in the world championship & as a result, you have to have the settings on the bike quite particular to deal with it as well.”
“The track is difficult, it’s a strange track, old style. The Corkscrew is good, yeah it’s not too bad. Unfortunately for me it’s too dangerous for our bike. We’ve had some problems, this morning was good but this afternoon we tried something that was quite bad for the setting – so we need to improve tomorrow.”
He also said that he critically thought they would make more gains in the morning warm up.
Winning 6/8 races so far this season and with a 79 point lead ahead of Melandri and Biaggi, means that if Vale decided he didn’t want to race for three more races (as if) or crashed (very unlikely) then he would still be in the lead (no wonder he didn’t look depressed! LOL)
The commentators were all saying that they thought Valentino wasn’t giving it 100% and that he didn’t look as aggressive as usual. They also commented that he looked like he was riding like everyone else and wasn’t that three, four tenths ahead of them.
So, just to clarify that, they basically were saying that Valentino rode like a human, not his super-powered self! Oh well, everyone has off days!
You look at those standings/results and wonder why some of those riders turn up at all? Like David and Carlos Checa! The only thing Carlos will be winning is the ‘most consecutive crashes’ (with all due respect to the guy-he might be really nice and everything, but he does always crash, and it’s not like if he didn’t turn up to a race it would be noticeable!)Look at Valentino’s two ‘competitors’-Alex Barros and Nicky Hayden they are the only two to win a race apart from him- OUT OF SEVEN RACES!!! And in the championship standings they’re 101 and 112 points behind him! Then there’s Melandri, who Valentino said could be competition in future races (he said it in an interview with Australian TV show RPM before the Dutch TT), he might be able to ride, but he’s 79 points behind Vale and, personally, I think Melandri just isn’t consistent enough! (I don’t think anyone is consistent enough to beat Rossi-LOL)
But, if Valentino tipped him as competition…well, everyone knows you ignore what Vale says at your own peril…
I’m going to follow in Vale’s suit and congratulate Nicky-after all, he just won his first ever GP and it was in his home country! It was a great race, as Vale said. So, congratulations Nicky and be prepared to get your butt kicked from now on, cos now Valentino’s seen what you’re made of…well, lets just say I don’t think you’ll be winning for a while…
Oh well, It won’t just be your butt Vale will kick in round 9 at Donnington Park, so don’t feel too bad!
