Analysis

If you want to know what the attendance at a racetrack is, you have two options, the official channel, and the unofficial one. If you want the official tally, you have to wait until Sunday, when the circuit, together with Dorna, publish the number of spectators over the three days of the track. Those numbers are based on ticket sales, though how precisely they are reflect the numbers at the track is a frequent topic of speculation.

If you want a more accurate assessment of how busy a track is, then the best thing to do is to canvas a few of the regular photographers who shoot MotoGP. They spend all day wandering around the track, seeing most of the grandstands and hillsides which overlook the circuit. A trained eye for detail and an excellent memory are key assets for a professional photographer, so they generally have a pretty good idea of how many people are at the track. Their estimates are usually much more accurate than the official numbers, and can differ by a surprisingly large amount from them.

So when several photographers report that the hillsides at Mugello seem emptier again this year, then it would appear that MotoGP has a problem. And given the nature of MotoGP's audience in recent years, that problem has one major cause.

Due to technical issues (internet connection problems in the accommodation we are staying in at Mugello), Thursday's round up is late, for which you have our sincere apologies. We hope you will bear with us through this.

MotoGP rolls into Mugello with what looks like being the hottest weekend of the year ahead of it. And from the events of the first day, that's hottest in every conceivable sense of the word.

That this is going to be something special came as we rolled into the car park at the spectacularly situated Italian circuit. Where normally, Thursday afternoons are a relatively quiet affair, the paddock was bustling with people and the paddock car parks were filling up quickly. Valentino Rossi riding a Ducati is a big deal anywhere, but at Mugello, it is something akin to seeing the Beatles in the Cavern Club or Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. Crowds have been down at every track so far this season - economies around the world continue to suffer - but Mugello could be on course for a record attendance.

Saturday's MotoGP race was either a real snoozer or a fantastic spectacle, depending on your point of view. For the racing purist, the kind of fan who appreciates seeing masterful riding, watching someone push the bike to the limit constantly and precisely for full race distance, there was plenty to marvel at. For the casual fan, someone who wants to watch several riders giving it their all in a close battle right to the end, it was dull as ditch water, the first-lap crash giving ultimate winner Ben Spies a gap that he could exploit, and one more pass for the podium positions on lap two settling the race.

If you're a Ben Spies fan - and there are plenty of them, including quite a few recent converts after the Texan proved himself first in World Superbikes, then in the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha team - then Assen was a race to treasure, Spies seizing the bull by the horns and dominating the race from the off. Spies had a strategy for those first few corners - push as hard as possible through the right-hander Haarbocht, Madijk, and Ossebroeken corners so that he would be safe from attack at the first left hander of the track, the horribly tight Strubben hairpin - which worked perfectly and turned out to be highly prescient. Once Spies had a lead he pushed to build up a cushion, then watched the gap to the chasing Casey Stoner, responding as and when necessary.

While much of the focus at Assen this weekend has been on how different Valentino Rossi's new Ducati Desmosdici (dubbed the GP11.1) is from it predecessor, the GP11, perhaps the more intriguing question is how close the GP11.1 is to the GP12. The differences between the GP11 that Rossi was riding two weeks' ago at Silverstone and the GP11.1 he has at Assen are huge: when asked by reporters what parts from the GP11 were used for the GP11.1, Ducati team boss (and head of the test team) Vito Guareschi reeled off a very short list: "The wheels, the brakes and the front forks." Everything else, he said, was different.

The GP12, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish altogether. The difference between the 2012 machine tested by Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi last week at Mugello and the 2011 machine which Rossi is riding this weekend is just two parts: a modified crankshaft to give the engine a shorter stroke, bringing it inside the 800cc maximum capacity, and longer conrods to fit the relocated crankpins. Everything else, Guareschi revealed, was identical, the bike being an adaptation of the GP12 which Rossi had tested and been so pleased with at the Jerez test.