Opinion

Testing the 2012 MotoGP bikes, when the series ups its capacity limit to 1000cc once again, has raised more questions than it has answered for the media and fans trying to follow the series. The first public test at Brno saw some promising results, with the Hondas and Yamahas fairly evenly matched, and the 1000cc bikes between 0.5 to 1 second faster than the 800s. But Brno has been the only public test, the others all being held behind closed doors - though journalists were present at the Misano test, that one being declared a private test only at the last minute when Honda and Ducati pulled out, leaving the track to Yamaha.

The times from the private tests have been much harder to track down, and though rumors have emerged from all sorts of sources, both verification or official confirmation have been absent. Journalists have been left to cast out their nets among their sources and try to make sense of the numbers being returned. It basically boils down to sifting through the times, and hazarding a guess as to which might be reliable and which are completely off base. 

The biggest source of controversy - probably because these are the most significant numbers for the 2012 season - have been the times from Honda's 1000cc test with Casey Stoner back in May of this year at Jerez, and Ducati's recent test of the brand new aluminium twin spar chassis which Valentino Rossi put through its paces at Jerez just over a week ago. Initial reports suggested that Rossi had been running 1'39s, closely matching Stoner's pace. But that assumes that Stoner was also running 1'39s at Jerez during the test, and paddock rumor has it that Stoner was running a good deal faster than that during his test earlier in May. Two seconds, was the figure most commonly quoted, and rumored to be accurate. 

When Dani Pedrosa finally returns to the MotoGP paddock, he is in for a very rough ride. Pedrosa's injury has been shrouded mystery - at least, it has been since he was photographed at a bowling alley in Barcelona, only to announce he would be missing his home race at Montmelo, just a few miles away, a couple of days later. Rumors that he had reinjured his collarbone in a training accident - possibly involving a supermoto bike - emerged on the Spanish website Motocuatro.com in the days between the Barcelona and Silverstone rounds of MotoGP, fueled further when it was announced that Pedrosa would have yet more surgery to fix a loose piece of bone in his collarbone after Silverstone.

Naturally, the press - and most especially, the Spanish section of it - are chomping at the bit to speak to Pedrosa. They are determined to get to the bottom of this intrigue, and the Spaniard will face a barrage of questions in every one of the press briefings he attends. Doubtless the Repsol Honda team will organize an extra press conference on Thursday to handle most of the questions, but the answers he gives there will be subjected to intense scrutiny overnight, and revised versions of the questions then put to Pedrosa the next day, a process which will repeat every day until Sunday night, when the Spaniard is likely to fly home to Barcelona. Any hopes of being able to concentrate on racing are surely in vain.

Marco Simoncelli is probably the most exciting rider in MotoGP at the moment. Obviously, his physical presence - tall, lanky, with an enormous and tangled bush of hair atop his head - helps him stand out from the crowd, but it is his riding which has endeared him to the fans. The boy is fast, utterly fearless and willing to fight for every inch of the track. Simoncelli stands aside for no man, which means that at any time, at any track, he can pull the most astonishing moves to try and either defend his position or snatch a place from out of the blue. The fans love it.

The riders, not so much. That impetuousness, seizing the first hint of a gap as soon as it opens, and opening it by force if necessary, has not made him very popular with the remainder of the MotoGP field. Simoncelli, they say, is a wildcard, a rider who is so unpredictable that they don't feel comfortable racing in close proximity with him. The kind of fairing-bashing action that leaves tire marks all over leathers may make Simoncelli a favorite with the fans, but having to deal with it at 300 km/h while manhandling a MotoGP bike around is not an enjoyable experience.

After a three week hiatus, The World Superbike series returns to action at  the Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit at Imola, the third race of the year on Italian soil. The Ferrari circuit  is a veritable roller coaster ride, with near-constant elevation changes and a plethora of challenging corners, both fast and slow. On the line this weekend is no less than the whole ball of wax; the championship itself. Imola has been the site of deciding battles for the title in World Superbikes before, the most notable being the epic two-race slugfest in 2002 between Colin Edwards and Troy Bayliss, but this year's race(s) will be a different kind of struggle.

Points leader Max Biaggi won't have the perverse luxury of being able to let it all hang out like Edwards and Bayliss and must keep an eye on the leaderboard and still ride hard enough to make a good showing on the day. In order to take the crown at Imola, Biaggi doesn't have to necessarily beat the only other rider with a shot at the title, Alstare Suzuki's Leon Haslam, but he does have to keep him from taking 8 points away from the Roman Emperor's 58 point cushion.  Most importantly, Biaggi can't crash or finish very far down the order, thereby giving Haslam a shot at the final race of the year at Magny-Cours.