It’s a standard joke in our family that, if we see a car pulled up on the side of the road with the bonnet up, someone will say, “Gallon of petrol and a match, mate.” and everyone laughs. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Lada or a Lamborghini, the ripost is always the same.
Looking at Rossi trudging away from the Ducati at Laguna Seca on the weekend with a “What the hell happened there?” look on his face reminded me of this family joke. The body language said it all; head down, totally dispirited.
It seems that the latter part of this decade is going to be remembered most for the fact that there was only ever one rider who could tame the tempestuous Italian and that was Casey Stoner. And, before we get all emotional and full of pity for Rossi, let’s remember that he chose to GO to Ducati, knowing full well the bike’s evil reputation and its career-ending potential. It was his ego and his self-belief that, between them, Jeremy Burgess and he could do what no-one else could do that drove him to put his signature on the line. As someone said this morning, “He made the bed, now he has to lie in it.”
It seems, however, that neither his riding brilliance or Burgess’s engineering brilliance will be enough. In the next couple of weeks, Rossi will make his decision about whether to accept a smaller wage to continue racing the Duc or go somewhere else, assuming there is somewhere else for him to go.
All the speculation at the moment seems to be that he will return to Yamaha, even Jorge Lorenzo saying that it would be good for the team and that, if Rossi were to return, the infamous “wall” would not be re-erected.
In the mean time, Ducati seem determined to continue on their blinkered way, determined to prove to everyone that the bike CAN be a winner. There is talk of a “junior” team with Ducati drafting in Moto2 regulars, Andrea Iannone and Scott Redding to crew and help with development. For the sake of both of these excellent youngsters, I hope they knock back the offer.
And, speaking of Yamaha, Ben Spies’s departure from the race on Sunday with a “broken swingarm” has caused the conspiracy theorists (mostly American, to nobody’s great surprise) to shift into top gear with suggestions of “sabotage” of Spies’s efforts this season. Quite how anyone with any intelligence can believe this is beyond me, but you believe what you want to, I guess. The fact is that Spies has just failed to step up and he’s paid for that with his position at the team. Despite his protestations that he was the one who chose to leave, it seems clear that he was asked to and given the chance to leave with good grace, which he has really failed to do. Some are speculating that it has been the often abrasive presence of Spies’s mother in his camp that has turned the team against him. If this is a possibility then he, himself is to blame because many people did advise him to leave her at home if he wanted his career to progress.
So, where to for Spies? Informed sources at the moment say that, if not today, tomorrow, he will ink a contract to return to WSBK with BMW to partner Marco Melandri. His skill set will certainly fit in better there, but a word of advice, Ben. If you thought the Yamaha people didn’t like being told what to do by your mum, the German BMW overlords will get tired of it even quicker. Buy her a one-way ticket back to Texas, mate.
In the mean time, Stoner got on with doing what he does best, winning races, choosing the soft tyre, conserving the rubber and then pouncing on Lorenzo when Jorge’s tyre started to wear. great tactical riding. The gap is still 32 points but championships have been won for a worse deficit than this.
On Saturday my brother and I did a run to Batemans Bay and back with a quick scamper to the top of the Clyde thrown in. The weather was great, the roads were comparatively deserted and it was a great day to be out and about.