MotoGP Special Column - Toby Moody Looks AheadTo The Most Eagerly Anticipated Season Yet
21/01/2008
The 2008 season looks to be a cracker. It’s easy for people to say that that, but it really looks like it will be. 2007, as we know, was dominated by Casey Stoner and Ducati as they swept all before them during a season in which new 800cc engine rules saw the Bologna team hit the ground running.
Over and above that, the rules also changed massively in the shape of just one little litre of fuel and a restriction on tyre usage of 14 fronts and 17 rears throughout a weekend, agreed by all the manufacturers before the season got underway.
The drop from 22 to 21 litres got the engineers in all major camps worried from the word go, but few talked about it as smaller capacity engine (minus 190cc from the 2006 season) would actually rev higher and therefore use more fuel than before.
Ducati got the jump last year with 11 victories from 18 races. Impressive numbers - but now the hard part. Others naturally catch up, but can they overtake the red bikes? Well, a chap called Valentino Rossi is going to give it everything he’s got in order to do it.
Experience with a tyre manufacturer many believe is rightly crucial, but now into the 2008 season, Valentino Rossi is widening his engineering experience to Bridgestone tyres.
He will be the only Yamaha on Bridgestones, but his sheer skill and ability on a motorcycle will shine through helped by the clarity of vision that his engineer Jerry Burgess possesses. The pair of them are not stupid - five MotoGP world titles says as such.
It is going to be fascinating to see if Rossi can ‘do it again’ after he left Honda in a huff at the end of 2003, going straight to Yamaha and winning the very first race with them, and the two titles to boot.
Casey Stoner is a hell of a rider and if anyone has sheer determination at the moment it is he. He may well be the least worried person at Ducati at the moment as he genuinely has an inner belief that he is the best and how dare anyone else get in the way of him.
His age and freshness means he has more fight some would say than Rossi who is entering his 13th year of racing. Airports are very dreary after 13 years.
If Stoner can win the first three or four races, I believe he will not be seen for dust. If he gets beaten on an even playing field, then he may check pace before running at top speed again, but it would mean a hell of a start from another rider for that to happen. That rider may well be Dani Pedrosa on his Honda. If he isn’t, there is something wrong with the karma in his house.
He won the last race of 2007 by a mile as he began to get the oddball Honda of the year sorted. If that is carried over into 2008 he will be quick. He is annoyed at only winning two races last year as he should have been a title contender, but with hindsight, no-one was going to beat Stoner to the title. Yes, Pedrosa was second in the championship, but 125 points back is 5 clear race wins worth of difference.
Kawasaki is really going places now it has John Hopkins on board. Now a ‘regular’ podium man, he now has a win in his sights. The money is there and the infrastructure is really appearing to work. The good thing is that the quiet guy will keep John working hard.
Anthony West doesn’t say much, but on a bike he’s brilliant. World Champion he may never be, but arguably being the best wet rider out there means it will be a heinous crime if he doesn’t win a race.
Difficult to write Suzuki after Kawasaki, or should the blue team be above the green team in this preview? I really think that Chris Vermeulen (or is it Suzuki) needs to come up with some hard results this year. Winning a race in France last year, yes, but he wants, and needs, to win a dry race. Loris Capirossi alongside him is going to be an interesting one.
He was broken by Stoner last year when in the Ducati garage, so needs to find the spirit again - the trouble is that he’s been winning races for a longer period of time than some 125cc race winners have been alive! Sooner or later your motivation and drive wears thin, no?
Toby Moody is the English voice of MotoGP racing throughout Europe. Commentating on Eurosport TV for the past 12 seasons, he came through F1 and WRC, but still is involved racing a single-seater and commentating at Shelsley Walsh and other speed hill climbs in the UK where his love for motor sport started.