Photographs courtesy of Dorna - click to enlarge

Assen is one of the nicest circuits in the world. It's certainly one of my favourites, and the Dutch TT is an event of which I have fond memories from competing long, long ago. The circuit is fast, flowing and incredibly grippy, being wonderfully maintained by the management. Sure, the weather can be a little contrary at times and it's a heck of a long lap, but it's a brilliant place to ride. Of course, the atmosphere that comes with the place helps a lot. Some people say that Northern Europeans lack passion. I say that they should visit a major motorbike race in Holland or the UK before making such sweeping statements. Because the Dutch TT has all the passion, all the energy of an event anywhere else. It's just a little more disciplined come the end of the race - you tend not to get the track being melted with fireworks and the circuit invasion is somehow better organised.

But you didn't come here to read about the circuit.

Practice and qualifying took place in some of the hottest weather we've seen for quite some time. Grip is never a problem here anyway, but in these temperatures things got a little sticky on occasions. For safety reasons there have been a few changes made to slow things down a little, and one particular corner, which has gone from a fast, swooping right hander to a rather sharp right hander, caught more than one person unawares and kept the marshalls busy. Add to that the bumps that pepper the cicrcuit and the occasional difficulty in remembering exactly where you are on the track and things had the potential to get exciting. As exemplified by Messrs Biaggi and Melandri, who had a coming together on the track, resulting in Biaggi being fined for "reckless behaviour." But this wasn't the end of it, as one Mr Valerio Biaggi (Max's Dad, perhaps?) was seen to grab Melandri by the throat, resulting in scratches. The result being that Mr Biaggi had his pass withdrawn for the rest of the year.

On the track, though, things were shaping up to be business as usual. Colin Edwards, Nicky Hayden, Sete Gibernau, Marco Melandri and Loris Capirossi all took their turn at the top of the leaderboard. But nobody was really suprised when Valentino Rossi stuck a stupidly quick lap in, just a couple of minutes before the end of the session, to take pole position. Again.

So the front row consisted of Rossi, Gibernau and Melandri. Shinya Nakano headed up row 2 on the Kawasaki - the factory's best start all year - ahead of Nicky Hayden and Colin Edwards. Just over a second separated sixth placed Edwards from his team-mate on pole. Row three saw Capirossi leading Barros and Biaggi with the fourth row comprising Alex Hoffman, Makoto Tamada and John Hopkins, who has outqualified and outridden his team-mate so many times this year that he must surely now be the number one at Suzuki. Hopkins was just three quarters of a second slower than Edwards, two rows ahead

Race day.

At Assen, races are always held on a Saturday. Just so you know. Now remember how I said the weather can be a bit contrary sometimes? Well this was no exception. After days of sweltering heat, Saturday morning was cold, windy and very wet indeed. Warmup became splash around and nobody got any useful data for what was to follow.

Which was dry and pleasant. But about ten degrees cooler than qualifying and practice. So nobody had any idea what tyres were going to do over race distance.

Only one way to find out, then. Red lights out and the field went tearing off to the first corner. Pole sitter Rossi behaved like one of those irritating old blokes who waits for the lights to go green before even getting into gear. Quite simply he missed the boat and the first couple of rows seemed to go without him. Unlike Marco Melandri who showed absolutely no respect to his team-mate as he shoved the Telefonica Honda into the lead and proceeded to pull away. A bit. No, really, just a bit. Gibernau, of course, tucked in as close as he could and tried to hang on but succumbed immediately to the charging Nicky Hayden. Shinya Nakano made the most of his good grid position to get the big Kawasaki into fourth place while Loris Capirossi made a flying start to take fifth. Rossi himself was sixth, and though he managed to pass the Ducati at the end of the first lap, Capirossi managed to briefly get back ahead before admitting defeat. A very robust overtake on lap three saw Rossi pass Nakano and start to close on Gibernau who in turn was starting to close on and pressurise Hayden. Experience, courage, whatever it is, it started to tell and the Spaniard was able to regain second place and, crucially, put Hayden between himself and Rossi, on lap 5. Except that Rossi went through the gap as well, sticking right to the back of Gibernau's Honda. And we all knew what was coming next. With the inevitability of a snake swallowing an egg, Rossi closed, closed and then swamped Gibernau on lap eight, immediately pulling clear and closing down Melandri.

But just for once, Rossi couldn't make the pass and had to settle for second place, though pushing all the time. Melandri fought like a tiger and managed to keep the world champion behind him to the chequered flag.

OK, I'm kidding. It took just two more laps for Rossi to make a move that stuck and to put himself back where he seems to belong - in front. Though he didn't go and pull out a huge lead - despite a fantastic pace, Melandri stayed in touch right up to the end. An end which was, truth be told, something of a foregone conclusion.

A couple of seconds further back, Colin Edwards had passed everyone else and was seting about catching up the leading pair. He was making a pretty reasonable fist of it, too, until a couple of major slides forced him to drop the pace a little and settle for third.

Sete Gibernau's season is going from dire to horrible as he yielded fourth place to fellow Honda pilot Nicky Hayden. Indeed, come the end the Spaniard was dropping back toward the ever hungry Max Biaggi, though a seven second gap wasn't going to be bridged in a hurry. Biaggi had settled a race long battle with Barros in his favour, the Brazilian riding to a safe but probably disappointing seventh a few seconds ahead of Shinya Nakano. The Ducati pairing of Checa and Capirossi came next, Checa making a rare foray in front of his team-mate.

Honourable mentions again to Troy Bayliss, who stayed upright to finish eleventh, to Shakey Byrne who brought the KTM home in a very respectable seventeenth and to James Ellison who kept the Blata on the same lap as everyone else - the last man in the field to do so.

We go to Laguna Seca in a couple of weeks time. It's been a long time since there's been a bike GP there but Hayden and Edwards have both raced there and done well. Will that put them better in touch with Rossi? Will The Corkscrew prove too much for some Italian temperaments? Probably. But I'd still not bet against seeing Rossi on the podium...

Results

1 V Rossi, Yamaha
2 M Melandri, Honda
3 C Edwards, Yamaha
4 N Hayden, Honda
5 S Gibernau, Honda
6 M Biaggi, Honda
7 A Barros, Honda
8 S Nakano, Kawasaki
9 C Checa, Ducati
10 L Capirossi, Ducati

Championship Standing after 7 rounds

170 V Rossi
107 M Melandri
87 M Biaggi
84 S Gibernau
74 A Barros
73 C Edwards
60 N Hayden
49 L Capirossi
48 19 S Nakano
40 C Checa