Photographs courtesy of Dorna - click to enlarge

Phillip Island, just off Melbourne in Southern Australia, is the furthest trek the MotoGP circus has to make. It's a fast, flowing circuit with plenty of eleveation changes to keep things interesting and a propensity for changeable weather that keeps riders and teams alike on their toes. It's a fabulous circuit to ride and is one of Valentino Rossi's favourites. It's probably no coincidence that he has won the last four GPs held here.

Practice was a bit of a mixed bag. We saw the unfortunate departure of Loris Capirossi, who suffered chest injuries in a horrendous ultra high speed highside going into turn one, shortly followed by Kenny Roberts Jnr who brok his wrist under markedly similar circumstances. Happily, Loris' injuries are not life threatening and he is stable in hospital though certainly out of the next round in Turkey. Roberts is similarly out of the Turkish round though again should suffer no long term harm. Nicky Hayden had a bit of an up and down time, blaming seagull guano (yes, really) for the grip problems he seemed to be experiencing. People at Phillip Island tend to collide with seagulls - indeed Wayne Gardner actually broke a bone in his neck when he hit a gull - but complaining about their trackside toilet habits seems a bit rich. Chris Vermeulen, in his first ever ride on a MotoGP bike, rode well and steadily, keeping it the right way up all weekend and working his way gradually faster and faster. Personally I hope he stays in SBK for another season at least, but if he moves up expect great things.

Up at the other end of the grid, though, Rossi, Gibernau, Biaggi, Edwards and Checa all lost out to a sudden surge by Nicky Hayden who managed to overcome his gull problem to deliver a simply scorching fastest lap, destryng the lap record in the process. Rossi ran out of time to fight back, as did Gibernau who maintained his good qualifying record. Carlos Checa initially broke the lap record, and became the first person to beat 1'30" in the process, but was eventually relegated to the second row. Still highly respectable, and a nice birthday present for the likeable Spaniard. Edwards pipped Biaggi for fifth, while the third row was headed up by Tony Elias, follwed by an out of sorts Marco Melandri and Makoto Tamada. Shinya Nakano rounded off the top ten, while Vermeulen made it into fourteenth on the Pons Honda, just two places behind his hugely experienced team-mate Alex Barros.

Race day turned out to be warm, dry and not too windy. Ideal race conditions, in fact. Even the gulls were behaving themseves, much to Hayden's relief. Lights out, and it was Hayden who made the initial running with Rossi, Checa, Melandri, Gibernau and Edwards all snapping at his heels. Less than a lap in, Max Biaggi got all unnecessary and threw his Honda into the gravel, his chances for second place in the chamionship shattering along with several pieces of very expensive bodywork.

Just three laps in, Rossi simply breezed past Hayden at the end of the straight, any doubts about the Yamaha's performance being thoroughly dismissed, and proceeded to open a lead. or would have done, had the young American not had the temerity to hang on for a few laps and actually keep up with the champion. More than that, in fact, after thirteen laps in Rossi's wheel tracks, Hayden used the same slipstream technique to drift past. Inexperience showed, though, and once in front Hayden allowed the pace to slacken a little, bringing him back into range both of Rossi and of Melandri and Checa behind. After three laps being towed around, Rossi again blasted past Hayden and this time immediately opened a gap of a second which he maintained to the end.

A little further back, Gibernau seemed to have found a little of his old fire as he made an extremely robust move on Colin Edwards that pushed the Texan out almost onto the grass. Gibernau was clearly on a mission as he homed in on the back of the leading pack, passing Checa at one point, but proved eventually unable to deliver the goods and hold the place. He did, at least, remain on the bike and bring it back to the pits in roughly the ame condition as it left, though. Edwards seemd to have been knocked right out of kilter by the Gibernau incident as he also yielded a place to Alex Barros, dropping to seventh though maintaining the pressure and inheriting a sixth place finish after Barros had a nasty looking tumble with a few laps to go.

Further back still, a titanic battle was taking place between Shinya Nakano, Makoto Tamada and Toni Elias, Nakano finally managing to cross the line forty eight thousandths of a second ahead, while Elias lost out by just one thousandth. At three hundred kilometres an hour, that's just over eight centimetres or three inches difference. Behind them, Chris Vermeulen was robbed of a top ten finish on the last lap by John Hopkins, who at least salvaged something from a fairly disappointing weekend for Suzuki.

But right at the front, while Rossi's dominance made a victory something of a foregone conclusion, the battle between Hayden, Checa and Melandri was hotting up. When Hayden lost the lead to Rossi the second time, Melandri made the most of the opportunity and stuffed the Telefonica Honda through the gap as well. Hayden took a lap to come back past, but their fighting allowed the big Ducati of Carlos Checa to close up again. Come the final lap and, while Hayden looked fairly comfortable in second, Melandri seemed under pressure. As indeed he was, because Checa fired the Ducati past at the end of the straight. Not being a quitter, Melandri passed the Spaniard back halfway round, using the Honda's superior brakes and turn-in to make it stick. But the sheer grunt of the Ducati allowed Checa to remain close on the Italian's tail approaching the start/finish straight and to out-drag him and take the final podium position by seventeen thousandths of a second. Man of the race, without a doubt, was Chris Vermeulen. Just four hours in total on a MotoGP bike and only just outside the top ten. That's impressive by anyone's standards.

So what's this done to the championship? Well Rossi, obviously, has consolidated his already unbeatable lead by an academic amount. But look at second place - a dead heat between Nicky Hayden and Marco Melandri, with Colin Edwards just eight points shy of them. Max Biaggi's chances of collecting some silverware are now virtually non-existent whil Loris Capirossi's injury rules him out of the fight as well. Gibernau regained some honour as well as some places but would have to be incredibly lucky to do much better - something we've come not to expect.

As far as the constructor's title goes, Yamaha have wrapped it up today as well. A fitting result in their fiftieth anniversary year.

Next weekend sees the first MotoGP ever in Turkey. It will be hot and dry, and could well be rather exciting. See you there...

Results

1 V Rossi, Yamaha
2 N Hayden, Honda
3 C Checa, Ducati
4 M Melandri, Honda
5 S Gibernau, Honda
6 C Edwards, Yamaha
7 S Nakano, Kawasaki
8 M Tamada, Honda
9 T Elias, Yamaha
10 J Hopkins, Suzuki


Championship Standing after 15 rounds

331 V Rossi (World Champion 2005)
170 N Hayden
170 M Melandri
162 C Edwards
159 M Biaggi
148 L Capirossi
137 S Gibernau
129 A Barros
114 C Checa
87 S Nakano

SB