Misano Adriatico, near Rimini on the Eastern Italian coast, is a holidaymaker's dream. It's a beautiful friendly seaside town with warm sea, sandy beaches and just about guaranteed sunshine. When we made the pilgrimage over for the SBK round earlier in the year our biggest problem was avoiding sunstroke out on the track, because it really was that hot. And it wasn't unusual. So when Friday's practice for this, the thirteenth round of the 2007 MotoGP championship was rained off it raised a few eyebrows.

Misano has been a challenge for the riders in many ways. It's been a few years since the last time MotoGP came here. Before MotoGP existed, in fact, and 500cc two strokes ruled the roost. 1993 was the last time that the premier class faced off in the Adriatic sunshine, and the only rider who has raced GPs here and is still going, I think, is Loris Capirossi who took his first ever podium here in 1990 when he was just seventeen. There have been a lot of changes to the circuit since '93, the most fundamental one being the reversal of direction. Misano used to run counter-clockwise but for some reason it is deemed too dangerous to have something that far out of the ordinary so it has been reversed. What that does mean, of course, is that there really is nobody who has any experience of the track. Add that to the highly unusual weather and some rather interesting tyre issues which have been apparent throughout the season so far and you can see how the prospect of racing there has been less than entirely appealing to much of the field.

But Valentino Rossi lives just down the road, and obviously relished the chance of a return to his home track. Pretty much the same could be said for Capirossi as well, of course. Vale came here hot favourite and with his championship challenge looking rather shaky a success in his backyard would be exactly what The Doctor ordered...

So as we've said, Friday practice was cancelled after the track and pitlane became flooded. The decision was made to extend Saturday practice by an hour to try to give everyone a fair crack at the circuit. It was still damp, though drying out well, and the track was slippery enough to see several of the great and good, including champion in waiting Casey Stoner, taking trips of varying severity into the gravel traps. Marco Melandri took the award for the biggest crash, with a huge highside just fifteen minutes in putting him in the Clinica Mobile and his bike on top of the tyre wall. Melandri returned before the end of the session, battered but otherwise unharmed and ready to continue. At the front of the field it became a straight fight between Stoner and Rossi, with Anthony West using his circuit knowledge to the fullest advantage (the Kawasaki rider won the World Supersport race here earlier in the year) to harry the leading pair.

Qualifying saw much of the same with Stoner leading on a now completely dry track before being passed by Rossi in the dying moments of the session. Stoner just managed to squeeze in one more hot lap before the end, becoming the first rider ever to dip below one minute thirty four and snatching pole back from an astonished Rossi at the same time. Nicky Hayden again dipped into his big bag of form to put himself on the front row, with Randy de Puniet missing out by just six hundredths of a second. The French Kawasaki rider was joined on row two by John Hopkins and Dani Pedrosa while the third row consisted of Carlos Checa, Chris Vermeulen and Colin Edwards. Anthony West closed out the top ten.

Sunday warmup saw Chris Vermeulen take to the top of the table and stay there, ahead of Pedrosa, de Puniet and Hopkins. Stoner and Rossi remained locked together behind the leading group, though to put this into perspective Rossi was less than half a second slower than Vermeulen. The totally dry track and extremely pleasant weather conditions promised much for the race to come, and the close times gave the hint that we may actually get some real racing rather than the somewhat static events we've enjoyed over the last few rounds.

So as they all lined up for the off expectations were very high for an exciting race. And we weren't disappointed either, though not entirely for the reasons we anticipated. As the lights went out, Hayden was completely caught napping and seemed to still be adjusting himself. Certainly the outgoing champion got an appalling start, unlike the pair of Suzukis who got absolute blinders to go into the first corner second and fourth, sandwiching Rossi and chasing Stoner. But a few places back, de Puniet saw a gap left by Pedrosa and went for it on the first left hander after the start. Now it's difficult to tell exactly what happened - perhaps the Frenchman overdid it on the throttle or perhaps he and Pedrosa touched but the end result was that de Puniet had a mini highside that was stopped by Pedrosa's bike, putting both of them of the track, in the gravel and out of the race, thankfully without injury. Nicky Hayden, making up ground after his awful start, had nowhere to go and ended up riding across the gravel trap to rejoin dead last, just behind the similarly afflicted Kurtis Roberts.

Four laps later and the locals were treated to the unwelcome sight of Valentino Rossi retiring with a blown engine. The Yamaha team have a new, more powerful engine which they tried in action for the first time this weekend. There was always a slight question mark over reliability but they made the decision, driven by Rossi it seems, that with the championship this far gone they would benefit more from the early development opportunities than surefire reliability. A courageous choice that bodes well for next season, but unfortunately one that cost Rossi the points for at least fourth place, where he was running comfortably until he retired.

And that was that, really. Vermeulen made a beautiful pass on Hopper on lap six to take second, but up ahead Stoner just kept on going. Loris Capirossi and Marco Melandri, both locals and both placed way down in qualifying, rode like demons with Capirossi coming from thirteenth to fifth in just one lap. They continued to push each other hard all race long, with the end result decided in favour of Melandri. Otherwise there was little overtaking, little drama and little excitement. Just Casey Stoner riding inch perfect lap after inch perfect lap, pursued but never threatened by Chris Vermeulen with John Hopkins a steady but still fairly distant third. Melandri came in fourth, ahead of Capirossi with Checa, Elias, West, Edwards and Nakano fairly well spaced out across the rest of the top ten.

With an eighty five point lead, it's hard to see how Stoner can lose the championship now. I'm not doubting that Valentino will carry on giving it his best shot, but it looks to me like the trophy will be going back to Australia after a long absence...

Next round is at Estoril in Portugal. Fast and flowing, it will suit the Ducati well. Maybe we'll get a good race there, though. Here's hoping.

Results

1 Casey Stoner (Ducati)
2 Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)
3 John Hopkins (Suzuki)
4 Marco Melandri (Honda)
5 Loris Capirossi (Ducati)
6 Carlos Checa (Honda)
7 Toni Elias (Honda)
8 Anthony West (Kawasaki)
9 Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
10 Shinya Nakano (Honda)

Championship Points after 13 rounds

1 Casey Stoner 246
2 Valentino Rossi 186
3 Dani Pedrosa 168
4 Chris Vermeulen 124
5 John Hopkins 124
6 Marco Melandri 113
7 Colin Edwards 93
8 Nicky Hayden 89
9 Loris Capirossi 87
10 Alex Barros 83

SB