Brno in the Czech Republic is one of my favourite circuits. It's also a rider's favourite, which is handy, as well as being possibly the best development circuit around, described by one expert as "the biggest dyno in motorcycle racing." Certainly the long drag up to the final esses gives the engine technicians something to work on. However, all that power testing goes out of the window when it's wet, of course. And South Eastern Europe has been known to be a little damp on occasions.

This was one of those occasions. Apart from a brief window on Friday the entire weekend of practice and qualifying was a washout. Which made life a little, um, interesting for riders coming to grips with a new track surface. But much worse than this, it seemed that nearly half the field was staring with injuries and ailments of some sort or another. Nicky Hayden didn't even fly out from California having cracked his heel in a "Superstars" type competition in the US. Casey Stoner had a mystery fever which he'd brought with him from Australia, Valentino Rossi had an ear infection, John Hopkins was just returning from knee surgery while Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa were both still carrying injuries from Laguna Seca and Germany respectively. In short the leading edge of the championship was made up of walking wounded, which could well work out nicely for the rest of the field.

Or not.

Because as practice and qualifying splashed through to a seemingly inevitable conclusion, two things were rapidly becoming apparent. First was that, illness or not, it was extremely unlikely that anyone was about to topple the Stoner/Rossi double act from the top of the timesheets. Though others came and went, aside from a brief foray by Chris Vermeulen when the skies briefly cleared during the last free practice, the top slots were firmly held by the championship leaders. Honourable mentions must go to Vermeluen and his team-mate Loris Capirossi, both of whom acquitted themselves well in dire conditions, and to Shinya Nakano who managed to take third for a session on the new for 2009 customer spec Honda, which is actually a pnematic valve 2008 works machine that he's testing. So it's fast but it's new for him, so fair play for an excellent result.

Practice showed another little quirk that was going to make things interesting. Quite simply, the Michelin tyres available at Brno didn't work. What do I mean by that? I mean that Dani Pedrosa, third placed in the World Championship and the fastest Michelin rider in the world qualified twelfth, nearly five seconds off the pole time set by Casey Stoner. Now OK, so the track would have suited jetskis as well as bikes but nonetheless that's a ridiculous gulf. The first two rows on the grid were entirely Bridgestone shod. As I've rather ruined the suspense I'll now reveal that Stoner pipped Rossi to pole by a over a second, which is unheard of. John Hopkins rode the wheels off the Kawasaki to take the final front row slot, four hundredths of a second ahead of Chris Vermeulen while Alex de Angelis managed to fend off a determined Anthony West to take fifth. Row three was headed by the best Michelin qualifier Randy de Puniet, despite his having three crashes during the course of the weekend, with Shinya Nakano and Loris Capirossi snapping at his heels. Sylvain Guintoli rounded out the top ten. Colin Edwards and James Toseland had a very thin time of it, saddled with tyres that didn't work properly and seemingly unbridgable gulfs to cross to get a decent setup. Edwards qualified fifteenth while Toseland joined Jorge Lorenzo in technically failing to qualify in the soaking session, saved only by the more respectable times they lodged in the dry minutes of free practice.

So with about twenty dry minutes of setup and practice time under their belts the teams were hardly prepared for a dry and clear race day. Sure, there were clouds around but they kept their contents to themselves and the track surface remained resolutely rain free. Warmup gave us a sign of things to come, perhaps, as Stoner went a full ten seconds faster than his qualifying time though Rossi was this time under half a second off the pace.

The stage was set, then, for some fairly serious action. Obviously we all hoped for a repeat of the ding dong show they gave us at Laguna Seca, but as soon as the lights went out it became apparent that we were going to be disappointed because Casey Stoner got a blinder of a start, out his head down and opened a gap of over half a second before the end of the first lap. John Hopkins made an excellent start too, remaining glued firmly to the back of Rossi's Yamaha. Anthony West seems to have found his misplaced form as he slotted neatly in behind his leader to take fourth while Chris Vermeulen lost a place to end the lap fifth. Dani Pedrosa astonished us all to slash through to sixth after a rocket start. Perhaps those Michelins would work after all. Or perhaps not, as over the next five laps he dropped back to thirteenth, which is roughly where he remained.

We'll ignore the front of the field for now, because frankly we had enough of covering Casey Stoner romping off into the distance last year. Suffice it to say that the gap set by the end of the first lap - just over a second - remained pretty constant and it seemed that for all his talent there was little or nothing that Rossi could do to close the Australian down. But at least he wasn't breaking away completely either.

The really interesting stuff was going on around the battle for third and fourth, where Hopper, Vermeulen, Westy and Capirossi were really giving it some. Vermeulen prevailed at first, taking third place on lap five but proving unable to make the break and get rid of the pesky bikes following him. And the peskiest of all seemed to be his team-mate as Capirossi hounded the Kawasakis, easing past West in style and eventually mugging Hopper as well. But something almost as exciting happened before that.

Back up at the front it looked as though Rossi had got into his rhythm and started to close Stoner down. On lap six the Italian took two tenths out of Stoner's lead and it didn't look as though he was trying terribly hard. Stoner got this information on his pitboard, of course, and knuckled down to respond. Midway through turn one we saw what that response would mean as the Ducati ran out of ground clearance and tyre both at the same time and Stoner slid off into the gravel. Though the Ducati restarted it had eaten enough gravel while it lay on its side that Stoner couldn't even limp back to the pits but had to retire. So by the end of lap seven Rossi's championship had taken a distinct turn for the better, with Stoner out and Pedrosa down in twelfth, promoted a place by Stoner's demise but a full twenty seven seconds behind.

And so it continued, as Rossi rode an inch perfect race to the finish line, cruising across to stretch his championship lead to a full fifty points and winning by a very comfortable fifteen seconds. The real action, of course, was for the next podium slots. Man of the race might well be Toni Elias, who stalled the Alice Ducati at the start of the warmup lap, managed to get restarted to take his lowly thirteenth slot on the grid and managed, by a combination of aggression, power and bloody skilled riding to work his way through to an astonishing second place by the end of lap ten. He finished lap nine in fifth, by the way. Loris Capirossi took the final podium after an immaculate ride where he made the most of the Suzuki's strong points - handling and stability - and seemed to ride around the worst of the power deficit though that really showed on that long hill, especially chasing the Ducati. Shinya Nakano took a while to get to grips with the new Honda but when he did he certainly made the power work for him, taking a credible fourth and just demoting Anthony West to a career best fifth. Chris Vermeulen came out distinctly fourth best in the tussle for the podium, running wide and going from second to fifth in one fell swoop, but he managed to get back past Hopper to take a respectable sixth from the battered and surely aching American. Marco Melandri continued his return to something at least resembling form with a seventh place finish giving both him and the factory Ducati squad some needed points while Alex de Angelis beat fellow Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso for eighth. Dovizioso, though, did have the honour of being the leading Michelin rider home, ahead of factory Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo whose tenth place was a remarkable achievment given his lowly qualifying and battered body.

Two weeks before the next round in Rossi's back yard. Misano is always a great race and I'm sure this year will be no different. Last year Rossi failed to score any points as his engine expired, effectively killing his championshiop chances as well. This year he can afford that twice and still be in with a shout, even if Stoner wins. But that'll make a pretty dull race, so let's hope for some proper action again...

SB

Czech MotoGP Results

1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2. Toni Elias (Ducati)
3. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)
4. Shinya Nakano (Honda)
5. Anthony West (Kawasaki)
6. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)
7. John Hopkins (Kawasaki)
8. Alex de Angelis (Honda)
9. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda)
10. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)

MotoGP standings (after twelve rounds)

1. Valentino Rossi 237
2. Casey Stoner 187
3. Dani Pedrosa 172
4. Jorge Lorenzo 120
5. Andrea Dovizioso 110
6. Colin Edwards 102
7. Chris Vermeulen 99
8. Nicky Hayden 84
9. Shinya Nakano 83
10. Loris Capirossi 77