Shanghai is a new, purpose built circuit. Like the others on the calendar built by the same genius designer, it combines tight, never ending corners with long sweepers and flat out straights. This guy makes circuits for bike racing, not just for parades. And Shanghai just might be the best of the lot. The longest, fastest straight on the calendar leading into a tight right hander that sees the riders swing through over two hundred degrees before going immediately left again. And that's the sort of character we see all through a lap. It's wide, beautifully surfaced and generally smooth. Just a little prone to rain.

Now last year Casey Stoner and the mighty Ducati just romped away, using the long fast straight to the maximum and simply outpacing Valentino Rossi, whose Yamaha simply didn't have the legs. Mind you, neither did anything else. This year, Rossi hit the top of the timesheets in the first practice session and stayed there. Stoner made a brief foray, but The Doctor appeared to have found that elusive form and swept all comers before him in a tidal wave of fantastic riding. Yamaha and Bridgestone appeared to have got their act together and Rossi's prodigious talent finally had a chance to shine. As for the rest of the field, Dani Pedrosa gave Rossi a run for his money, using his lack of weight to offset the Honda's slight power deficiency. And obviously Stoner and the Ducati were going to be there somewhere, the fast straight alone guaranteeing that the booming Ducati would be up near the top. The other Yamahas were consistently quick, though Toseland suffered badly from a lack of circuit knowledge. It's a long lap, so practice sessions don't give enough opportunities to really get the circuit off pat, particularly with regard to any bumps or surface changes that the riders need to deal with. Nicky Hayden had some good showings, and this time it seemed that the Rizla Suzuki boys had found something that worked for them which boded well for race day. Kawasaki, meantime, were struggling with what seemed the same malaise as struck Suzuki in Portugal. Friday was most notable for a huge highside experienced by Jorge Lorenzo. The Spanish rider ended up with both feet broken and a chipped right ankle, and spent the rest of the weekend either in the medical centre or in a wheelchair. Apart from the occasions when the hard as nails lad, celebrating his twenty first birthday on race day, got helped back onto the bike to qualify and race.

Qualifying. Ah yes. Apart from the quite astonishing efforts of Lorenzo, who certainly made the best use of Dr Costa and the Clinica Mobile, qualifying was dominated by the fact that so far this season every race has had a Yamaha on pole. Lorenzo took the first three, but to be honest it was going to be asking too much of the battered youngster to do it again, and the Spaniard ended up heading the fourth row, just over half a second off the pace. And the pole sitter this time around was Colin Edwards. The Texan has always gone quite well here, and this time he put the new engine to devastating effect, taking a third of a second from his old team-mate Valentino Rossi in second. Casey Stoner ensured that he would be a threat by taking the last front row slot. Lorenzo, as we've said, took fourth ahead of dynamite starter Dani Pedrosa and a resurgent Loris Capirossi with James Toseland heading the third row from Chris Vermeulen and Randy de Puniet. No love lost on that row, then.

After a wet warmup session and some rather damp racing in other classes, the MotoGP was declared a wet race although there was a distinct dry line on the track. At the start, having the option of diving into the pits to grab a spare bike on wets looked like a wise move, though as the race went on it looked increasingly unlikely to be needed as the clouds drifted away and the sun peeked through. But the interesting thing was the advantage that having a dry line conferred on the pole sitters on each row - Edwards, Lorenzo and Toseland - because they were already on dry track while at the other end of the row Stoner, Capirossi and de Puniet were sat in puddles that would make things exciting when they tried to put over two hundred horsepower down through slick tyres.

Lights out, then, and it was Colin Edwards who made the most of the dry line, with Pedrosa making another lightning start and Stoner doing something remarkable to slot into second. Rossi got pushed back to fourth, just ahead of Lorenzo, Hayden, Capirossi and Toseland. The opening few laps were slippery in places, especially on the inside of some corners, and the braking area at the end of the long fast main straight became the site of several small, critical but happily easily recovered mistakes as folk outbraked themselves and ran on across the grass, rejoining several places further back. Though he was making a great pace, Edwards couldn't stay in front of Pedrosa, who stormed past in the second lap and immediately started making a gap. That was the one thing that Valentino Rossi couldn't allow to happen so the Italian maestro put his head down and nipped past Stoner, making it look easy, before taking a careful and considerate route past Edwards and setting off after Pedrosa. Edwards, meantime, settled in and began, little by little, to eke a bit of breathing space out from the pursuing Ducati. We were all surprised to see that the legendary Ducati speed advantage seemed not to be present, and it wasn't until the end of the race that we discovered the tailwind down the straight was helping everyone else achieve the same crazy speeds as well. In fact the biggest problem was the risk of engines letting go as they over-revved for half the straight each lap. But though Stoner was the fastest man on the straight, followed by the other three Ducatis, there was just a three km/h difference between his fastest and Rossi's.

Anyhow. Lap four saw Rossi catch and, crucially, pass Pedrosa to take the lead. And although he looked like he was working hard, he also looked comfortable. Probably the most comfortable we've seen him looking this season, to be honest. Unlike Casey Stoner, who was really struggling to get the Ducati to turn and behave. In fact, this time out it looked as though Stoner had the wrong settings while Marco Melandri, who had a dire start to the season, appeared to have found a little of his old magic and made the bike do what he wanted. Indeed, from his lowly qualifying position the Italian was carving through the field from eleventh at the end of the first lap up to fourth by lap eight. Colin Edwards was putting in fast lap after fast lap, but at the end of lap five it all went wrong as he braked a little harder than usual, lifting the back wheel of the Yamaha and running for a good fifty metres on the front wheel before being able to get the back down again. The trouble is, of course, that when the back is in the air you can't turn. So Edwards ended up running very wide at the end of the main straight, and although he only dropped a couple of seconds while he regrouped it dropped him four places. And they were places that were going to be almost impossible to regain - Casey Stoner, Marco Melandri, Nicky Hayden and Dovizioso are hard enough to pass at the best of times - so Edwards was going to have to dig deep and really try just to hold that position. Further back there was a real scrap going on between Toseland, Vermeulen and Nakano, decided in part when Vermeulen encountered a mechanical problem and lost drive on the Suzuki. Though the field became spread out there were several small battles going on and the race was far from boring.

Up at the front, Rossi was really going for it. Lap records fell and were beaten again and again. But Pedrosa was able to respond most of the time, and though the leading pair extended a yawning gulf over third position Stoner, a pair they remained. I lost count, but I think Rossi broke and rebroke the lap record four times, the last just five laps from the end. Which speaks volumes about the work that Yamaha and Bridgestone have done to get a working tyre/chassis combination. This is about the same time that the "thinks" bubble appeared above Pedrosa and he clearly accepted that second place was as good as he was going to get. So while the Spaniard was still setting a normally race winning pace, today it meant he slowed down enough for Rossi to pull a nearly four second lead by the end. Again, later we discovered that the Honda had been bouncing off the rev limiter on the straight and Pedrosa was easing off to avoid grenading the engine. Twelve seconds behind Pedrosa - that's an unprecedented sixteen seconds behind Rossi - casey Stoner bought the Ducati home to a lonely third place. Jorge Lorenzo dropped down to eighth as the damage inflicted on his body took its toll but managed to regroup, found something extra and fought his way back up to an unbelievable fourth place, staying there despite huge pressure from Marco Melandri who made a welcome reappearance at the sharp end to finish fifth. Sixth went to Nicky hayden, while seventh place was poor reward for the hard working Colin Edwards. Toni Elias also seemed to find his elusive form, making a good effort to take eighth ahead of a disappointed Capirossi and tenth placed Shinya Nakano. James Toseland finished in his lowest spot of the season, twelfth, ahead of race long protagonist Randy de Puniet.

So four rounds so far have seen four winners. Though I can't remember the last time that a victory managed to be so emphatic while clearly being so hard worked for. it's great to see Rossi back in his winning ways as, though Stoner and Pedrosa are both excellent riders they are a trifle, um, lacking in the personality stakes. Something of which neither Rossi or Lorenzo can be accused. But more importantly than that, the championship is still wide open.

The next round is at Le Mans in two weeks. It's a great circuit and last year Chris Vermeulen took Suzuki's first, and so far only, win in the MotoGP class. There's history of brilliant racing there, and if the championship so far is anything to go by then this year will be a cracker...

SB

Chinese MotoGP Results

1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
3. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
4. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
5. Marco Melandri (Ducati)
6. Nicky Hayden (Honda)
7. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
8. Toni Elias (Ducati)
9. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)
10. Shinya Nakano (Honda)

MotoGP standings (after four rounds)

1. Dani Pedrosa 81
2. Jorge Lorenzo 74
3. Valentino Rossi 72
4. Casey Stoner 56
5. Loris Capirossi 33
6. James Toseland 33
7. Colin Edwards 31
8. Nicky Hayden 29
9. Andrea Dovizioso 26
10. John Hopkins 26