Jerez MotoGP, the most popular motorcycle race in the world. The Spanish love their bike racing, especially when tney have local boys in the mix, and Jerez is the place they all seem to come to see it. The circuit is beautiful, always offering good racing because it's as much about handling and bottle as it is about power. It's not an easy place to get to grips with, as although the actual layout is pretty straightforward getting the most out of your bike and yourself demands accuracy and a degree of local knowledge.

Step up Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo, then. The two Spanish riders have a history of, um, ambivalent (I'm being diplomatic) feelings towards each other and their home circuit and packed stands (even on free practice days) guaranteed to make them at their most competitive. Though Colin Edwards, reborn, it seems, in the Tech3 Yamaha team, did his best to upset things by insisting on putting himself at the front several times. Well, Texans are almost Spanish, right? Valentino Rossi, being the sociable chap that he is, joined in at the front for some of the pracice sessions as well. James Toseland, ill and dosed up with massive quantities of antibiotics and whatever concoctions Dr Costa and the Clinica Mobile were able to come up with, struggled but managed a respectable showing. But the big surprise was the absence of Casey Stoner anywhere near the front. The 2007 champion was having a torrid time trying to get the Ducati to work properly. As, in fact, were all the Ducati riders. Finding that elusive setup just wasn't happening, to the extent that Stoner took a huge tumble and destroyed his bike in a very fast lowside which fortunately saw the Australian walk away unscathed. Far luckier was Colin Edwards who lost the front of his Yamaha, dug his knee and elbow in and managed to get the thing stood up and back under control after a good twenty metres of sliding. Ridiculous amounts of skill and cajones (to carry on the Spanish theme) to match.

Qualifying also had very few surprises, with the front row being all Spanish if we count Texas. I'm going to get in so much trouble for this, aren't I? Anyhow, Jorge Lorenzo came out on top, ahead of Pedrosa and Edwards who continues his run of excellent qualifying performances. Nicky Hayden pipped Rossi by just three thousandths of a second to head the second row, while Rossi was trailed by Randy de Puniet, who also seems to have found some form. Row three saw Casey Stoner five hundredths of a second ahead of James Toseland who in turn was a tenth of a second clear of John Hopkins. De Puniet, by the way, was within a second of Lorenzo's pole time, while tenth placed Loris Capirossi was only a third of a second behind. Which gives an idea of how close it all was at this point. Marco Melandri qualified right at the back and ruefully commented that he had never qualified last in his life. "Not even on the Playstation."

So, on to the race.

As at Qatar, it was Pedrosa who got the holeshot, using his diminutive size and weight to the best and simply firing his Honda into the lead. Lorenzo followed, while Stoner made an astonishing start to take third by the end of the first lap. Colin Edwards had a poor start and got a bit duffed up, dropping back to fifth behind Hayden while Capirossi and Nakano both made good progress off the line. Toseland saw out the first lap back in tenth after a lacklustre start, not helped by his unimproving bronchitis.

It took a couple of laps, but Valentino Rossi then got his head down, settled into his rhythm and started to cut through the field. Jerez is a circuit at which he has had alot of success, and it suits his style very well indeed. So it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise to see him get up to second in just four laps. Though Lorenzo didn't make it easy for him and certainly didn't roll over and accept that The Doctor was entitled to be ahead of him. Some extraordinarily aggressive riding saw the Yamaha get knotted up enough to nearly spit the Spaniard off into the adoring crowd, but he managed to hang on to it and stay within striking distance of his team-mate. And at the front Pedrosa was riding demo laps. With nobody to fight, the Honda rider could do what he does best - ride very fast and smoothly. Almost totally unlike his team-mate Nicky Hayden, who was putting the Honda in all sorts of strange shapes and positions in an attempt to get the most out of it. The former champion even emulated Edwards in having a huge slide which necessitated catching with his elbow but no matter how hard he pushed he couldn't get in touch with the leading trio.

Colin Edwards was pushing very hard indeed, trying to make up for the Yamaha's lack of outright speed and drive by maximising corner speed. And unfortunately when you push that hard sometimes it doesn't work out. This was one of those times as the likeable Texan crashed out. Though unhurt, remounting and riding back to the pits obviously showed that things were not as they needed to be and he retired. Casey Stoner was pushing hard, too, and a couple of laps earlier he had run onto the gravel and dropped from fifth to last place as he waded through to rejoin the race. At least he kept it upright, anyway. Edwards' Tech3 team-mate, James Toseland, was riding a steady race. Scrapping with Chris Vermeulen and Andrea Dovizioso, the young Englishman acquitted himself well and showed maturity beyond his years.

As the race went on, several things became very clear. The Suzukis went better on their race rubber than their qualifiers. Ducati had real problems in getting their bikes set up at Jerez, as demonstrated by Stoner running off the track a second time. And Dani Pedrosa wasn't going to surrender this victory unless his ultra reliable Honda blew up. Or he threw it at the scenery, of course - something that a number of Spanish riders have been wont to do in the past. But he didn't, and although there were times that it looked as though Rossi was reeling him in, the reality was that the tiny Spaniard was so fast through the last sector that Rossi's speed and experience advantages on the rest of the lap counted for nothing. A gap of nearly three seconds separated the two riders at the end, with Lorenzo a further second and a half back after Rossi had finally managed to drop the young upstart off a little. Hayden't fourth place was lonely while Loris Capirossi took advantage of the hammer and tongs battle going on between Toseland and Dovizioso to slip past both of them. The two rookies got so physical in the last sector of the last lap that Hopkins was able to take Dovizioso as well though Toseland remained in sixth. Chris Vermeulen, so long a contender, dropped off at the end to take tenth after his gamble with tyre choice proved to have been unwise.

Despite the gaps at the end, this was a genuinely interesting race. There was real racing, real action, and for once it wasn't a foregone conclusion. The Tech3 guys get the pneumatic valve engine in Portugal which should even things up further and possibly give them both a chance to show how good they really are. Rossi has good winning form there, and again it's a circuit that favours handling over brute power. Nobody is hurt so the whole field should be fighting fit and raring to go. Two weeks' time. I can't wait...

SB

Spanish MotoGP Results

1. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
2. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
3. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
4. Nicky Hayden (Honda)
5. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)
6. James Toseland (Yamaha)
7. John Hopkins (Kawasaki)
8. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda)
9. Shinya Nakano (Honda)
10. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)

MotoGP standings (after two rounds)

1. Dani Pedrosa 41
2. Jorge Lorenzo 36
3. Valentino Rossi 31
4. Casey Stoner 30
5.Andrea Dovizioso 21
6. James Toseland 20
7. Nicky Hayden 19
8. Loris Capirossi 19
9. John Hopkins 13
10. Shinya Nakano 10