Jerez is always dramatic. The huge, passionate crowds, the heat, the tight circuit, the brilliat viewing all add up to a fabulous atmosphere and a race that you really, really need to get to at least once. We always see high jinx as well, from Gibernau and Rossi's last lap coming together at the end of the 2005 season or Rossi'd coming off second to Elias at the start of the 2006 season. Now Jerez isn't particularly blessed with long straights so the speed differential between the 800s and 990s shouldn't be very much. And, after Qatar, this may well make a huge difference as the bikes will all be far closer matched on top speeds as well.

Practice showed that while the Yamahas went well in Qatar, despite their lack of power, the lower temperatures in Europe really didn't work to their advantage. Far from it, in fact, as both Rossi and Edwards skulked around in the middle of the field with big rear end grip problems meaning they couldn't get the drive out of the corners onto the straights. No such problems were apparent for the local heroes, who at one point made the top of the timesheets an entirely Spanish affair. Pedrosa, Checa and Elias all took turns at the top and looked smooth and consistent. Alex Barros, too, made an impressive fist of things, while Casey Stoner and John Hopkins did their best to keep a non hispanic presence near the top.

Practice is one thing, of course, qualifying is another. And with qualifying taking place in the afternoon when track temperatures were a little higher, things started to move back in favour of the Yamahas. Interestingly, even when the pace really got going the lap times this year were slower than those of 2006, when the big bikes were still being used. Must be the weather.

Anyway. Dr Valentino Rossi did his normal trick to pull something special out of the bag and put himself on pole. And even better, Colin Edwards finally started to show his potential, getting himself up to the front as well. Which would have stuck were it not for two locals. Dani Pedrosa scorched through to take pole in the dying moments of qualifying, while Carlos Checa left it even later to steal third from Edwards, relegating him to the front of the second row. Joining Edwards were championship leader Casey Stoner and the rather battered John Hopkins. Hopkins was under a quarter of a second slower than Pedrosa's pole time. Row three was equally close, with Nakano, Elias and Melandri within a tenth of a second across the row. Kenny Roberts Jan rounded off the top ten, ahead of Nicky Hayden whose fortunes continue to frown on him. The champion is struggling to adapt his riding style to the 800, which is all about corner speed and the front end while he's more used to stopping and turning the bike on its ear before standing it up and firing it out of the corner. With the relative lack of grunt from the smaller engine, this technique just doesn't work. Someone else who is having a bit of a thin time at the moment is Loris Capirossi. Capirex seems to have hit a bit of a lean patch right now, qualifying back in fifteenth though still under a second from the pole time. It's also worth noting that in qualifying practice the top sixteen riders all broke the circuit lap record set by Rossi in 2005. So maybe those 800s aren't so slow after all.

Race day was a little cooler than qualifying and that really showed in the warmup as Melandri shot to the top of the table from Hopkins and Edwards, Rossi ending up over half a second shy of his team-mate in fourth. But as we've said so many times before, none of these things really count for anything, it's the race that matters.

Lights out, then, and Pedrosa made full use of his lack of inertia (he weighs just 51kg or 112lbs) to capitalise on his pole position and take the first corner in the lead. Behind him, Rossi tucked in neatly while Edwards mugged Checa to take third. Nicky Hayden did well, pushing right up to fourth by the end of the lap with Casey Stoner running behind him. Two thirds of the way round the first lap, Rossi barged through to take the lead from Pedrosa in a very robust, though scrupulously clean, style. And made it stick. Jerez, it seems, really doesn't favour the more powerful bikes as both Hondas and Ducatis were totally unable to make inroads on the supposedly slower Yamahas. Or, indeed, the Suzukis of Hopkins and Vermeulen who were both progressing through the field quite respectably.

Up at the sharp end, Rossi Pedrosa and Edwards had broken away from the following pack within half a dozen laps and were circulating at a consistent pace, none able to break the others but none able to relax either. Behind, Hayden, Hopkins, Melandri, Stoner and Elias were tied into a huge scrap that saw all but Hayden swapping places regularly though none of them quite managing to maintain enough of an advantage to pass, and stay ahead of, fourth placed Hayden. Apart from Hopkins, that is, who after lap after lap after lap of feints and aborted passes finally got past in a beautiful textbook overtake to take fourth place. Unfortunately for Hopper, just a couple of corners later it all went wrong as the front let go and dumped him in the gravel. Unhurt, Hopkins remounted and limped round the track, finally finishing nineteenth - a poor reward for what had until then been a fantastic ride. And still the melee continued, as Toni Elias started to carve his way past everyone, including Hayden, before really putting his head down and setting off in pursuit of Colin Edwards. Stoner, Melandri and Hayden carried on their scrap, Hopkins' overtake seeming to have broken down the psychological barrier preventing anyone passing the world champion. Or maybe it was coincidence. Certainly as fuel loads decreased Stoner's Ducati started to look less of a handful though it still didn't have the drive onto the straight to take advantage of the phenomenal straight line speed it's capable of. And Hayden, while pushing hard, was so clearly giving space away with his point and squirt style, graphically illustrated by the way that Checa closed on him going into every corner, eventually going past him on the approach and immediately making a gap.

Up at the front again, while we're talking about making a gap, Rossi really put the hammer down for a few laps and simply broke Pedrosa, pulling out a massive two and a bit second lead over the Spaniard. But Colin Edwards hung in there, staying with Pedrosa and even closing on the diminutive Honda rider. But it was too late. With a couple of laps to go, Rossi dropped the pace from murderous to merely gruelling, and coasted over the line a comfortable second ahead. Edwards had made huge inroads into Pedrosa's advantage and with a few more laps might have been a contender. But as it was, Pedrosa took second from Edwards with Toni Elias a couple of seconds further back in fourth. Now things get interesting, because the ferocious battle that had been going on all race between the next three riders didn't go the way we expected. No, it was Qatar winner Casey Stoner who got the advantage over Checa and Hayden with Melandri eighth. All four of these had been all over each other all race, but seemed to accept the way things were at the end and cross the line a few seconds apart. Further back, another race long battle was decided in favour of Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen, both he and Shinya Nakano besting Alex Barros who had looked seriously quick for much of the race.

So after my pronouncement that the championship was going to be exciting but the racing may not be, I find myself reporting on a race which, for the most part, was about as close as you can possibly get. Qualifying was the tightest in history, and there was some serious racing taking place among the procession that results when a bunch of riders with similar capabilities ride bikes with similar performance.

We've got a bit of a break now before the next round in Turkey. It's not a strong Yamaha circuit, but I'd be extremely surprised if Rossi didn't come away with his lead intact. Probably increased, in fact. But we shall see...

Spanish MotoGP Results

1. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
2. Daniel Pedrosa (Honda)
3. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
4. Toni Elias (Honda)
5. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
6. Carlos Checa (Honda)
7. Nicky Hayden (Honda)
8. Marco Melandri (Honda)
9. Chris Vermeulen (Suzuki)
10. Shinya Nakano (Honda)

MotoGP standings (after two rounds)

1. Valentino Rossi 45
2. Casey Stoner 36
3. Daniel Pedrosa 36
4. Colin Edwards 26
5. Marco Melandri 19
6. Nicky Hayden 17
7. Chris Vermeulen 16
8. Toni Elias 15
9. John Hopkins 13
10. Alex Barros 12

SB