Motegi circuit in Japan is a funny track. It's been described as a sreies of drag strips linked with corners, and that's not far off the mark. Built as a test circuit for Honda, Motegi is technical but not really complicated. All the corners have a constant radius and all are reasonably clear to see. But there are complications bought on by the changes in elevation enjoyed by some of the circuit. So an uphill, positively cambered hairpin leads onto a fast downhill straight with a ninety degree off camber downhill right hander at the other end. It does all make for an interesting challenge, and many, many riders come unstuck on the deceptively straightforward looking corners. It's safe, though, which is a good thing. It's also a circuit that will be familiar to anyone with any racing game on their PC or console as almost every game ever made includes it.

Japan in October is generally warm and dry, and this weekend proved to be no exception. Which meant, of course, that Valentino Rossi would be at something of a disadvantage. The Doctor needs an operation on his shoulder to get things back as they should be. Muscle and ligament injuries are frequently more of a problem than actual breaks as they can't be pinned or splinted, just rested and left to heal on their own. Not good if you happen to be a MotoGP racer. So while his leg is perfectly OK after that nasty break earlier in the year, his shoulder gives him grief when he brakes hard. And of course a track which is basically a series of linked drag strips takes a heck of a lot of hard braking. So we didn't expect a great deal from the outgoing World Champion this weekend.

Of course we're talking about Valentino Rossi. So he topped the timesheets in the first free practice session.

Qualifying, as we may have mentioned before, is rather differen. Not least because it actually matteres - it's the first stage of the race weekend where riders have to really walk the walk as well as talking the talk. And after the toing and froing that seems to characterise these sessions nowadays, it was Casey Stoner who took pole. The first time the Australian has been at the front since Qatar at the beginning of the season. Ducati have made some changes to the riding position and chassis, and now they seem to be paying off. Just in time for Stoner to defect to Honda. Ho hum. Anyway, a third of a second back, Jorge Lorenzo continued his fifteen race run of front row starts, while Dani Pedrosa just put himself off pole by running wide on a lap where he would have been quite significantly quicker than Stoner. As it was, third place was the best he could attain. AStill good enough to put him in front of Hayden, though, the American heading the second row from the ever present and ever improving Ben Spies and Randy de Puniet. Row three was headed by an unhappy and plainly out of sorts Valentino Rossi, ahead of Dovizioso and Simoncelli.

Sunny but cool, warmup never really means much. But it did give Nicky hayden a chance to sit on top of the timesheets for a change, ahead of pedrosa, Lorenzo, Rossi and Simoncelli. Casey Stoner and Randy de Puniet both crashed out in separate incidents, neither of them being in any way injured. Just a little cheesed off.

And so on to the race itself. It had stayed sunny and track temperatures had rocketed. Not to problematic levels, but to lots of grip levels. Which would play well for some and be a bit of a challenge for anyone who might, for example, have an injured shoulder and not be able to exploit the full dry weather braking potential of a MotoGP bike's carbon discs...

Lights out, then, and Pedrosa didn't get his usual lightning start. In fact he was fairly slow off the line, which was compounded by getting a little boxed in and then having a massive near-highside on the second corner. While he did brilliantly in catching it, the slide cost him a few places and a chunk of time. No, this time it was Stoner who took full advantage of his pole start and got away at the front with Lorenzo, Hayden, Spies and Rossi following. Rossi also got a bit boxed in and pushed back, which if nothing else shows that something was definitely amiss with The Doctor. By the end of the first lap, though, Stoner had opened over half a second gap over Lorenzo, with Hayden a tenth of a second further back. And Pedrosa was on the move already, climbing back up to fourth, albeit nearly a second behind Stoner and just ahea of Spies. A second back was a small group of Dovizioso, Simoncelli and Rossi, the champion unable to break free, with de Puniet and Barberajust behind.

Lap two saw the Australian keeping up the pressure and really getitng his head down. Whatever the Ducati engineers have done, it's really worked a treat as although the bike was bucking around like some sort of animal, Stoner always looked comfortable and in control. And fast. Really fast. half a second a lap faster than Lorenzo fast. By the end of lap two there was over a second clear of the Spaniard, while Pedrosa had passed Hayden to slip into third, closing on Lorenzo and setting a fastest lap at the same time. Spies was slightly behind, then there was a lengthy gap to Simoncelli, who had made the break from Dovizioso and Rossi. Not much of a break, mind you, as a couple of laps the situation wasreversed and the young 250cc champion was scrapping with his friend and mentor, Rossi, for seventh. And that's not something I ever expected to write, either.

Now the paper results suggest that at this point it all gets rather static. And on paper it did. Stoner carried on extending a lead, thoyugh after Pedrosa passed Lorenzo the gap from first to second remained fairly constant at just over a second. Both riders put in fastest laps and, by default, new lap records but neither had a decisive advantage. Further back, though, knives were drawn and serious scrapping was taking place. Hayden had moved right up with Lorenzo and was pushing hard. There have been some engineering changes to his Ducati as well, and they too have paid off as the American looked more comfortable and more in control of the big red machine than at any other point in his time there. Lorenzo is right at the top of his game, but try as he might he couldn't shake off the former champion who would hassle him right until the end.

The next pairing was Dovizioso and Spies. Factory Honda against satellite Yamaha. The Honda is currently the fastest bike on the circuit, the Yamaha perhaps having better handling. And Spies really seems to be able to exploit that, especially on a fairly technical circuit like Aragon, though that long fast straight really made him work hard. Dovizioso didn't quite have the commitment, perhaps, or the confidence to make the most of his speed advantage, and though he could slip ahead on the straight Spies would either outbrake or simply out bottle him at the end and the Italian would have it all to do again. The battle carried on until the very last lap, when Dovizioso went for a do-or-die pass and slid off into the gravel and out of the race. A shame, because it was a great scrap and he rode brilliantly until then.

Further back again, Rossi finally came out ahead of Simoncelli and stayed there, gradually drawing clear but losing out on the braking zones as that damaged shoulder made itself felt. And behind them, Alvaro Bautista on the sole Suzuki, Marco Melandri on the second San Carlo Honda, Aleix Espargaro and Hector Barbera on satellite Ducatis were having an absolute ding-dong battle, finally finishing in this order but separated by just a quarter of a second across the four of them. Talk about a photo finish.

While the first two podium places were setlled, the last one certainly wasn't. Hayden was pushing extremely hard, taking every opportunity but just too polite or not confident enough to really stuff the Ducati in front and slam the door on Lorenzo. Until the last lap, when a clean but extremely robust pass saw him slip through at the chicane, and a ruthless block on the exit consolidated his position and allowed him to extend a tiny gap as the Ducati out-dragged the Yamaha.

So for the first time this season, Casey Stoner stood on the top step of the podium. Pedrosa was second and Hayden took his first podium of the season. While Jorge Lorenzo spoiled his amazing run of podium finishes with a still highly respectable fourth. Spies did brilliantly to take fifth while Rossi was gifted sixth in a performance with which he was plainly extremely unhappy.

So we're off to Japan now. Rossi always goes well there, but will he be fit enough? This weeknd saw him get leapfrogged by Stoner in the championship, and he's in real danger of not even achieving a top three finish. That should make the last few rounds interesting.

SB

Motegi MotoGP Results

1. Casey Stoner (Ducati)
2. Andrea Dovizioso(Honda)
3. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
4. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
5. Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
6. Marco Simoncelli (Honda)
7. Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki)
8. Ben Spies (Yamaha)
9. Randy de Puniet (Honda)
10. Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda)

MotoGP standings (after fourteen rounds)

1. Jorge Lorenzo 297
2. Dani Pedrosa 228
3. Casey Stoner 180
4. Andrea Dovizioso 159
5. Valentino Rossi 156
6. Ben Spies 139
7. Nicky Hayden 129
8. Randy de Puniet 88
9. Marco Simoncelli 84
10. Colin Edwards 81