Moody Blues: Rossi favourite with four to go.

In the latest of his exclusive columns for Crash.net, Eurosport MotoGP commentator Toby Moody gives his take on the exciting world championship battle, ahead of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix...

Time to sound like a stuck record again, but just as I said after Brno, this is going to be one hell of a championship finale! It is going to be a belting right to the last corner.

Rossi made things a darn sight easier for himself in Malaysia. Before Malaysia he needed to close at a rate of 7.6 points more than the others to win it. Last Sunday he got 12 more than Hayden. Wham! Nearly double what he needs in one race. Here and now Rossi is favourite for the title with his sheer aura eating into the others.

It must be like looking into your mirrors if you were an F1 driver, only to see the yellow helmeted Senna behind you. Rossi makes them use another part of their brains to worry about him, and not the track ahead. Soon enough he's through; and gone.

Phillip Island has seen Rossi win from seven of the last eight years he's been there. Just incredible, crushing figures from the most naturally gifted motorsports person around, if not ever... and he's only 27! Agostini's figures will be beaten. At just 26 points back with 100 on the table, he now only needs 6.5 points more than the others to win it.

Valencia will be the biggest showdown of recent years, and all of this without the Governing body having got involved in sending people back down the grid for waving a fist at someone or 'blocking' someone during qualifying!

Championship leader Hayden was really hacked off on Sunday evening. He'd had another Jerez again, in that he was beaten by his team-mate from nowhere.

"Just how can we get beaten by a guy in a wheelchair with only one leg?" asked someone. "And why are we at round 13 and still testing parts and munching through clutches even during a 20 minute warm-up session on Sunday? It's been the same since Jerez and nothing happens to cure it. Sure there are other problems with the '800' Evo bike, but this clutch just doesn't work," they said.

All of this is in reference to the newer 2007 engine and clutch configuration of the V5 that sees the clutch assembly set much deeper into the engine, and so closer to a massive heat sink of 260bhp. "I had to baby it off the line (in Malaysia) so I didn't cook it," said Hayden. I'm no engineer of friction or clutch plates, but how could an F1 car cope with nearly 980bhp at the end of the 3 litre formula last year, but a 260bhp V5 clutch cannot survive off the line in one go?

I hope the elongated contractual negotiations between Hayden and HRC are not a hindrance? Why can't he have a traditional 990 V5 as Pedrosa/Melandri etc have got? You can scrutineer more than two bikes, and there's nothing wrong in taking steps 'back'. Rossi did it when he went back to the 2005 Evo for 2006 bike that all of a sudden worked after the duff results that littered his early season. Rossi and Yamaha will win the 2006 championship by having done as such. They threw the technical plan out of the window.

Sure, Honda have had a plan for the 2006 championship. Everyone has to. But that plan may well have been thrown into a spin with the incredible testing speed and then race pace of Pedrosa with a second at round one, and a win at only his fourth MotoGP race (China). Maybe they just never thought they'd actually be in a position of being strong in the championship with Rossi dominating so much last year.

Then, for whatever reason, like he didn't fall off or qualify badly, Hayden leads the championship after the third race, and he leads it well through the summer whilst all the others binned it one way or the other. I remind you Hayden has scored at every race. No-one is irreplaceable, but doesn't the Marlboro dollar and that Stetson wearing Cowboy image look tempting to Nicky? I said that after Catlaunya in this column...

Pedrosa has fought back with a win at Donington whilst that same weekend Hayden tested chassis and exhausts. You have to believe the little kid will annihilate them - or at least the others less for Capirossi on local Bridgestone's - at Motegi. "If that chair thing on the podium by Rossi was getting at us at Sepang, then we'll beat him next year, if not this year," seethed a Pedrosa source.

It just strikes me that there really are two teams in the Honda garage. Two completely different guys riding two completely different bikes with two completely different cultures.

All we want is a fair fight to the flag for the sake of the sport we love. I'm booking my Valencia ticket for early arrival!


The decision to take the Malysian grid from the best times from the three free practice sessions was naturally embraced by the people at the front of the grid. Less so was it encompassed by the Stoners, Suzukis and Melandris of the field.

"They didn't get this far down pit lane because they would have got too wet." was one comment from the Suzuki garage. Asked if the Rossi/Capirossi/Race Direction gaggle had even consulted him, Hayden said, "No. I'll get them back another way."

Melandri, who is actually quite level headed in matters such as these, suggested there be a 30 minute warm up on Sunday with qualifying thrown in. Ironically Sunday held perfect weather conditions for all.

Melandri's was the best, logical option, but it seems that the ultimate decision was made because we are now in the post-Barcelona 'default setting' of not losing too many riders from the show through accidents. Barcelona was ultimately a thin race and it seems Dorna do not want a repeat. Pedrosa, however, was saved from qualifying last (as he was on Saturday morning). That would have been the outcome if we'd had any qualifying whatsoever. And I thought only Bernie E could make it rain on cue!


Alexis Masbou was handed a one race ban with immediate effect after ramming straight into the back of poor Stefan Bradl during the 125 warm-up on Sunday. Masbou was doing a practice start and was simply not even looking where he was going. Bradl's right leg was cut wide open and broken in the lower section, plus a broken bone in his foot. The feeling in the press office was that he should have been sent home until Portugal.