Three races have passed since my last column and lots of things have changed in MotoGP – particularly in the life of Jorge Lorenzo. Jorge has taken his first MotoGP victory, led the championship, broken his ankles, taken a fourth place and a second to remain second overall in the standings – just three points behind his team-mate Valentino Rossi – and celebrated his 21st birthday! It has been a remarkable journey for the Spaniard and he has won plenty of admirers in the paddock.

One of the topics Jorge’s plight has caused a lot of people to discuss, particularly at Le Mans, is the argument about whether the decision on if a rider is fit enough or not to ride should be taken out of their hands. It is something that is regulated by a governing body in most other sports but in my view I can’t see who is better to judge this in motorcycle racing than a rider’s competitors. The Safety Commission involves the riders for just this reason and I’m sure they would have made their thoughts known if they felt Jorge was a danger to them. After his two crashes and a couple of off-track excursions at Le Mans I must admit I thought maybe enough was enough, but he kept everything together to score an incredible result on Sunday.

Rossi now leads the championship going into his home race at Mugello, where he hasn’t lost for seven years. Not only does he have a great record there, he is going into the race on the back of two dominant victories at Shanghai and Le Mans, where he didn’t just beat his rivals – he pulverised them. After the first couple of races people were suggesting Vale would regret switching from Michelin to Bridgestone but it shows how fast things can change in MotoGP. It would have been nice for Jorge to be at full strength in the last two races so that we could make a more direct comparison between the tyres but there are thirteen more chances to see that!

My personal opinion is that the YZR-M1 has changed dramatically over the past six months. Last year Yamaha only scored ten podiums all season, whereas this year they already have nine with three different riders. They’ve won three out of five races, all four of their riders have started races from the front row of the grid and they lead the riders’, teams’ and constructors’ standings. This means that the bike is performing well with two different tyre brands, at a variety of different circuits and with four very different riding styles. It reminds me a little of when we first switched to four-stroke 990cc machinery, when Honda’s V5 machine worked so well that just about anybody could ride it and win races.

In contrast, it seems the other manufacturers are struggling to reach this level of consistency and versatility. The most obvious example is Ducati, which I touched on in my last column, and three races later Casey Stoner is still the only man who can ride it. Nicky Hayden can sometimes get close with the Honda, but generally speaking it looks like Dani Pedrosa is the only one who can set the RC211V up to his requirements and get the most out of that package on a consistent basis. The same is true, to a degree, at Kawasaki and Suzuki. What we are seeing so far this season is separation between their riders – you never see John Hopkins and Anthony West or Loris Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen competitive as a pair at any one racetrack.

Kawasaki and Suzuki are in a similar position to where Yamaha were last year, so hope is not lost. They were both closer to the front last year but one of the biggest factors in their favour was the advantage Bridgestone had over Michelin. The improvements made by Michelin this season have cancelled this out and all of a sudden life is a lot harder again. You only have to consider how much Casey Stoner has been reeled in by the rest of the pack to realise that and both of those factories now have their work cut out trying to make up the ground in other areas.

That is something I’ll be keeping a close eye on over the coming weeks. With back-to-back races coming up at Mugello and Barcelona the pendulum could swing dramatically again. If the drama continues in the way it has recently then we’re in for a treat.

Randy