Hey everyone, Le Mans was a perfect weekend and some great racing gave us fans plenty to cheer about, especially if you are Spanish and ride a Yamaha!

Though it’s too early to tell if Jorge or Vale will win this year’s title, at this point it definitely looks like it will be Yamaha who will be taking the constructors championship again. Yamaha’s succession of 1-2 finishes are like a boxer dishing out 1-2 combinations to his opponent, the M1 has been relentless and it’s a case of ‘if the left one doesn’t get you, the right one will’!

After the race at Le Mans a lot of the media focus was all about Casey Stoner and his second race crash of the year, but I think a lot of people are coming to the wrong conclusions about what went wrong. Casey admitted he wasn’t sure how or why he lost the front and one thing that wasn’t pointed out in a lot of news stories is that there were a few other riders that had the exact same thing happen to them.

I talked to Ben Spies – who also came off during the race - afterwards and asked him ‘What happened?’ and he said he tucked the front through the chicane but he had absolutely no idea why. He accepted responsibility for his crash in practice as he was pushing on a cold tire, but in the race the front just went away on him.

Loris also came to grief on the same lap, losing the front end without warning and he also commented on everything being fine one second and sliding towards the kitty litter the next.

Even Andrea Dovizioso who finished superbly in third place said that during the race he felt the front end tuck a few times, but thankfully he was able to keep on top of it and bring his bike home on the podium.

So we have riders on all four makes of bike; Ducati, Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha mentioning similar problems over the race weekend at Le Mans. So it seems this is not just a Stoner or Ducati problem as a lot of the media would have it.

A common theme to all the rider comments I’ve heard is that the loss isn’t progressive, the front end hangs in there and then just goes away. During practice and qualifying, most of the time you are just out there in a rhythm and being as smooth as you can. Could the extra few percent that the riders are putting in during the race be causing the issue? Whatever it is, I hope it gets sorted out as trust me, while it’s never fun losing your bike from underneath you, there is nothing worse for a rider than to lose control of your bike and not having the faintest idea why!

So why the media talks about Casey’s head not being there due to contract talks or whatever else being behind his crashes, to me it just seems that with all these bikes being so highly developed the line between nailing a corner and washing out the front end has never been thinner. Could the combination of the latest Ohlins fork and Bridgestone tire that all the teams are using lack a bit of feel right at the limit? Well let’s see what happens at the next few races!

A lot of you fans might have noticed how bare the MotoGP grid looked like after the chaos we had with the 41 Moto2 riders screaming away from the start. With Bautista out we were down to 16 starters and why I would like to see more bikes on the grid I am a bit worried by some of the suggestions being made to boost the numbers.

There are a couple of problems I can see with the current set up. Perhaps the biggest, is that the factory teams spend huge amounts of money developing engines and electronic systems, and then pick and choose what parts they pass on to the satellite teams.

This is unsustainable and I would like to see Dorna establish a clear set of guidelines that prevents the factories having an open book on what they can develop and most importantly, I would like to see a provision which means all satellite teams are entitled to exactly the same engine and electronic systems as the factory teams.

By forcing the factories to pass on the same specification engine and electronics to the satellite teams as they use themselves, the emphasis on development will switch to the chassis. This would not only slow down the engine and electronics war which costs so much money, but if a satellite team comes up with a better chassis they would have a chance to take it to the factory teams – something that just can’t happen in MotoGP with the current regulations. Banning electronics altogether would be even cheaper but I can’t see the teams agreeing to that!

Look at what is happening in Formula 1. We have a ‘satellite’ team in Red Bull beating the ‘factory’ Renault team with the same engine, which they have done by being more inventive within what the rules dictate - next year it could be another team at the front, which is great for the fans. There is no way HRC would be happy with being beaten week after week by Gresini, but for MotoGP, having stronger satellite teams can only be a good thing.

Dorna are aware that filling up the grid just for the sake of it isn’t in the long term interest of the sport. We need the numbers, but have to ensure that all the teams can compete on a level playing field to uphold the prestige of MotoGP and provide better entertainment for the fans.

So for this weekend, it will be interesting to see if Casey can overcome his problems and fight for a second win at Mugello to kick-start his title fight. Vale should be back to full fitness and will want to win in front of his home fans and knock some of the wind out of Jorge’s sails. Let’s hope for better weather than last year!

Randy