I’m just back from a fantastic family holiday in Costa Rica following the US Grand Prix and even though I’m staying in California for another week, I’ll be watching Sunday’s German Grand Prix with great interest. Whilst Valentino Rossi heads to Sachsenring with an extended lead in the championship after taking second place at Laguna Seca, for me Dani Pedrosa’s surprise win was further evidence that the Italian’s position at the top is far from safe.

When Valentino has a motorcycle underneath him that he is 100% comfortable with he is very difficult to beat, but he has looked vulnerable on many occasions this season and when you look at the races that are left you have to say that Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner are all capable of beating him at any one of them. Circumstances played into his hands at Assen and he scraped second place at Laguna largely due to injuries to Lorenzo and Stoner. Of course, Rossi knows that the key to winning titles is consistency and whilst he never likes to finish second, doing so to Pedrosa at this stage of the season won’t worry him too much.

As I said though, finishing second is not his style and he showed at Laguna that whenever there is a sniff of a chance to take victory, even with a daredevil dive on the final bend, he is ready and willing to take it. If he was an inch closer to Dani on the entrance to that corner I think he would have gone for it but he said himself there was too much at stake to risk it.

Unfortunately it is too late for Dani’s championship hopes but he goes very well at Sachsenring, having won there in 2007 and crashing out of the lead last year, so let’s hope for at least a four-way fight for the podium this Sunday. I think we will see Dani pushing extremely hard in these upcoming races because he has much less to lose than the other three. Lorenzo and Stoner have ground to make up whilst Rossi is concentrating on keeping them at bay, but right now it is crucial they don’t make mistakes.

Hopefully Jorge and Casey will have recovered from the injuries that hampered them at Laguna Seca and it would be great to see an improvement in Casey’s general health following the diagnosis of his recent problems. He is coming under increasing pressure for results after a relatively dry spell in recent weeks – as if holding up the Ducati effort wasn’t enough stress! I see some fans writing on forums criticising Casey’s attitude in front of the press and criticising myself for defending him. The fact is he is a great kid! Like Dani, the fact he doesn’t like working the magic in front of the camera like Valentino does not necessarily mean he never breaks a smile or has fun when they’re switched off. He is also a spectacular rider and one of a select few able to push probably the greatest rider we’ve ever seen to the limit, so as fans we should simply sit back and enjoy him, whatever we perceive his personality to be.

Getting the tyres to work at Sachsenring will no doubt be the main issue in terms of set-up this weekend because the weather can be extremely variable and Bridgestone have already made their choice on what rubber to take. I have known it to be scorching hot and chilly in the same weekend at this place so a lot will depend on what the weather decides to do and who can adapt to the circumstances the best.

It should be another intriguing weekend.

Randy