Every Dog Has His Day

With Valentino Rossi undoubtedly being the best motorcycling rider in the world, what happened in the Czech Grand Prix last weekend was a bit of a surprise.

Rossi, the five-time reigning World Champion, didn't fare badly, and came home in second place a little more than four seconds behind Italian veteran Loris Capirossi, who scored his seventh victory in the top flight in his long career. And Rossi had to overcome a fantastic duel with 20-year-old rookie Dani Pedrosa of Spain, who for a brief moment managed to squeeze past Rossi for second place, only to be overtaken at the very next corner and had to settle for third.

Meanwhile, Championship leader Nicky Hayden was not having a great day, as he could only managed a ninth-place finish, and saw his lead over Pedrosa reduced from 34 points to 25 points.

Early in the race, Hayden was battling with his teammate Pedrosa for second place, and the two nearly collided. Unfortunately, he was soon hampered by a rear tyre problem and to make matters worse, he was overtaken by American John Hopkins in the final chicane on the last lap, and then by Japanese rider Shinya Nakano just metres before the finish.

With big names like Capirossi, Rossi and Pedrosa sharing the victory champagne on the podium, what's the surprise?

The first surprise came at qualifying, when Rossi pushed to the limit to claim pole position at the final minutes. It was only his second pole position of the season.

As Rossi is blessed with an outstanding ability to overtake his rivals, many believe that no matter where he starts on the grid, he would always find a way to get back to the front. As a result, it's not uncommon to see Rossi qualify at the middle of the grid, with everyone anticipating a mad dash from the back for him.

Which leads us to the second surprise of the day: There was no mad dash for him.

Thanks to his customary slow start, Rossi yet again lost ground to other riders early in the race. When he overtook Hayden for second place, many expected that it was just a matter of time for him to close in on Capirossi. Instead, Capirossi managed to pull away from Rossi as his lap times were constantly fractions of a seconds quicker than Rossi's. The gap kept growing to over 7.5 seconds at the latter stages of the race, with Pedrosa hot on his tail. It came down to four seconds only because Capirossi was cruising in the final laps of the race.

For Capirossi, it was his second victory of the year, following his win at the season opening race at Jerez. It was also his first win since being seriously injured in the horrifying crash on the opening lap of the Catalonia Grand Prix in June, in which his teammate Sete Gibernau, Italian Marco Melandri, Frenchman Randy de Puniet, Hopkins and Pedrosa were also involved.

It's a morale booster for his Ducati team too, as Gibernau, after a two-race comeback, had to sit out this race when it was found he had not fully recovered from his injuries.

With five races still to go, the top five riders (Hayden, Pedrosa, Rossi, Melandri and Capirossi in that order) in the Championship are separated by a mere 50 points. This year's title race is still very much wide open.