Craziness in Catalunya

Even if you were not a motor-racing fan, you would have found yesterday's Catalunya Motorcycle Grand Prix an absolute stunner.

If you want real overtaking actions and close fights among the top guns, that was THE RACE for you.

And if you want to listen to commentators becoming hysteric and having their voice gone hoarse during a live broadcast, that was also THE RACE for you.

The record book will only tell you that Championship leader Casey Stoner extended his lead on Valentino Rossi to 14 points after his fourth win of the season, but won't tell you how amazing the race was.

Stoner's Ducati had an absolute horsepower advantage over Rossi's Yamaha and local hero Dani Pedrosa's Honda. And you would have expected Stoner to be the runaway winner given the track's long main straight.

While Stoner did indeed extend his lead over his two main rivals in the main straight, Rossi showed us why he has been crowned World Champion seven times.

In the twisty and more technical part of the track, he was able to get close to Stoner, while Pedrosa was also able to latch on to the back of the queue.

Rossi's aim was obvious. He had to overtake Stoner anywhere except the main straight and tried as hard as possible to maintain his advantage.

And despite the disadvantage in horsepower, Rossi pulled out a half dozen stunning overtaking maneuvres, and each time he did it in different parts of the track, including an amazing overtaking job at the extremely quick final corner before the main straight. And when Stoner once again regained the lead in the main straight for the umpteenth time, Rossi for once was able to out-brake Stoner to take back the lead going into the first corner. Talk about giving Stoner an awakening call.

While the two were constantly swapping positions, Pedrosa was ready to pounce on any mistakes. And when Rossi did run wide in a botched overtaking attempt, Pedrosa saw daylight and went for it. Yet Rossi simply slammed the door shut and Pedrosa just had to back off.

In the end, less than 0.4 seconds separated the top three and Stoner was finally able to take the top step of the podium in Europe. His emergence after joining the Ducati team this year has been compared to Lewis Hamilton's rise to stardom at McLaren ...