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Monday Morning Grind

Man Nicky got hosed. For anyone who didn't watch or hear about it, Dani Pedrosa took his teammate (and at the time, current MotoGP championship leader) Nicky Hayden out in lap 5 of the GP race yesterday. It was gut wrenching to watch. Nicky was running third, chasing down Rossi and Edwards early on, when Dani went in too hot behind him, lost the front, crashed, and took Nicky out in the process.

Since I've started watching racing, I've never seen Nicky lose his temper. He was irate after seeing he wouldn't be able to get his bike back up and running. You could see the anger, disappointment and utter frustration in his face; and the inability to do anything about what had happened. I was frustrated for him too. More so, I was frustrated at Honda for not issuing team orders (it has been much publicized that Honda was *not* issuing any type of team orders to help Nicky win the championship), which surely would have put Dani in protection mode, rather than even risk pushing the envelope and putting his teammate in harms way. This possibly takes Honda out of the running for the manufacturer's title, which Rossi and Yamaha can now win. It doesn't make any sense to me, especially because Nicky has resigned with Honda for next year, so the reports of Honda favoring Dani seem less likely.

Even without team orders, it was a flat out bone head move. There's no way around it. Whether he was attempting to make a pass, or just let himself get too hot into the turn to begin with, he's got to be aware of his teammate and the circumstances surrounding his position in the championship at that point in time. That kind of memory lapse is inexcusable.

So Nicky's double-digit lead is gone, and he's now faced with an eight point deficit going into the last round this weekend. From what I've read, Nicky's stated the only way Dani can make up for his massive error in judgement is to help put a barrier between he and Rossi in the final race. In order to win the championship, Nicky needs to win and have Rossi finish 3rd or worse. This is no easy feat.

Needless to say, this last race will be exciting to watch. Nicky's been a little off since taking a commanding lead in the championship in my opinion, perhaps trying to play it conservatively (that coupled with his much talked about clutch woes) and protect the championship lead. It hasn't worked, as Rossi has chipped away at it over the past five races. There's no question this puts Nicky in attack mode, going head to head against Rossi.

I'm not sure how it will pan out, but it'll sure be fun to watch.

Monday, October 16th, 2006 | POSTED AT: 7:00 AM
FILED UNDER: General