I did a blog posting earlier this week comparing the WSBK and MotoGP times from Qatar. Well, as I forecast, the times got quicker still on the third day of the MotoGP test. (The Camel Honda squad with Barros and Bayliss are sticking around for a fourth day of testing but everyone else called it quits after yesterday afternoon…or evening in the case of Tamada).

So the faster laps times, combined with this awesome photo of Tamada, motivated me to do a quick followup posting…

First, on his third and final day of testing at Qatar, Tamada knocked another second off this best lap time to finish with a fast lap of 1:56.6. I was pretty impressed on Tuesday when I wrote that the MotoGP guys were nearly three seconds faster than the WSBK bikes during their first two days of testing. The fact that the top MotoGP riders could knock another full second off their lap times shows just how much testing they are really doing as opposed to just running fast laps. I suspect they’ll knock another second off their lap times when they return to Qatar for their actual race in October. By then, they may well pick up even more time since Honda usually releases upgraded components to all the teams around the middle of the season.

Second, I think that I underestimated Tamada when I wrote my MotoGP rider review back in November. At the time, it seemed like Honda wasn’t really going to support Tamada and I wasn’t completely sure he’d even make the grid. I fully expected, if he was racing, that he would be aboard a “bitza bike” made from whatever hand-me-downs he could get out the back door of the factory. Instead, it looks like Honda has stepped up with a full customer bike (second tier behind the two Repsol bikes and maybe Gibernau’s bike, depending on what you read into the press releases about the Repsol-Movistar agreement) and it looks like Michelin is giving him their top tier tires. As a result, Tamada has been consistently fast at all of the pre-season tests. He left two of the Sepang tests as fastest guy and has backed that up by blitzing the Qatar test as well.

Clearly this guy is motivated. Whether that is enough to beat Rossi is another question but based on his attitude before the Motegi race last year, he certainly has the confidence to think he can. Something that Biaggi and Gibernau, both still pretty mentally battered after the past few season, may not have. I think its thrilling to see Tamada going so well. The Japanese have long hoped for a champ in the premier class of the GPs and their previous contenders like Okada, Itoh, Abe, Ukawa, Katoh and Haga have never quite achieved that lofty height. Perhaps Tamada has the skill, determination and mental strength to be a contender…

[image from the MCN web site.]