This weekend MotoGP championship leader Valentino Rossi put on yet another masterful display of racing around the 3.75 mile long Assen circuit. As I guessed in my race preview on Friday the Assen circuit definitely suited the Yamaha. Not only did Valentino win convincingly, his teammate Colin Edwards made his second podium appearance of the year with a strong third place. While the Yamaha may not be the most powerful bike on the grid is definitely handles the best. The Yamaha engineers should be proud of their accomplishments on that front.

But its Marco Melandri who should be standing tall this weekend. The 22 year old Italian has been the revelation of the year having scored top four finishes at ever race. He has proven to be the main title contender to Rossi and the top Honda rider…a position which was assumed to be held by Max Biaggi or Sete Gibernau at the start of the season. This weekend in particular was a performance for which Melandri can be proud. First, he lead the race for nine laps and was hounded by Rossi for two long laps without making a mistake before the inevitable pass for the lead. After the pass, Marco was able to step up his pace and hang with Rossi for the remaining ten laps of the race. The result was a 1.5 second gap at the stripe, easily on par with the gap to Rossi that more experience MotoGP racers like Gibernau and Biaggi have had in their races with the dominant Yamaha rider. Additionally, his second place finish was the best of the year for Melandri so he continues to improve with each race.

Another improving rider is Honda’s Nicky Hayden. Over the past four races, Hayden has had two sixth place finishes, then a fifth and now a fourth in Assen. The 10 second gap from winner Rossi looks discouraging but he continues to show that he is learning. In the early laps, he was the most aggressive rider on the track pushing his way through to second place on the first lap. Hayden seems to have improved with both his qualifying and bike setup at the beginning of this year and aggressiveness was the one skill he seemed to lack, even as recently as Mugello. At Catalunya the rider from Owensboro, Kentucky seemed to pick that up with some tough riding in the early laps against Melandri, Gibernau, Rossi and Barros. He then picked that up even more at Assen, showing he is improving at each race. If he can just find that extra tenth of a second per lap, Nicky will be fighting it out with Valentino and Marco. Easier said that I done, I know.

For Rossi, it was another crushing victory, his sixth of the seven races run so far this year. Rossi can win no matter what: Fast tracks, slow tracks, wet, dry, running away or fighting till the last lap. This race used a different approach with Vale getting a poor start and having to charge through over the first few laps to join the front runners. He made it look easy has he carved his way to the front, then stalked Melandri before taking the lead. I think he wanted to pull a bait and switch on his Honda riding countryman by running Marco’s pace for a few laps after going to the front, then picking up the pace to crush Melandri’s confidence. Fortunately, Marco upped his pace as well which gives us hope that Rossi’s reign may yet be challenged. There are still two issues that need to be resolved. First, given Rossi and Melandri’s friendship, did Valentino really push Marco has hard has he was capable? Second, if Melandri does start to pressure Rossi for the championship will their friendship dissolve just as the Gibernau-Rossi relationship went sour after Qatar in 2004?

Edwards took advantage of the sweet handling Yamaha to run the pace of his teammate. In the middle stages of the race, the Texan was actually the fastest rider on the track. With open track ahead of him, it was clear that Edwards was comfortable. However, it took him a couple of laps to get past both Gibernau and Hayden showing he still has to develop the aggressiveness that the younger Honda mounted American is just now learning. Had Edwards been able to cut through slower riders sooner he appeared capable of running the same pace as the two Italians in front of him. His fine podium finish, along with the fourth by Hayden, bodes well for us American fans getting a great show at Laguna Seca in a couple of weeks.

Another big news item was Max Biaggi. He celebrated his 34th birthday at Assen but also earned a $6,000 fine due to careless riding. He ran into both Battaini and Melandri during the weekend. This was amplified when Biaggi’s uncle, a visitor in the Honda pits, physically assaulted Melandri in the paddock. The final insult for the Roman was the race itself. As with other recent races Biaggi sucked in the early laps before charging through to an eventual sixth place. With 250GP championship leader Pedrosa supposedly guaranteed a Repsol Honda seat in 2006, Biaggi better step it up if he wants to keep his factory position.

One thing that definitely isn’t looking up are the Bridgestone tires. Just like at Catalunya, the Ducati, Kawasaki and Suzuki riders all suffered miserable results at Assen. Over the first few laps, the Kawasaki of Nakano and the Ducati of Capirossi both ran in the top five. Both slid backwards as the race progressed to eventually get eighth and tenth place finishes. The Suzukis had a double whammy with both their crappy motor and the crappy tires conspiring to put them nearly a minute behind the leader, finishing in 13th and 16th respectively.

Finally, next year will be an interesting watershed for the Assen track. This year a chicane was added to the track but this winter a drastic modification to the circuit will cut nearly a mile out of the current layout. All the riders have expressed disappointment with the proposed changes as it will ruin the flowing character that has defined this course for the past 75 years. Assen also has a decade long history of drawing crowds of 90,000+ fans. Lets hope that the rider’s lack of enthusiasm for the changes doesn’t affect the ticket buying public or the world stands to loose a great race track based on both layout and attendance…

[image from the Team Gresini web site.]