Well it's that time of year again to see if someone can knock Valentino Rossi off his perch.

Who do you fancy for the title this time around ?

It's Rossi's to lose again IMO.

Usually for Rossi, he's been outstanding in pre-season testing this year. He was fastest on four days out of four (two 2-day tests) in Malaysia and faster than Casey Moaner in the first day of floodlit testing in Qatar last month (and nobody is faster than Moaner at that track).

Lorenzo has another year under his belt so he'd be expected to push him further but he's still too crash-prone for my liking.

This year's Honda has been appalling and they've got a hell of a lot of work on to turn it around.

Moaner is the biggest threat to Rossi again but the issue there is consistency. There's no question that he'll win races (no doubt starting on Sunday) but I think the key will be how he performs in the races that he doesn't win, rather than the races that he does.

Rossi won. Stoner fell off. Honda look very fast in a stright line. Well done to Ben Spies too.

Thought Hayden was very unlucky not to get a podium finish. He looks to have really improved this year although I'll save judgement till later in the year - Losail is a fairly "Ducati friendly" track.

The Honda thing is interesting. The bike was nowhere in pre-season and I'm wondering if they're chancing their arm by not limiting the revs as much as the other teams, what with the engine limitations this season.

I forgot about Nicky Hayden

. He rode a great race and did very well indeed. Just a shame Lorenzo pipped him to the third podium step. I'm not sure as to what Honda are doing with their rev limiting but they must be confident of wringing it out without it blowing. Nicky deserves a great season as he's a fab rider and a nice guy as well. They're only allowed 6 engines for the whole season I think ?

6 engines per season. If Honda can get the reliability sorted (and in fairness, the least reliable part of their bikes in previous seasons has been the Spanish bloke sat on top of it), it's a gamble that could well pay off. A couple of crashes though and that tactic goes out of the window.

There's an argument to say that they've nothing to lose in many respects - a points deduction for Pedrosa or Dovizioso isn't a massive blow if they aren't in the hunt anyway.

Very surprised it wasn't a Stoner win, but thought it was a good race. Wonder what Toseland will have thought seeing Spies finish comfortably ahead of Edwards first time out.

I bet he thought "[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Qatar_motorcycle_Grand_PrixI can do that[/url"

I just remember Toseland's dummy-spit interview when he questioned what Yamaha would do if Spies couldn't beat Edwards either, would they ditch him too? Looks like that might not be an issue, James.

Press statement will come out tomorrow that the Japanese GP next week will be postponed until October because of the travel problems in Europe.

Honda's equipment is still in Spain and most of the riders are obviously based in Europe. There's also the cost implications of potentially having teams / riders stuck in Japan and unable to travel to the Spanish GP in Jerez the following week - the biggest earner of the season.

Ben Spies is a damn good rider.

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