The Motegi road course has been used for Grands Prix since 1999, and includes several fairly long straights, and various types of corners including a few tight ones. Rossi had won there in 2001, and Spanish riders Dani Pedrosa and Toní Elías had each won twice in the smaller GP classes. Ducati had been on top in recent years, with Loris Capirossi winning in each of the three previous visits, even as team-mate Casey Stoner had wrapped up the MotoGP title at Motegi last year.

Conditions were very wet for practice on Friday morning, but it was business as usual for qualifying. Fiat Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo, the 21-year-old class rookie, confirmed his recent return to form with pole position, his first since opening the season with three in a row. He was one of two front row men using Michelin tyres, with the other being third man Nicky Hayden, for Repsol Honda. These two were split by Marlboro Ducati rider Stoner, despite collecting an insect on his visor, and he needed a victory to keep his slim title hopes alive.

Bridgestone tyres were being used by the men in places four to six. Rossi led row two on his Fiat sponsored machine, ahead of Pedrosa (Repsol) and Capirossi. The Rizla Suzuki rider looked to have found his usual Motegi form although the other GSV-R800 riders would start quite well back. Tech 3 Yamaha rider Colin Edwards was seventh, with team-mate James Toseland three places behind. Eighth man Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda) was the fourth man on Michelins.

Japan’s only MotoGP regular was ninth, with Shin’ya Nakano a winner at Motegi in 1999. His Gresini Honda team-mate Alex de Angelis was in P18. After Toseland came Kawasaki lead rider John Hopkins, with the second green machine of Anthony West in P17. Rizla’s Chris Vermeulen was twelfth, and there was a third blue Suzuki for 33-year-old test rider Kousuke Akiyoshi. The wildcard rider would start his fourth GP from nineteenth and last, and having injured a toe in a race day warm-up crash.

In thirteenth would be JiR Scot Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso, and the Motegi weekend had seen final confirmation of his long expected move to Repsol Honda for 2009, as well as of Hayden’s move away from that team to replace Marco Melandri at Ducati. Marco was in P16 here, directly behind the Alice customer team bikes of Elías and Sylvain Guintoli. Andrea was another former winner at this track.

As well as the Hayden-Dovizioso moves, there were other rumours at Motegi. One was that Yamaha might be trying to persuade Edwards out of his existing 2009 Tech 3 contract to ride for them again in World Superbikes, or indeed that Ben Spies might get that WSB ride. Another had Nakano stepping back into a test rider role after eleven GP years. And another had Angel Nieto running a Ducati for Sete Gibernau, who has been out of the action for two years.

With Lorenzo taking to the grid on a Yamaha adorned by a manga cartoon character, race day morning brought the news that a one make tyre rule had been agreed for 2009 - as much in the interests of safety and reducing speeds as anything else. The tyre companies can pitch for the contract, which could just as easily mean Dunlop or Pirelli as current suppliers Bridgestone and Michelin. Pirelli are the suppliers for both the World and British Superbike series.

But for now there was the Japanese race, and at the start it was Stoner that led Pedrosa and Hayden. Rossi held fourth only until team-mate Lorenzo overtook him at the left-handed turn three. Capirossi led the pursuit, from Edwards, Toseland, Nakano, Hopkins, Melandri, Dovizioso, Vermeulen, de Puniet, Guintoli and West. The injured Akiyoshi was an immediate casualty as he crashed and left just the regulars in the race.

Lorenzo unintentionally gave fourth back to Rossi when he ran wide at the right-handed turn two, and meanwhile Pedrosa, in his first dry race on the Bridgestone tyres, was quick to pass Stoner for the lead. These two started with a slight gap back to Hayden, who would now come under attack from Rossi. The Yamaha man made a pass on the inside into the Hairpin, turn ten, which follows a short straight and then turns right into the long, downhill back straight.

Leader Pedrosa set the fastest lap, and certainly seemed to have better acceleration with the Honda than did Stoner. But the Ducati looked better in cornering, and Dani was not getting away from Casey, who now had Rossi on his tail even as Hayden fell away. Stoner overtook Pedrosa on the inside at the acute right-handed turn five, but the Spaniard came straight back past. Casey kept up the pressure and made a similar move at the same corner, this time pushing the Honda wide and waving his apology. Two bends later, on the inside for the first left at the S-Curve, Valentino also got by Dani.

Stoner and Rossi now traded fastest times, with Pedrosa losing ground on them. By one-third distance the Spaniard had lost touch, and by that time Lorenzo had taken fourth from Hayden, who had Capirossi still almost with him in sixth. Elías, West, de Angelis and Melandri had each managed separate trips into the gravel at the heavy braking 90° Corner, the right-hander at the bottom of the back straight. Marco had been passing Toseland when his mistake happened, and of course each of them lost ground with their detours.

Rossi continued following close to Stoner, using medium compound tyres where the Australian had a harder front. Braking for turn three saw the Italian on the inside, and with both men taking their left legs off. Valentino overtook and would soon have an advantage of 0.5s, which was at 0.8s with eight laps left to run. After this Rossi stretched it out, getting more than 1.5s clear. He backed off later but won his eighth title by winning the race, for five victories in a row. Stoner had tired during the race, but took a secure second at the flag.

Lorenzo had closed in on Pedrosa in the latter stages, and on the last lap the younger Spaniard had actually clipped the rear of the Honda on the inside in the second part of the Hairpin. They both finished and without a change of position. Pedrosa fell a further four points behind Stoner in the battle for second overall. Hayden had shaken off Capirossi and took fifth, two spots behind his team-mate on the other make of tyres.

Nakano had overtaken Toseland for eighth and then tagged on behind Edwards as they both closed in on Capirossi. Making even more of a move had been Dovizioso, who had to deal with both Melandri and Hopkins before he could get past Toseland. Andrea then caught the three ahead, but they finished with Capirossi sixth, from Edwards, Nakano and Dovizioso. Hopkins got the next spot from Toseland towards the end, and then came de Puniet, Melandri, Guintoli, West, Elías and de Angelis. Vermeulen had been in P13, but had a grassy excursion, apparently due to a technical problem, and soon parked in the pits.

Rossi performed a brief tyre burnout, but was then provided with a black and white helmet and a t-shirt with the number 8 and the legend ‘Scusate il ritardo’ - apologies for the delay. He then proceeded to cause a delay with an elaborate contract signing routine at a desk beside the track, filling his name in the blank on the new helmet and providing pictures with a camera mounted on the pen. There was eventually a slow lap back to the pits as the Italian savoured his latest triumph, which also took him past 2700 points in the top class.

Valentino Rossi’s father Graziano had been a GP rider, who won three 250cc races and was third in that championship in 1979, and fifth in the 500cc series a year later. Valentino’s first Grand Prix was as a 17-year-old in 1996, when he was sixth in Malaysia on a 125cc Aprilia. He took the title a year later and moved up with twelve wins to his credit. His 250cc crown also came in year two, and there were fourteen wins in that class. 2000 saw his 500cc début, and after two seasons he had won that title and thirteen races. Then came the 990cc four-stroke MotoGP era, with Rossi winning four straight championships even after switching from Honda to under-achieving Yamaha in 2004.

Rossi’s package had always been about talent and luck, but in 2006 quite a bit of his luck was bad. He missed out on the world championship by five points, but with more victories than anyone else. 2007 saw the switch to 800cc machinery, and it was the year of Ducati and Casey Stoner. This time Rossi just missed out on second place by a single point. But for this season the Italian demanded Bridgestone tyres for his Yamaha, and the gamble paid off as he has been back on top, now with eight race wins and his eighth GP title - to put Rossi above seven-time winners John Surtees and Phil Read, and behind only Giacomo Agostini on fifteen, Angel Nieto on thirteen, Mike Hailwood and Carlo Ubbiali, both on nine.

In fact, the four top men in the championship standings finished in the same positions in the race, which meant Casey Stoner now had eleven points in hand over Dani Pedrosa, and which meant Jorge Lorenzo looked pretty handy for the ‘rookie of the year’ title, now with 33 in hand over Andrea Dovizioso. Pedrosa’s third place result, having swapped to Bridgestone tyres before the Indy race, was his best since round nine, and surely his best performance since crashing out of the lead in the wet at round ten in Germany.

Loris Capirossi was Suzuki’s only finisher and, although he didn’t challenge for a fourth Motegi win, he did still get his third best result with the bike. And similarly Shin’ya Nakano at home looked better than at most of this year’s other races. But the talk was all about Rossi, and the next question must be about whether he could win the final three races and maybe therefore be more than 100 points ahead at the end of the season.

Standings after fifteen races: Rossi 312; Stoner 220; Pedrosa 209; Lorenzo 169; Dovizioso 136; Edwards 118; Vermeulen 117; Hayden 115; Capirossi 96; Nakano 95; Toseland 90; Elías 86.
Yamaha 341; Ducati 261; Honda 259; Suzuki 159; Kawasaki 77.

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