MotoGP: it's all about the racing

Marco Simoncelli is a hard man to keep down: leading the qualifying time sheets with a couple of laps to go, he fell and as a result started second. But as he wandered around after qualifying, his biggest problem appeared to be getting the sponsor's cap to fit on his increasingly huge hair. But in the race, he was sluggish off the line and locked in a nose to tail battle with Stoner, both got a huge wiggle on: it was Simoncelli who went into a horrendous high-side, landing in a sitting position from a great height. But he got up and walked away from his landing site alongside the marshal carrying a stretcher.

That meant that, as the field spread out, Stoner got the chance to find the limits of his bike with no one else around him.

He was the only one that did: a ding-dong battle between Cal Crutchlow and Hiroshi Aoyama lasted all race until the penultimate lap when Aoyama made his final pass and built a gap of a couple of seconds. Crutchlow, in his first season, did well to make it to the end of the race: he's got a problem with his arms where, due to the enormous stresses of pulling the brake lever and holding himself on the bike under the phenomenal g-forces generated by braking a MotoGP bike, fluid is building up. After a hard race, it's so bad that the fluid has to be drawn off. Even so, he was only two places behind his very experienced team mate Colin Edwards and ahead of Nicky Hayden. Indeed, the roll-call of finishers behind Crutchlow shows the enormity of his result: de Puniet (who has had several operations in the past few weeks to fix a smashed leg), Elías, Capirossi (who sought medical attention for a swollen shoulder on Thursday) and Bautista - six weeks after he broke his leg in practice for the first race of the season.

Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso battled all race long with Rossi a bike's length ahead for the last half of the race - except the last moments. When it really mattered, Dovizioso pulled alongside Rossi as they raced towards the finishing line. While Rossi crouched below the screen of his Ducati, almost seeming to try to thrust it forwards just a tiny bit, he could see the Honda coming past - ahead by less than a wheel at just two and a half thousandths of a second.

And at the front, Pedrosa stalked Lorenzo, teasing him into a well rehearsed defence into the first corner. Then, with three laps to go, Pedrosa made the move - and placed his bike exactly where Lorenzo had practised putting his to block the move. By the end of the race, Pedrosa was almost three seconds ahead - although on the last lap, Lorenzo clearly cruised for the last few corners.

Pedrosa, suffering from a shoulder injury, could not even hold his arm up as he rode around his parade lap - supporting it on the seat behind him.

This is why we watch motor racing.

And the next time there's all kinds of inter-team bitching in F1, they might like to remember that.