Odds on for the last race??

If things were different and it was Hayden leading by 8 points over Rossi I
suspect the majority would pick Rossi to clinch the championship, in other
words the majority believe Rossi has the talent to beat Hayden and one other
would come between them to make it so. If Rossi was 8 points down and they
interviewed him last week he would say he has a very steep hill to climb, a
very hard challenge but he would never say his back was against the wall or
be defeatist about the situation, he would see it as a final challenge and
use all his energy and talent to do the best he could from the situation.
Hayden on the other hand seems to make it all doom and gloom, "All he has to
do is follow me", I find that attitude apalling, I know he's hurt from the

If Rossi was down by 8 points going into the last race, I can guarantee
that he'd say something like "well, is out of our control, all we can
do is try for the win and hope Colin can come in 2nd. Tomorrow we
see." Which is more or less what Nicky said, because he even if he
wins, he has to count on someone else with essentially nothing at stake
riding hard and fast enough to beat Rossi.

Of course, Rossi already has 5 championships, and the 6th one is
clearly less important than the first, so he can afford to be a bit
more blase about it.

I also suspect that had Pedrosa taken Rossi out last weekend instead of
Hayden, he might not be holding a fifteen-minute long press conference
shortly after the race finished.

Right. And let's recall that Rossi was declaring the championship all
but gone after Laguna, saying things like, "Anyway, now we're 51 points
down on Hayden with only six races left, so for the first time I will
race for the rest of the season without thinking about the pressure of
the championship. My plan is to have a lot of fun over the remaining
races and try to win as many as possible, and then who knows what might
happen?". So where's Paul's criticism of him?

And regarding Nicky, he's faced a very demoralizing run since the break,
with the FIM/Dorna screwing him at PI, the clutch problems resulting in
that bad start at Motegi and then Elias refusing to get out of his way,
followed by Honda's declaration of "no team orders". So he must have
been feeling that everything was working against him after Pedrosa ran
into him.

And regarding Rossi, he has a points lead I even doubt he thought he'd
have back in August, and he's gotten there in part courtesy of the
sanctioning bodies and Pedrosa, not to mention Honda. He certainly
hasn't done it on his own - with only one win in those five races, he
has the fewest wins over a five-race run he's had since the middle of
'03, when he lost four in a row, and if you add Laguna you have to go
back to the first half of his first year in 500 to find anything equal
to his one-in-six current streak.

How that impacts his confidence now, I don't know, but that and actually
losing a race to Elias on the last lap has to result in at least a
little doubt. But being up 8 instead of down some has to help - a lot...

incident last race but that's the first DNF for him this year, in some
respects it puts the championship points in balance after all most of his
closet challengers have had bad luck this year that has set them back many
points in the championship and yet they are still within a stones throw of
Hayden, who in has been lucky not through skill to have avoided some of the
mishaps his competitors have had.

While it's always unfortunate to be taken out through no fault of your own
life goes on, maybe he should have been less conservative and more
aggressive when he had the opportunity to make up a few points here and
there, a page out of Rossi's book in that respect wouldn't go astray, one
thing you can say of Rossi is he always makes the most of any situation and
salvages what he can, take the last race, a sensible 3rd would have been a
safe bet but he had the courage to go for the win, ok he got 2nd but those 4
points from been 3rd may win him the championship.

The battle isn't over for Hayden, he can beat Rossi and has to hope someone
else comes between them but to give up isn't what a real world champion
would do at this stage, more than ever his real measure is this last race
and it's up to him to make the most of it.

Personally I think Rossi will kick his ass but thats not the point.