If you were to look at the statistics of great champions of the past, you would see that most can be divided into two categories. First come the champs with the “win or crash” attitude – if they won a title they did so by winning the majority of races. If they didn’t win they probably didn’t finish at all.
Then there are the consistent, “mind-the-points” champions, a perfect example being Mat Mladin. When Mladin, while embroiled in a championship points battle, comes to a track at which another bike or rider is unequivocally faster, he almost always manages a consistent top-three or at least top-five finish. In the process, he only loses a few championship points to whichever rider dominates the weekend.
Valentino Rossi took the opposite tactic at the Qatar MotoGP on Saturday. Starting from the back of the grid, he managed an amazing charge to fourth place behind Colin Edwards. However, trying to chase down the Texas Tornado was a losing proposition for Rossi, as Edwards was the fastest man on the track in Qatar. Rossi overextended himself in trying to keep pace with Edwards, and instead of finishing fourth (or third, due to Carlos Checa’s mechanical failure late in the race) he DNF’d and received no points.
In the process, he managed to bring Qatar race-winner Sete Gibernau back into the championship fight. Going into Qatar, Rossi led Gibernau by 39 points in the championship race. With Rossi receiving no points in Qatar, and Gibernau awarded 25 points for the race win, the margin has been cut to 14 points with three races left in the season.
Will Rossi hold on to his championship lead as the series travels to Malaysia, Australia, and then the final round at Valencia? We’ll have to see, but it’s certain he’ll push for the win at every race.
