The last two races have certainly had a huge impact on the championship. Pedrosa has only scored one point in the last three races due to his big accident in Germany and Michelin’s extremely poor performance in Brno. This means that his championship charge has fallen back dramatically and he trails Rossi by a massive 65 points. Due to Stoner’s fall in Brno and zero points he has also slipped back further from Rossi and has a 50 points deficit.

Winning a championship from that far behind isn’t impossible (Rossi almost managed it in 2006 before throwing it all away in the final race) It means that Stoner can’t afford any more errors and needs to win the majority of the last six races and hopes Rossi drops big points somewhere to have any chance of the title.

Stoner’s main problem with closing the gap is there are hardly any riders who can finish between him and Rossi which means that he is only realistically going to be able to take a maximum of five points off him per race. Lorenzo is lacking confidence and is on the Michelins, which are weaker than Bridgestone at the moment. Pedrosa is still recovering from the crash in Germany and like Lorenzo is on the Michelins. Stoner’s team mate Marco Melandri has been struggling to adapt to the Ducati all season long, meaning that Stoner doesn’t have a wingman in his own team to help him out and take points off Rossi.

It’s a shame that Lorenzo and Pedrosa have both had falls .This ended up affecting their championship campaigns so badly as we could have had a 4-way fight instead of a possible 2-way fight or a 3-way fight if we get a really crazy conclusion to the season.

It is certainly Rossi’s to lose now and it all seems to be going his way. However, Stoner won’t stop trying and he will keep on fighting until it is mathematically over and hope that Rossi encounters a problem somewhere. Pedrosa will be hoping the same thing but his bike isn’t as strong as Stoner’s and he is struggling with Michelin tyres so his chances are pretty slim. One mistake in Germany has effectively destroyed his championship.

Overall I feel Rossi has one hand on the trophy. In Stoner’s favour is the fact that all the pressure is on Rossi to wrap up the championship whereas Stoner can maybe relax a little bit more. However it would be a huge shock to everyone in Moto GP if Rossi were to throw away a 50-point championship lead within just six races. Of course in motorsport, anything can happen.

Predictions for Misano

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