2010 Australian Grand Prix preview

With Jorge Lorenzo now crowned as the 2010 MotoGP world champion, the remaining three rounds of the campaign throw a focus on the personal aims of other riders in the Championship.

Having become only the second ever Spanish premier class champion, Lorenzo will want to underline his status with strong results in the final races, and victory at Phillip Island would be his first there in the elite category having twice been victorious there in the former 250cc class.

Last season Lorenzo failed to finish the race in Australia and in round 16 will be going for his eighth win of the season. Returning to the scene is Dani Pedrosa (Honda) who, after missing the last two rounds with a fractured collarbone, had to watch on as his rival took the 2010 title in Malaysia and ended what slim hopes he had of catching his compatriot.

Pedrosa will be aiming to cement second spot in the championship in the remaining three rounds however, and goes to Phillip Island – where he stood on the podium last year – guarding a 47pt advantage over third-placed Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) as he tests his physical condition following successful surgery on his injury.

Rossi will be buoyed by his first victory since the opening round of the season, a result that was enforced by the manner in which he secured it. Having dropped as low as 11th in the race at Sepang the Fiat Yamaha rider took his 46th victory with the Japanese factory and this weekend returns to a circuit at which he has never finished off the podium in the premier class. Included in that phenomenal record are five victories, which came consecutively between 2001 and 2005.

Just 1pt behind Rossi sits Australia’s Casey Stoner, and the Ducati rider will be desperate for a strong result on his home circuit. After a crash in Malaysia brought an end to what had extended to a two-race winning run Stoner will be encouraged by the fact he has won at Phillip Island for the past three seasons, and he in turn protects a 1pt gap over Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) as a fantastic scrap for third – and possibly even second – position in the standings unfolds.

Dovizioso is in a rich vein of form, having taken consecutive second-placed finishes in the past two rounds, and the
Italian placed sixth at Phillip Island last year and has a 125cc win there from his title-winning year of 2004 – when he beat Lorenzo and Stoner.

Ben Spies (Yamaha) arrives on a track he has winning world superbike experience on, and with the aim of progressing further towards a top six championship finish in his debut season in MotoGP.

Nicky Hayden (Ducati, who has stepped on the podium on three previous occasions at Phillip Island, Randy de Puniet (Honda), Marco Simoncelli (Honda) – who has won for the past two seasons in the former 250cc class in Australia – and Marco Melandri (Honda) all occupy top 10 championship positions going into the weekend.

Melandri is also the only rider to have won in all three classes at Phillip Island (125cc in 1999, 250cc in 2002 and MotoGP in 2006).

In the Moto2 class, Aussie regular Anthony West will be joined by Wayne Maxwell and Alex Cudlin at Phillip Island, and there will be five local wildcards in the 125cc race: Nicky Diles, Josh Hook, Jordan Zamora, Levi Day and Joel Taylor.

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Meanwhile, live television coverage on ONE will be as follows: