Ciao everybody

So, quite an eventful column this month! First of all, I took a podium at the Grand Prix of Turkey, which was our first visit to the country. The track at a small airfield outside Istanbul attracted some criticism but I quite liked it.

The dirt was grippy and the bike was working really nicely over the bumps on the Sunday. It was a bit surprising to see the public coming so close to the track. Normally there is a fence and then a gap to the green mesh but there didn’t seem to be a fence in places and the crowd were standing on the jumps! It was a bit distracting but it was good to see how the crowd really got into the racing.

I had a busy race with Cairoli in the second moto. The track was not really difficult so it was a straight fight for the win and Ramon was with us also. Tony was very fast that day and he deserved the victory.

I was pleased to be on the podium for the first time because Faenza was a ridiculous GP and then we ‘started’ the series in Bulgaria. I was a bit surprised that Cairoli was so fast so quickly in MX1.

He is a very good rider and now is a strong threat for the title, although everything is still possible. Josh was leading the series by 100 points in 2007 with only a few races to go and he ended up third, so it is hard to say the championship is over, even if someone has a big lead.

After Turkey we had a break and Alice and I went back to our apartment in Belgium. Valkenswaard was next so it was time to do some more training and practicing in the sand. I was making the laps at Lommel and also in Lierop and was speaking with Georges Jobe, who gives me some advice and is like a coach to me sometimes.

I am doing a little bit more work with Georges this year; it is not a 24 hour association but we speak once a week, in Italian, and he gives me some ideas for lines and also generally things to do with my riding.

He obviously has a lot of experience and I find it useful to talk to him. We then spent one day shopping in Ikea. We had a look at the calendar and saw that because of the schedule of races we would actually be spending more time in Belgium than Italy during the season so we decided to get some new furniture to make ourselves a bit more comfortable.

We spent one day shopping, making two trips with the camper, and then I had to spend another full day putting everything together! I really liked the assembly part actually. I set up a new wardrobe, a shelf for the toilet, a desk and brought in a new mattress. I like hard beds, we seem to have a lot of those in Italy, and what we had in Lommel was too soft.

I broke my small TV for the camper, so that meant another trip to the shops. I have the satellite dish in Belgium and I bring the decoder from Italy and we watch the normal channels. I saw ‘Hancock’ recently with Will Smith and enjoyed that movie.

It was strange going to the Benelux GP at Valkenswaard, in the last few years the sandy track had been the first race of the season and now it was the fourth. In the past people had taken it a little easy because no-one wanted to get hurt at the opening round.

Now we were all at full speed and pushing hard. It was really bumpy, and the organisers had put more jumps into the circuit; for the sand it was too much. There may have been too many jumps but I still had fun on the layout. I was so close to winning the first moto.

I pushed every lap to win but with two laps to go I did not complete the big new double because I saw Campano crash and eased off while Cairoli made the jump and I lost the position. I was a bit stunned when he went through.

Two others got me and then on the last lap Ramon crashed in the same place on the double and Leok overtook me in the same way! I was disappointed and a bit confused about how the race finished for me.

In the second moto I was leading but felt tired after about fifteen minutes. I think I used a lot of energy in the first race. Overall a podium should have been possible but I was tired for some reason and a top five result was sufficient in the circumstances.

Georges was at the GP and we talked a little bit about the bike and I decided that the power delivery was perhaps a bit too strong. We had another week off after Valkenswaard and the team did some great work to find a solution with the CDI so I would have two options for the power; a strong setting for the start and then I could flick a switch after the first turn and go to a smoother curve.

On the Friday after Valkenswaard it was a national holiday and I rode in the Belgium championship and finished second behind De Dycker while Strijbos had crashed and broken his wrist.

Ramon was also out for a long time by this stage and De Reuver would be hurt by the following week. The amount of injuries we’ve had in MX1 is crazy and not good for the championship.

At the start there were lots of riders who could win now there are just 4 or 5. The points were very close last year because there were many people fighting; now the championship is spacing out more.

I watched the MotoGP at Jerez on the TV over the weekend, had some rest on Monday and then went training on Tuesday at a nice track in Liege. We then prepared the camper for the trip to Portugal and Alice drove down with Manuel on Wednesday.

I flew from Belgium on the Friday because the journey was a bit too far to be stuck in the camper all that time. I don’t enjoy flying on my own that much and usually just switch on my iPod and drift away.

The new setting for the power worked very well for the starts in Agueda and by the time of the first jump I was hitting the switch; it is a shame the races were not so good! I lost concentration and the front end slipped away in the corner after the whoops during the first moto while I was leading.

The track was hard and slippery so it was not the easiest conditions. In the second race came the incident with Tony when we were fighting for second place. I still feel quite angry about it.

This kind of contact is part of the sport but to break a finger left a bad taste for me. As soon as I lifted the bike up I had a lot of pain and knew I could not race any more. I went to the hospital for an x-ray and they said the finger was fractured.

Normally I would have stayed in Spain, travelling across to Bellpuig, but I got a call from Michele on Monday saying I could get on a plane in Madrid and fly to the Ipswich in the UK for some treatment on my hand.

I wasn’t sure what to do because I did not know the doctor and didn’t know if he could really help. In the end I decided to go. I was there for three days and the time passed quickly. They started working on me right away which I was very impressed with.

Zach Osborne was also having treatment on his broken wrist. I passed the hours in the hotel relaxing, watching TV and I also sat there taking in the Resident Evil trilogy that Alice had put on my laptop; wow, was pretty good! I talked a lot with Zach and he is a nice kid, he thinks he might be ready for Mallory Park.

They used a magnetic machine and also a laser on my finger twice a day and by the end it was feeling pretty good. I flew out from London to Girona and came to Bellpuig and we are finishing this column on Friday evening.

I feel quite optimistic about the weekend and hope my finger doesn’t bother me too much...anyway, more updates and news next month!

Grazie! DP19 

As told to Adam Wheeler

www.yamaha-racing.com