What was the big story of the MotoGP season opener in Qatar? It's obvious: The Doctor is back. After a failed pass on Andrea Dovizioso, in which he ran wide and hit his brake lever protector on the back of Dani Pedrosa's rear tire - "The protection saved me, because for sure I crash [without it]" he said afterwards - he upped the pace and chased down the group containing Dani Pedrosa, Marc Marquez and Cal Crutchlow, passed them all, and after a thrilling battle with Marquez, went on to take second place in his first race back with Yamaha. If anyone thought that Rossi might have lost it, this was the race in which he proved that he was still capable of being at the front, the only condition being that he has a decent machine underneath him.
That reading of the race, though both attractive and seductive, is not the complete picture. Viewed with a more jaundiced eye, Rossi was comprehensively thrashed by his teammate - "In this weekend, I think it is impossible to beat Lorenzo," he admitted - closed down on a group being held up by a struggling Pedrosa, who had been troubled by a lack of rear grip all weekend, then had enormous difficulty dealing with a MotoGP rookie, racing for the first time in the class. Is that beautiful palace on the horizon real, or was it just a mirage, a trick of the light in the desert?
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