For the first time in his career, Nicky Hayden leads the World Championship. He did it by finishing third of an all-Honda rostrum in a frenetic and spectacular Turkish GP. The Istanbul Park circuit today attained the status of one of the great tracks despite only having staged two GPs. The 250 race is a candidate for the greatest ever and certainly included the scariest (and fastest) last lap incident on record. The fact it was won by a Japanese rider on an Austrian motorcycle (Aoyama on a KTM) helped, too.

There's a harder edge visible than in his previous years here, he's still the same charming young man but he's trying a little less hard to conceal the racer within.

No-one thought the MotoGP race would live up to that but it did and more. Both Suzuki riders showed strongly at the front, Sete Gibernau led most of the first half of the race before his Bridgestone's performance dropped off dramatically, Rossi ran off track early on but charged through to fourth, Pedrosa started from 16th on the grid but led the race at half distance before falling and remounting a lap from home.

He'd started to look a little ragged the previous lap and ran wide on the brakes for the final complex. He tried to make it up on the brakes for turn one and slid off. That let Hayden into third. He'd become detached from the thrilling four-man dice for the lead that made up the second half of the race.

The contestants were all Michelin-shod Honda men: Hayden, Melandri, Stoner and Pedrosa. Two races ago Stoner couldn't use qualifiers so he set pole a race ago. Then he found out he couldn't race on worn tires (it must be true, Rossi said so). Casey says today he learnt how to race with the other guys, so he finished on the rostrum. The only way he can keep that rate of progress going is to win in China ...

Nicky wasn't happy after just missing out on pole in wet qualifying and he certainly wasn't happy after the race. His problem was that a tire warmer had melted onto one of his front discs and he did not feel able to brake as hard as usual during the race. It was also noticeable that he was spinning and sliding the rear more than anyone. In the end, with Pedrosa picking his bike out of the gravel and Nicky at a safe distance Melandri out-foxed Stoner to win again in Turkey. You won't be surprised to hear he likes the track.

Nicky's problem was Rossi who was closing him down hand over fist, and he was bringing Elias with him. The Doc was ruing his lap-two off-track excursion; he was just behind Melandri and in front of Pedrosa when it happened and was sure he could have been on the rostrum. He set his personal best lap on the final lap, so he was probably telling the truth. Given his bike was still giving him problems and the next Yamaha was nowhere to be seen (Colin's mood was nearly as black as in Qatar) it was another astonishing ride from Rossi, but even that was overshadowed by Pedrosa's charge from 16th: it took him six laps to get up to eighth then another six to get to the front.

As for Nicky, there's something going on that us Europeans haven't seen before. Before this year we didn't see much aggression from him - if he was passed he stayed passed - but this season anyone, including Rossi, who passes Nicky finds a Repsol Honda interfering with their progress at the next corner. Today's race was more like a 125cc race with a pack of crazy teens than the usual clinical MotoGP affair and Nicky was centre stage. There's a harder edge visible than in his previous years here, he's still the same charming young man but he's trying a little less hard to conceal the racer within.