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With six podiums in 2014, Valentino Rossi has already bettered his results from 2013, and we still have seven rounds to go.

Until the Czech GP, he hadn’t finished better than Marc Marquez, but no one else had either. Discounting the anomaly of a rider winning 10 consecutive races, Rossi is right in the fight, thirteen points behind Dani Pedrosa.

It must be a good feeling to be something like Valentino Rossi again. Now that we all know Marquez is human after all, that he just might show up on race day vulnerable, an 81st premier class victory is more a possibility than it has been for some time.

That is certainly something to smile about.

Photograph: ©2014 by Tony Goldsmith / TGF Photos – All Rights Reserved