CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
P122
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
A
s far as I recall, it was
Loris Capirossi—now long
since retired—who coined
the term "Aliens" to describe
most especially Valentino Rossi
and Jorge Lorenzo. The tag
stuck. And the number grew.
Dani Pedrosa was always a bor-
derline alien—still is, on a good
day; Marc Marquez arrived,
already as far out an alien as you
can get.
It is the nature of progress in
sport that that standards keep
improving. The bar gets higher.
The guys learn from one anoth-
er, and all of them get better.
Which means that there is
always room for more aliens.
And an absolutely breathtak-
ingly good Australian Grand Prix
threw up a couple of candidates,
each with at least one foot in (or
should that be out of) the door.
Just to reassure you, no
wildlife of any measurable
importance was harmed during
the typing of this column. Give
or take a few million of the usual
microbes.
A seagull was, however,
severely, indeed fatally harmed
during the making of almost-
alien number one.
Andrea Iannone's Ducati ar-
rived at the entry to the final tight
corner just a little faster than
Jonathan Livingstone had antici-
pated. One winged creature col-
COMETH THE HOUR, COMETH THE ALIEN
