MotoGP: The sixth stage of the 2013 world championship takes place in Catalunya

The world championship circus goes to Catalunya for the sixth race of 2013, the one that represents a third of the season. We arrive with Dani Pedrosa firmly at the top of the world championship standings.

The Honda rider (second at Mugello) in fact has a 12-point advantage over his compatriot Jorge Lorenzo, the reigning champion who dominated the Italian Grand Prix. The two Spaniards are followed by their compatriot and Honda rookie Marc Marquez, who however suffers his first stop of the season, a crash with three laps to go at Mugello.

The winner of Austin, as well as the youngest rider to win both a pole and a victory in the Top Class, is in fact "still" at 77 points, against Lorenzo's 91 and Pedrosa's 103. A "Spanish" championship therefore, which this time too will try to be "interrupted" by those following in the standings, namely Cal Crutchlow, Andrea Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi, the most disappointing of the latter three.

After the beautiful comeback in Qatar, which had taken him to the podium, the Pesaro native faced difficult races, especially in qualifying. In fact, both at Le Mans and at Mugello he started from behind, crashing in both races, albeit in different ways. In France he had in fact fallen in the wet when he was fighting for fourth position, while his Italian GP lasted just three corners, ending after a contact (defined as a "race accident" by the stewards) with Alvaro Bautista's Honda RC213V .

Crutchlow, on the other hand, is doing very well, having already reached the podium twice with a Yamaha SAT, in France and Italy and who has 71 points in the standings. The British rider, one of the toughest and one of the few to do well coming from Superbike, wants to continue his positive trend at Montmelò, where last year he finished fifth.

Andrea Dovizioso instead climbed onto the podium, then riding the Yamaha SAT of Team Tech 3 (the same as Cructhlow). The new Ducati rider, who is trying to fine-tune the Desmosedici GP13, is quite confident after the recent tests at Mugello, where he saw small but significant steps forward.

Behind it, however, there are those who for one reason, those who for another want to do well. Stefan Bradl would like to confirm the good race at Mugello, where he finished in fourth place ahead of Dovizioso, Hayden and Pirro. Alvaro Bautista, on the other hand, will want to redeem himself, who as written above finished the Italian GP after only three corners.

As regards the CRTs, we expect the confirmation of Aleix Espargarò, one of the fastest ever aboard the ART of Team Aspar. The Spaniard had finished the Italian Grand Prix in eighth place, ahead of Smith and Hector Barberà.

Having said that about Rossi and Dovizioso, in the "Italia" team we must also remember Michele Pirro, who will race with the Ducati "LAB" but in Team Pramac, Andrea Iannone (fresh from good tests at Mugello) and the CRTs brought to the track from Terni's Danilo Petrucci (Ioda Suter BMSW) and Claudio Corti (FTR Kawasaki of Team NGM Mobile. It will be tough but we hope not to have to witness a "Spanish championship" again, even if on paper there are, alas, all the conditions .