Many called the Catalan Grand Prix a boring race, which may or may not be true, but what's undeniable is that current level of talent in MotoGP is incredibly high. Confirmation comes from a closer look at results from last year.

Valentino Rossi, for example, finished Sunday's race, run with less than perfect track conditions due to morning rain and some drops in the closing laps, with a total time of 43'27"150, in fifth place.

Riding the same bike in 2010, Casey Stoner crossed the line after 43'27"761. Practically the same exact time.

From this we can deduce that, most likely, the Italian rode at the same level of the Australian, if not slightly better. Casey himself, in the meantime, has taken a further step forward aboard the Honda. In the picture above, taken by noted photgrapher Scott Jones and published on facebook we can see Stoner following Rossi, and while Valentino has his wheels perfectly inline, Casey is sliding the rear dramatically. This maneuver, getting the Honda RC212V all crossed up, was being performed by the HRC rider on both corner entry and exit, to help him get the machine turned. The word understeer simply isn't in his vocabulary.