A cavalcade of paddock talent

Grid Crasher brings you the hottest talent from the first half of the 2008 MotoGP season.

More pit babes after the jump…

Mini Scientiology weirdo graces Laguna Seca

Earlier this week we told you about the Cruiser’s V.I.P visit to the US MotoGP. Now here’s the video evidence. We no lie.

Mr and Mrs Scientology show up at Laguna Seca

Not to be outdone by Brad Pitt, who attended the Italian MotoGP last month, Tom Cruise donned his gayest leather jacket and mingled with the riders at the US MotoGP on Sunday. Cruise is a biker himself and owns the first of a limited edition Ducati MotoGP replica Desmosedici RR. So naturally the star was rooting for Ducati’s reigning world champ Casey Stoner - but the Aussie had to settle for second place in the race, behind Valentino Rossi.

The real reason why Cruise showed up? Most riders are tiny fellas, so Tom knew he could tower over them and feel like a normal-sized person for once. That’s Grid Crasher’s theory anyway.

A couple more pics below…

Biker girls light up Laguna Seca

Never mind that Kawasaki are no longer a real force in MotoGP; its gang of grid girls more than make up for that.

Two wheels, two girls

We’ve tried for several minutes to come up with some appropriate copy to accompany this photo, but since we doubt you’d read it, we’ll just waffle on like this whilst you chomp on the eye candy draped on this ZX-RR.

Finished staring? Good - you may also want to know that the German MotoGP, held on Sunday, was won in the rain by reigning world champion Casey Stoner. It was the Aussie’s third victory in a row, and puts him firmly back in the title mix. Valentino Rossi now leads the championship, with Dani Pedrosa in second place. Pedrosa crashed out in Germany, suffering suspected fractures to his anke and finger.

Watch a fan’s eye view of Pedrosa’s big crash below:

What we discovered in Mugello

1. All of the grid girls were called Alice. Apparently.

2. Valentino Rossi’s brilliantly eye-catching helmet put off all of his rivals, as we suspected it might. Not that we’d ascribe Rossi’s victory to his helmet alone, but it sure helped.

Hollywood actor shows up with son at Mugello

The stubbly half of Team Brangelina made a surprise visit to Mugello on Sunday, for the Italian MotoGP. The Bradster - that’s what he lets us call him - turned up hidden beneath a hat, and with six-year-old son Maddox in tow. Like his dad, little Maddox was wearing shades and sporting ear plugs - probably to drown out the noise of inane questions from the world’s press.

It was quite a PR coup for MotoGP, which rarely attracts as many celebs as F1. You can watch a video of Pitt at Mugello here: LINK

More pics of Brad after the break…

Italian legend to wear helmet decorated with his own face

Is this the most brilliant helmet in the history of motorsport? The short answer is yes, it mos’ definitely is. Rossi will wear the special-edition Aldo Drudi helmet, which sports a disturbingly, distractingly large image of his own excited face, in tomorrow’s Italian MotoGP. We hope it catches on in F1 - would make races much more exciting.

More photos of the helmet below:

Grid Crasher sees who endured a China crisis

Five winners:

1. Valentino Rossi The Doctor is back again, after a seven-race winless streak - ah, we never doubted him. The Italian maestro hardly put a wheel wrong in Shanghai, and is deservedly the new bookies’ favourite for the title. Great to see him back on the podium’s top step.

2. & 3. Charlie Cox & Steve Parrish The BBC’s MotoGP first-class commentary duo continue to entertain, inform and excite – they complement each other so well. We’d like to see them involved somehow in the Beeb’s F1 coverage next season.

Yamaha bucks rider several feet into the air

This could have been, so much worse, had Lorenzo landed on his neck or head. As we reported in the post above, he was very lucky to escaped with a chipped ankle bone and bruising.

Valentino Rossi, who is Lorenzo’s team-mate at Yamaha, didn’t like what he saw from the garage: “Mama mia, I have to ride that thing too?” That said, Lorenzo is on Michelin tyres, whilst Rossi uses Bridgestone – and this incident looked like it might have been tyre-related.