Nicky Hayden has a bad weekend.

With Valentino Rossi out until mid-August at the earliest, his Fiat Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo has quietly moved to the top of the Moto GP ladder, taking his fourth win out of six races at the classic Assen track in the Netherlands last weekend. Lorenzo was fastest in every session, took pole, got hounded for a bit by Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa and a resurgent Casey Stoner on the Marlboro Ducati, but then as his harder rear tire came in he simply motored off into the distance.

Stoner pounded on Pedrosa for a while but couldn't get past, finally fading back to finish third, his first podium of the year.

Stoner and Pedrosa both benefited from great starts, while Ben Spies on his Tech 3 Yamaha also got a superb jump, quickly moving into second behind Lorenzo and holding up Pedrosa and Stoner for several laps. He eventually finished an excellent fourth, proving that his podium third place in the U.K. the previous weekend was no fluke.

With a 47-point series lead at the one-third point in the series, Lorenzo is looking strong for the 2010 title, particularly with Rossi out of the picture indefinitely and nobody else able to consistently match his pace.

A dark horse for "most improved rider of the year" has to be Randy de Puniet, on the LCR Honda team, the smallest and most cash-strapped team on the circuit. De Puniet was near the top of the time sheets both at Silverstone and here at Assen, and had a wrestling-match style battle with Repsol Honda's Andrea Dovizioso in the last few laps for sixth. Despite obvious traction problems from badly worn tires, de Puniet passed the factory bike several times, and only just missed out on fifth in the last corner, to his obvious fury and frustration.

Nicky Hayden, on the second Ducati, had his worst outing of the year, finishing seventh. He had an okay start but got blocked in the first turn and lost a lot of time both there and getting past the blockers, and by then he could do nothing about the leaders despite running at nearly their pace.

Silly season has started early this year, with chit-chat and rumours about 2011 taking more blog and magazine space than the actual racing. All four of the "aliens" — Rossi, Lorenzo, Pedrosa, and Stoner — have contracts ending this year, as in fact do many of the other riders. That makes the game of musical chairs even more active than it usually is.

The latest rumour is that Stoner has decided to leave Ducati for Honda, who are desperate for somebody who can win consistently (Pedrosa and Dovizioso just haven't delivered the goods). Honda sponsor Repsol insists on a Spanish rider, so Pedrosa's seat is probably safe, except that Ducati has been chasing him.

Over at Yamaha, Rossi has been asked to take a big salary cut of several million euros as part of an austerity budget. He was apparently willing to consider it until he found out that his cut would go to double Lorenzo's salary; now he's not a happy camper. Back in Italy, Philip Morris (Marlboro cigarettes, Ducati's main sponsor) would kill to get Rossi on a Ducati, and have reportedly offered him 15 million Euros to join the squad. If Rossi does that, suddenly Pedrosa is more or less stuck with Honda, unless he moves to Yamaha. But since he and Lorenzo don't get along ...