MUMBAI: Ten Sports continues its comprehensive coverage of the 2006 MotoGP series when it brings live coverage of round 15 in Japan this weekend.

The Championship is hotting up as it heads to the land of the rising sun with five times World Champion, Valentino Rossi just 21 points behind Nicky Hayden who leads this year's championship race.

Hayden looked to have an unassailable lead just a few races ago but the reigning champion has been gradually narrowing the gap and has now moved into second place in the standings on 204 points with Hayden on 225 points.

Both Marco Melandri and Dani Pedrosa are a further 11 points back and still have an outside chance of claiming the title with three races to go.

The 4.8KM Motegi circuit in Japan is one of the most modern track in the championship and also one of the most challenging as Rossi found out last year when he crashed out of the race. A repeat of that and he can write off his hopes of claiming a sixth straight World Title.

The action gets underway at 7:15 am live on Ten Sports.