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In a one man team, with no distractions from the goal of winning races every time out and letting his championship position take care of itself, Checa has summoned all his considerable experience to record ten individual race wins. That is easily more than half of all those on offer in a class which has two points scoring races per meeting. So successful has Carlos been that he has taken two-thirds of all his career wins in 2011, having made his debut in 2008.

Checa has recorded four double wins during this campaign, which shows remarkable concentration and consistency from a rider who is now in his 38th year. It may however be a surprise to note that he has only taken four Tissot-Superpole wins thus far but he has recorded eight front row starts and seven fastest laps along the way.

Checa has not been short of competition for wins in 2011 but none of his rivals have matched a consistency that has seen him no-score only once, at his home race in Motorland Aragon. That day he pushed a little too hard on a different tyre choice from most of his rivals in race one and fell. For some riders this would have been a disastrous moment but Checa somehow managed to recompose himself and even post a third place in race two, something he knew would be a challenge in any circumstances on a circuit with such a long straight, and against rivals who had made good race set-up choices after practice.

The question that Checa is obviously keen to avoid, but that others are keen to ask repeatedly, is will he be able to continue his strong form all the way to the championship win itself?

Checa currently has a 62-point advantage over last year's champion Max Biaggi (Aprilia Alitalia) and at this stage in 2010 (nine rounds gone and four left) Biaggi had an advantage of 68 points. In 2009, eventual champion Ben Spies (Yamaha Sterilgarda) had a 15 point deficit at a similar stage (albeit with five rounds left), while in 2008 eventual champion Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) was 79 points ahead of second place (also with five rounds left).

Checa, more than anyone, realizes that that there is a lot of hard racing left, re-starting at the tenth round of the year at the Nürburgring on September 4.