Jorge Lorenzo must surely be increasing the size of his offering to the MotoGP gods this afternoon. And Dani Pedrosa is probably wondering if they ever cared about him at all. He had probably the worst few minutes of his career thus far without actually getting injured.
Dani took a fantastic pole position from great rival Jorge Lorenzo on Saturday afternoon. It all went wrong after an aborted start however. Karel Abraham stalled at the start, the lights were already lit by this stage but instead of going out they flashed the set of amber lights instead, this prompted a few of the riders to take off and narrowly avoided causing a huge accident on the start line.
Pedrosa’s mechanics put on the tyre blankets while waiting for the restart. When it was time to restart they could not get the front blanket off, they pushed the bike into the pits where they managed to remove it, but by this time it was too late to rejoin and he had to start from the back of the grid when they reformed after the second formation lap.
Lorenzo must have thought his Christmas had come early when he didn’t see Pedrosa retake his place in pole position. It was to get even better after the first few corners. Pedrosa for his part, got a great start as he always does. He made up a few places at the start and had just passed Hector Barbera and was coming up behind Casey Stoner’s stand-in, Johnny Rea on the other Repsol Honda as they went into turn 6. Barbera outbraked himself and clipped Pedrosa’s rear wheel, taking them both out in the process.
With Pedrosa out of the race Lorenzo raced into a lead he never looked like losing, hometown hero Valentino Rossi had his best result for Ducati by finishing 2nd in the dry, no small achievement, considering that the only other 2 podiums he has got for the Italian marque have been in wet conditions. Ducati’s new improvements are plainly much more to the Italian’s liking. It’s too little too late from Ducati however, as Rossi is already moving back to Yamaha next season after enduring a frustrating year and a half with Ducati.
Alvaro Bautista rode a great race taking the final podium slot after a fierce battle with Andrea Dovizioso on the Tec-3 Yamaha. It was a fitting result for Bautista and San Carlo Gresini Honda, on the weekend where the Misano circuit was named after Marco Simoncelli. Both Rossi and Bautista dedicated their podiums to the late Simoncelli, so tragically killed last season.
Lorenzo’s win took him to a 38 point advantage over Pedrosa. A margin that must see him being crowned 2012 MotoGP world champion by the end of the season.
Anything can and usually does happen in motorsport, particularly in motorcycle racing, where one little mistake can see you going for a nice slide across the asphalt at 200 miles per hour. These modern dayspeed gladiators dance with serious injury and death everytime they take to the race track.
Motorcycle racing is one sport where a rider can make a huge difference. Witness the debut of Johnny Rea in MotoGP. He is deputising forCasey Stoner until the Australian returns from injury. Rea races in World Superbikes so is no mug on a bike. But jumping onto a race winning bike identical to pole sitter’s Dani Pedrosa saw him struggle to qualify in the top ten, and he finished 8th. This is no poor reflection on Rea, just an illustration of how difficult it is to master the fastest bikes in the world. Rea will no doubt get faster at the next race, but it highlights just why the top guys are so good.
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