Dani Pedrosa made up for the shambolic result at Misano by winning Sunday’s Aragon Grand Prix in emphatic style. Lorenzo maintained his championship challenge by finishing 2nd.
Lorenzo led off the line and kept Pedrosa behind for the first few laps. The diminutive Spaniard bided his time and made his move a few laps in. He then turned up the wick and left Lorenzo in the dust. His emphatic win today left us wondering “what if”. What if he hadn’t had all those troubles in Misano. He could have easily won there as well, which would have left the championship gap at 3 points after Aragon instead of 33.
The main racing action in this race was provided by the scrap for 3rd between the Tec-3 Yamaha’s of Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso, and the works Yamaha of Ben Spies. Ben Spies led the Tec-3 boys for most of the race but with a few laps to go the satellite Yamaha rider’s passed him and set about battling amongst themselves for the final podium step.
It was Dovizioso who triumped, showing a bit more race nous by allowing Crutchlow by him twice, only to be ahead of the slightly raggedBrit before the next corner. Crutchlow has shown plenty of times this season that he has plenty of speed, but makes too many mistakes over a race distance. Dovizioso by contrast, is metronomically consistent. He combines speed with a calculating race brain which has seen him get the better of Crutchlow all season. It’s no wonder Ducati turned to him to replace Rossi for next season.
Speaking of Rossi, he had an off track excursion down the escape road while trying to pass Casey Stoner’s stand-in, Jonny Rea early in the race. This led to him rejoining in last place and having to work his way back up to 8th place by the time the chequered flag dropped.
This was rumoured to be Rea’s last race for Honda as Stoner should be fit in time for the Japanese GP in two weeks time. Honda will be glad to have him back.They need to make it Honda 1-2’s for the last four races of the season to put some pressure back on Lorenzo, who’s championship lead of 33 points now seems unassailable.
Image source: www.motogp.com
