Dani Pedrosa rode a faultless race out front on Sunday to win the Indianapolis MotoGP. He had a good dice with Texan Ben Spies in the early part of the race. Unfortunately Spies’ Yamaha M1 had a blown engine which dropped him out of the running. Blown engines these days are a very rare occurrence in MotoGP. Similar to F1 the engines, the MotoGP engines have to last for quite a few races, a limitation which has forced the manufacturer’s to make them normally very reliable.
Spies, who is not of South Africa descent (I checked!) has had appalling luck this year. At the last race in Laguna Seca his swingarm broke and threw him off the bike. I am starting to see why he has announced his departure from Yamaha at the end of this season. So much bad luck can’t be normal!
Anyway, Lorenzo rode another solid race to finish second to Pedrosa. The current championship leader chose
the softer rear tyre, the sole prototype rider to do so, and finished a lonely second. He has the amazing record
this season of finishing 1st or 2nd at every race this season bar the Sachsenring, where he was taken out by Bautista. Lorenzon has put on an amazing display of consistent, fast riding and shows why he is widely regarded as the best motorcycle racer in the world.
Andrea Dovizioso, on the Tech 3 Yamaha, was 3rd. He battled with an ailing Casey Stoner for the final podium spot but the Australian’s heavy qualifying crash, which saw him riding the race with a fractured ankle obviously slowed him a great deal.
The title is going to be hard to wrestle away from Lorenzo now, barring some injury I can’t see how the others can overhaul him. Then again, in motor racing, anything can, and usually does, happen.
Image Source: www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk
