Well, that certainly was a crash-free race, wasn't it? Not like the previous race last time out at Catalunya!
Though I'm going to appear to contradict myself now because the first thing that I want to talk about is... a crash!
This one took place in free practice and at well in excess of 100mph, you would have thought that for a man to be tossed like a ragdoll head over heels from his machine would certainly have him thinking twice about racing two days later...
Not so, the case was for Jorge Lorenzo as though the incident broke his left collarbone, he was flown home, via private jet to Spain to have surgery on said injury, only to line up in 12th position on the grid, the newly adjusted qualifying format allowing him to slot in alongside Nicky Hayden & Michele Pirro.
This was a remarkable turn of events given that he looked a forlorn figure having got up looking visibly worse for wear (completely understandably I might add!). When I heard the news I thought that it would certainly blow the championship wide open given the performances of the likes of Dani Pedrosa & Marc Marquez, maybe even giving Cal Crutchlow an outside chance of knocking out his first win of the season?
First win? Nope, maybe first pole position though, bro's!
I was stunned...
Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised when further thought is given to Crutchlow's recent qualifying performances of late, for he'd been regularly clocking up front row positions. So to finally nail his first ever MotoGP pole position with a time of 1:34.398, I started to wonder if this wasn't the day when things changed and a Brit would finally sit atop the highest step on the podium come race end.
Unfortunately for Cal, it seems like his Monster Yamaha Tech III at the moment is unable to replicate its qualifying performance and, according to him, this appears to be something to do with the way the bike handles on a full fuel tank compared with its own electrifying performance as the fuel load burns away. He's notoriously quick when the tank's empty, but at the moment the bike just doesn't want to get off the line quick enough.
This shunted him down to fifth in the order as an impressive looking Stefan Bradl, passed Crutchlow along with a resurgent Valentino Rossi along with Pedrosa and Marquez who both looked like they wanted to make the most of Lorenzo's 12th placed qualifying result.
Of this group, having dispatched Bradl now into fourth as the opening stages got underway, Rossi it was who now seemed intent on focusing upon the Repsol Honda team. So far it is indisputable that they are clearly dominating in terms of race results over the other teams and you could tell from the way Rossi tackled lap after lap that he was fully convicted in his efforts to reel the first of them, Marquez in. By this point Pedrosa had staked his claim on the race win as things settled down into a reasonably steady rhythm having opened up a sizeable lead by this time.
However, again Rossi had other ideas as he took the place from Marquez allowing him to focus down on and zone in on the only remaining Spaniard leading the way, who seemed likely to be the main man to depose Lorenzo from the championship crown this year!
Eventually he reeled him in forcing others to reassess whether the Doctor really was back in surgery...
He was, oh how he was, as he ended up going on to win it from a resurgent looking Marquez in 2nd position who took advantage of Pedrosa's fading tyres in the fading laps of the race!
Unbeknownst to Marquez though, he had almost been collected on the closing lap by Cal Crutchlow who by now had taken on and passed Bradl to get into 3rd position. One can only wonder how much faster he might've gone had he known that Lorenzo was riding right behind him at one point!
Even in the post match interviews at the media circus you could see that Marquez was blissfully oblivious to how close Crutchlow had come to collecting him at the end... funny stuff as he even mistakenly making out to BBC cameras like he'd won the race instead of finishing behind Rossi in second place!
With all that went on at the sharp end of the grid, much was missed of Lorenzo until he turned up into something like 6th position after the first lap, effectively halving his qualifying performance already. From then on, he just seemed to keep his nose clean, keep himself to himself and just ride around ticking off lap after lap waiting for the chance to pounce on fifth position, his eventual finishing position seven and a half seconds behind Pedrosa whose bike it was that seemed to really go off the boil toward the end.
Let's take a look at the standings now: -
1
|
Dani
PEDROSA
|
Honda
|
SPA
|
136
|
2
|
Jorge
LORENZO
|
Yamaha
|
SPA
|
127
|
3
|
Marc
MARQUEZ
|
Honda
|
SPA
|
113
|
4
|
Cal
CRUTCHLOW
|
Yamaha
|
GBR
|
87
|
5
|
Valentino
ROSSI
|
Yamaha
|
ITA
|
85
|
As you can see, Pedrosa has now increased his lead in the championship and it certainly makes sure that the second third of the season will be just as intense as the first as there is no clear runaway leader just yet!
And now... it becomes pertinent to award my Rider of the Day award and though I've been deliberating on this since yesterday, such was the dilemma I faced (and I'm sure you can agree why!) I think there's really only one man I can give the award to even if he didn't win the race: -
Jorge Lorenzo
As much as I'm desperate to give it to Rossi who claimed his first win since 2010 before he departed for his disastrous 2-year spell with Ducati, I cannot fault a bro' who breaks his collarbone, flies home to have the operation, is away from the track a mere forty eight hours only to come back and bring his bike home in fifth, FIFTH POSITION, bro's!!!
Next time out, the boys are off to Germany and the Sachsenring, so let's see if we can get as much drama out of this one as we have been in the last couple of races, huh?!
Peace out!
The Lanky Penguin
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