MotoGP:Phillip Island (Part Two) - The Colour of the Flag Is Black...

That's qualifying taken care of, time for the race action, and boy-o was there plenty of it...


THE RACE

This was originally supposed to be a 27 lap race, before it was reduced to 26 and then, as mentioned was split into two parts with each rider facing a mandatory pit stop to change bikes. Ten laps was the maximum they were permitted to do and it would be this that caught people out resulting in several disqualifications! :O

Out went the lights and away they went with Lorenzo getting away best, Marquez next (unsurprisingly and it took the first couple of corners for them to decide who wanted first position most. As always, Dani Pedrosa kept pace with his team mate and it would certainly be interesting to see who wanted second position more, if only as a stop gap until they could usurp Lorenzo for first!

Bradley Smith, though, had made a corker of a start and was running high in 4th position, battling away with Rossi whilst behind the pair of them, as always, was Crutchlow and Bautista. So far so good then, for Lorenzo and he held off the little Spaniard no problems, unlike Rossi who was overtaken in the first half of the race by both Crutchlow and Bautista whilst Smith would go on to fade back to 7th position.

At lap ten then, and where the window opened for the first of the riders to come in and change bikes and the first to blink were Pedrosa and Bautista, so like the endurance races found in other championships, there was only one way to see who would gain out of all of this and that would be AFTER all the pit stops!

Having taken the advantage to stay out longer, Marquez went around hunting down Lorenzo and it should have been the pair of them who came in simultaneously, but you just knew that he (Marquez) would stay out longer to try and take advantage of Pedrosa's low temperature whilst he got the tires heated up again, along with Lorenzo's decision to pit... this would ultimate spell disaster for Marquez and I'll get onto that in due course...

By this point, Bryan Staring was facing a run around the extreme sharp end of the grid as the pit changes had allowed him to spring up into 2nd position, seemingly out of nowhere, but that too would ultimately be bad for him...

Finally, Marquez pits and on his emergence from the pit lane Lorenzo's screaming down the start/finish straight and through no fault of his own (and by a sheer dollop of good luck!) collides with Marquez but luckily neither rider was thrown from their machine. It has to be noted at this point that Marquez's arm was impacted by the collision and he was left holding it after the race, so hopefully he's okay, bro's!

I'll apportion no blame there as for one, Marquez had to concentrate on building up speed so couldn't look behind him, having already done that once, as that was not the point of racing (it's where you're going, not where you've been!). Lorenzo, equally, was on the racing line and by the sheer speed he was carrying into turn one, there was no freakin' way he could have avoided the impact!

Now that things were beginning to settle down (and the frightful sight of champions/champions-elect languishing near the bottom of the lap chart!), it was confirmed that Dani Pedrosa had been caught speeding as he entered the newly extended pit lane, so had to give a place back. On track it turned out that place would go to Marquez, but that would not be the only twist in the tale... oh, no, no, no!

This all worked out handsomely for Lorenzo as he managed to stay out the front of the entire grid (even if there was a brief hairy moment where he carried too much speed and almost pushed his waiting mechanic over before he hopped on bike no. 2!). It was an all Spanish podium at this point, with Marquez and Pedrosa being the ones to focus on hunting down Lorenzo as opposed to their usual stance of squabbling with one another for position!

Find out in the final part what happened as there was one final twist that threatened to throw the championship wide open again===>>