MotoGP:Sepang (Part Two) - Dani vs. Marc War of Stars

It's a 20 lap race meaning that this is the first chance that Marc Marquez has to nail his claim onto the handles of the World Championship, wresting it from the control of current champ Jorge Lorenzo...


The star of the start was Dani Pedrosa who, like Romain Grosjean if you've read my F1 review of Japan, made an electric start and was battling hard with Jorge Lorenzo going into the first corner. The big loser at this point was Cal, but that's said only out of respect for the start he made as he was, once again, swallowed by the other riders who seemed to jolt forward compared to his machine's capabilities.

Marquez himself, in his bid to claim the title for the first time ever, was in 3rd place, a position sufficient for him to finish enough in the final three races (that's Phillip Island, Motegi & Valencia, bro's!) and still claim the title.

It didn't take long before the stewards and race control to inform us that there had been three jump starts and the guilty parties were Michael Laverty, Hector Barbera and Colin Edwards. Rightly so, they were given a ride through penalty.

Yet again another record fell, this time the lap record going from Valentino Rossi's 2010 time of 2:02.117 to Marc Marquez's time of 2:01.415... electric!

Behind the front three, Rossi and Bautista were scrapping for position and this would be a sign of things to come as the all-too-familiar blue and white of Rossi's Yamaha once again did battle with the blue, white and green machine of Bautista.

You could see at this point, back to the sharp end of the grid, that Pedrosa was desperate to find a way past the race leader, Jorge Lorenzo, if only to get himself some distance between his arch-nemesis and himself, Marquez!

His team had done wonders in designing a cover for the traction control system cable, but one only wonders what would have happened if they'd thought of this sooner... we wouldn't be in this position (but then they're not psychic, bro's so I'm not going to call them as they wouldn't have necessarily expected Marquez and Pedrosa to battle that hard in Aragon!)!

He (Pedrosa) eventually got the better of Lorenzo and was going to lay down his own claim for second position in the championship, now that the last round's result had effectively ended his hopes of a title (when, oh when, will he get there, bro's!) by taking the race win here!

Right, I've got to try and cram this all in to the next fifteen minutes as I'm watching Wentworth at 11pm UK time! Here goes...

Marquez also got Lorenzo at this point and one could not help but wonder if this would be the day he was on the threshold of the championship. But not before more twists and turns occurred!

Lorenzo got him back a turn or two later and for the next few corners it was switch and switch back until one point where Marquez ran him out wide and stayed wide, defending the corner from the rampant Lorenzo!

Whilst all of this was going on, they were shaving enough time off their laps to allow the Doctor to close in on them and one would wonder if he would be able to join in with the fun too... Not close enough though, as though his main reason was to get some breathing space from Bautista, the pace of the front three would once again prove elusive enough to prevent him from getting on the podium. :(

By this time Cal had returned to fifth position and looked good for it seeing that Rossi was up ahead and Bautista he'd just gotten past were his main competitors... again!

A replay then showed that Iannone's bike was not turning as it should so he was forced to retire... I must say, seeing a bike blatantly refusing to turn is disturbing to say the least and it's a good job he wasn't going full pelt or else the results would have been disastrous for him!

Next to go was Nicky Hayden and as he pulled onto the side of the track, plumes of smoke indicated that another engine had gone POP! or BANG! or whatever your slant is in that sense...

This signified that the remaining 12 laps were still going to be entertaining no matter what happened.

So into the final half of the race and the rest comes after the jump===>>