Last lap thrillers in MotoGP are becoming rarity, but they do come at least once a season – the last was at Valencia in 2011 between Casey Stoner and Ben Spies – so we kind of relish it when it does happens and today’s cutting edge battle between Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo at Brno will long be remembered, not only because Pedrosa showed some magnificent and tatical racecraft – and a pair of cojones and nerves of steel that many forgot he possessed – but he also blew the championship wide open and the coveted title crown is still very much up for grabs.
Did anyone actually believe Vitto Guareschi when he commented on Valentino Rossi’s smoking engine during the race saying, “There is no problem, the engine is just nearing the end of its life,” only to find out that that his oil slicker malfunctioned and spewed oil over his footrests and brake and shift levers and hit Bradl, de Puniet and probably also Ben Spies – everyone was very lucky that the situation didn’t cause safety issues and crashes.
Ben Spies run of bad luck continues and this time it was an overheated clutch, something that also happened to Jorge Lorenzo at the Estoril GP.
Most of the MotoGP riders will be back tomorrow for a one day test, with Jonathan Rea joining the Repsol Honda team.
Jorge Lorenzo will be testing and early version of the 2013 M1 – since Ben Spies is leaving at the season he’ll be working solely on set-ups.
Valentino Rossi will not be present as Ducati has organized a two day test session at Misano and he’ll be testing the GP12 that he used during the Mugello test – but was halted by electronic gremlins.
Only CRT riders Colin Edwards and Michele Pirro will also be on hand and Loris Capirossi will come out of retirement and lay aside his duties as a safety officer and and get a chance to test some of the bikes.
Mike di Meglio will be testing Avintia’s CRT machine.
Dani Pedrosa – 1st “Today was one of my best races in MotoGP ever, to win with a big gap is always nice, but to have a battle like today with Jorge, it’s sometimes more rewarding.
It was a difficult last lap because I knew that Jorge was very fast in the middle of the corner and I could hear the bike right on me and I knew that just the smallest gap would allow him to pass.
In fact, in that left corner I opened the door just a little more than normal and ‘boom’ he was there, I could see his bike in my face! With just half a lap to go, I was a little more nervous than before but I knew I had some strong points coming to the end of the lap.
I tried to get the best drive out of the hill and then in the last corner I was beside him, when I released the brakes we were side by side in the corner and I was able to take my line and win the race.
It was amazing and I’m really happy with this victory, for all my team and also for my father because it is his birthday! For the Championship we must keep up this momentum as Jorge is riding very strong and consistently in the top two.
Testing will be important to set us up for the final part of the season, so let’s see what we can do.
”Jorge Lorenzo – 2nd“I really enjoyed that race, mainly in the last laps, Dani and I tried everything for the win.
We are so close in the Championship that every point is important.
It was a very strategic race, in some parts of it I was slowing down to relax a bit and get some air and I think Dani was a little later on as well, staying calm and preparing for the last laps.
When Dani was pushing a lot I took a lot of risks to stay with him and finally I had to try to pass him, the victory was so close I had to try.
This time Dani was cleverer than me and braver so congratulations to him, next time maybe it will be different! A big thank you to my team as well who worked really hard and made a very competitive bike for me.
”Cal Crutchlow – 3rd “It feels fantastic to finally score my first podium in MotoGP.
This has been the perfect weekend for me because I signed a new contract with the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team and then scored my best ever qualifying result yester day.
So to cap it all off with a podium is a great feeling and hopefully I’ve already gone a little way to repaying the faith Tech 3, Yamaha and Monster have shown in me.
It wasn’t an easy race because I was on my own for most of it and it was a real test of concentration.
To end a 12-year drought for a British rider to get on a MotoGP podium is also a great feeling.
”Andrea Dovizioso – 4th“I was confident going into the race that I could fight for the podium.
But there is no doubt that Cal did a better job than me and I congratulate him for getting his first podium in MotoGP.
When I was close to him in the early laps I could see he gained some time in corner entry and he had more corner speed than me.
But he lost on the exit but for sure he was gaining more than he lost.
We have finished inside the top four again today but this result demonstrates that we still have some margin to improve.
We have collected a lot of data and we will analyse that now to understand how we can be faster.
”Stefan Bradl – 5th“I am quite happy because after some technical issues we found a good race set-up.
I could not push as hard as I wanted yesterday and the warm up session was wet so we could not test the last adjustments but the team made a very good job and I could make another positive race.
During the race I was quite confident and motivated: I had a good start and Rossi was in front of me in the beginning but suddenly he had a technical problem and some smoke came out from his exhaust.
After that I thought he was having an engine problem and some oil soiled my visor, which cost me a bit of time because I did not what was going on.
Also Spies slowed down and Bautista overtook me, but after that I started to set my pace.
It took some laps to pass Bautista and Rossi again to do my own race.
I had a better speed compared to the guys behind me so it’s a pity that we lost the race at the beginning but in any case it was a strong race by my side and want to thank my crew for their concentration and their efforts”.
Álvaro Bautista – 6th “I am not happy because the change in conditions from yesterday to today created a lot of front-end chatter on our bike and I was close to crashing on several occasions.
I also had a problem on the rear with the bike sliding around so much that it felt like I was running the hard tyre.
I couldn’t push it like I wanted to and it wasn’t a good race for us because of this.
Tomorrow we have a day of tests and I hope we can use it to resolve our problems.
”Valentino Rossi – 7th “I started well and the early laps weren’t bad, although the bike started to lose oil right from the beginning.
It went on the footrests and the brake- and shift levers, which bothered me, as my feet were slipping everywhere.
I probably could have done a bit better without that inconvenience, and maybe I would have finished close to Dovizioso.
Anyway, I also had to slow down because the rear tyre began sliding too much after some laps, which has been our problem.
Now we’ll see in the test at Misano in two days if we can manage to find something to help us in the last races.
”Randy De Puniet – 8th “Today went so well that I even managed to pass a number of prototype machines off the line.
I am happy, because I think that both the team and I have done a great job this weekend.
I was stuck behind Rossi at the start and could see that there was smoke coming from his bike on every lap.
Spies dropped the pace and I kept on pushing.
I was praying that the smoke did not mean that the engine would break down completely and leave oil on the track.
When the situation stabilised I could focus on my own race.
Spies overtook me and I used him as a reference for a while.
Soon afterwards he crashed out, so I was left by myself.
In practice I had found a fast pace, so I focused on getting back to that and riding strongly to the chequered flag.
I am very happy, because I managed to finish as the best CRT rider and cut two points off my teammate’s advantage.
”Aleix Espargaró – 10th “I’m a little weak from the flu, but in the race I felt more or less ok.
The track temperature today had dropped a lot and that affected us.
From the start I could feel the bike sliding out a lot.
I got a good start, but Randy escaped straight away.
He was just faster than me, taking three tenths of a second out of my times with every lap.
When I got passed by the Ducatis I tried to stay with them, but it was hard to ride with them.
On the straight they took off and on the corners I was back amongst Elías and Abraham.
I got as close as I could on the final laps.
Toni and I exchanged passes on the last lap on three or four occasions, and in the end I won out.
I was expecting a little better from the race, as I thought that we had a little more pace.
Still, I am happy to have taken points and to continue to lead the CRT standings.
”Toni Elías – 11th“I’m quite satisfied: I made a good start and I was able to stay with Abraham, De Puniet and Espargaró for the whole race.
Unfortunately, I missed the top ten, but I’m happy because I achieved my goal, which was to improve both my feeling and my confidence with the bike, race after race.
The Pramac Racing Team did a brilliant job, and I tried to do my best.
Thanks to the Pramac Racing crew for this fantastic opportunity!”Colin Edwards -13th“It wasn’t a bad day, we came in 13th.
Compared to the pace we have made this weekend, we managed to find something that works in terms of electronics setting, that we had been looking for all weekend.
And during the first couple of laps it was I was trying to understand what we had in terms of the change in the electronics and felt it out, it was good.
Then I put my head down and went for it.
Then once I passed Pirro I simply lost feeling because of the vibration and it didn’t allow me to push harder.
I finished thirteenth but this is the best the bike has felts o far.
”Michele Pirro – 14th “The only good thing about the weekend is that we managed to finish the race.
Other than that it has been nothing but problems.
We have had some annoying setbacks in every session here and I hope we can improve the situation soon so that we can finish off the season in better shape.
”Mattia Pasini- 16th “I’m not happy with today’s result.
On the one hand, we know we have a good potential, but on the other, we didn’t manage to prove it on this track.
This was a very fast circuit and there was no way we could take more advantage out of the good performance of the ART machine in the corners.
Hopefully we’ll get to Misano and and we’ll have a chance to fight for better results”.
Danilo Petrucci – 17th“I did a bad race.
I couldn’t do a good pace because we have some grip problems.
I think that from Misano everything will be better”.
Ben Spies – DNF“The crash today was no other fault than myself, I was trying to get back into a rhythm and catch the group in front of me because I could see they were coming back and I had a good lap times for coming through.
I’m really disappointed not just for me but for the team as they’ve done an excellent job this weekend, we’ve showed speed and motivation all weekend which is hard to do after Laguna and Indy.
The race was really over for me before turn one because the clutch overheated off the line.
It was no one’s fault; we checked the data and my practice starts are identical to my race starts.
We checked the clutch and there is nothing wrong with it, it just overheated and took over two laps to cool down enough to give it 100% by which time the race was over.
I still tried to get the best out of it I could and just made a small mistake.
”