Tuesday, October 4 2011
Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa rode the cleanest race in the field to win the Japanese Grand Prix at the Honda-owned Twin Ring Motegi circuit.
Pedrosa inherited the lead after a flurry of excitement and blunders in the opening laps that eliminated Valentino Rossi (Ducati Marlboro) and compromised the finishes of Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies, as well as teammates Andrea Dovizioso and Casey Stoner, and San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Marco Simoncelli. Very few in the 19 rider field were immune.
Pedrosa ultimately took control of the race on lap six of 24 when Dovizioso served a ride-through penalty for jumping the start. Simoncelli, also penalized, followed him down pit lane and Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Cal Crutchlow, the third jumper, wasn’t far behind. Their hopes of a podium finish were over.
It was Rossi’s, after he pinballed between Lorenzo and Spies in turn three of the opening lap. Slow motion replays appear to show Rossi at fault, hitting Lorenzo from behind, then running into Spies. But the nine-time world champion blamed Lorenzo. The Majorcan had abruptly changed his line in the corner, breaking Rossi’s fairing and pushing him into Spies, Rossi insisted.
“It was a great pity because when I touch Spies I touch the front brake and lock the front, so…unfortunately nothing to do,” he said. Lorenzo’s take was that he didn’t know who was responsible. “I asked to the mechanics, ‘Which rider took me to the rear wheel? Because I feel like a big movement and almost crash and they say was Valentino, but I don’t know why,” Lorenzo said. And Spies? “I couldn’t see anybody hit me, so I didn’t know really what was happening,” he said.
What was happening was Rossi was out, Lorenzo was shaken and slowed, and Spies was deep into the gravel trap before tipping over. He quickly righted the bike and set out for the pack from dead last.
Before all that, Mapfre Aspar Team MotoGP’s Hector Barbera would crash at high speed, fracturing his right collarbone and causing temporary memory loss.
It was on the sixth lap that the penalties were served and the lead changed hands twice. Stoner had been in the lead until he ran off while braking for the turn 11 right-hander. Turn 11 is at the end of the long back straight, a stretch of track that drops off for a first gear right. At the crest of the nearly half-mile straight are a number of rolling bumps. Many riders were swerving to the right side of the track in order to avoid the worst ones, but Stoner hit one that so upset his front end that the bike went into a tank-slapper, which he quickly controlled. But the shaking had knocked the brake pads into the calipers, so that when he went to brake there was nothing; he quickly pumped the lever, but when he grabbed the brake lever the rear wheel came off the ground, forcing him to ease up again. He barely managed to scrub off enough speed before heading into the gravel trap, which he rode through as he dropped to seventh. That put Dovi briefly into the lead, before he served his ride-through, and afterwards Pedrosa was out front, and to the end.
Lorenzo stayed in the neighborhood for a few laps but didn’t have the pace and gradually fell behind. Pedrosa raced to his third victory of the year, his third at Motegi after wins in the 125cc and 250cc classes, and Repsol Honda’s first win at Motegi.
“Yeah, obviously when you win it’s a great feeling and in the last races I was always second so finally to get the win is a great feeling,” Pedrosa said after finishing behind Stoner in the past three races. “And of course, the race at the beginning was very weird, because you know Casey had some problems and missed a corner and then Dovi had to stop for the penalty. And I felt alone in the first place. I mean, Jorge was just behind. I had to put my head down and try to do all the lap times as quick as possible and the bike was working well, so that helped me a lot and I had a good feeling riding the bike right to the end.”
Lorenzo knows that the championship is Stoner’s to lose and he likely won’t. But he can forestall the inevitable, which he did today, taking back four points out of Stoner’s championship lead. It now stands at 300 to 260 with three races to go.
Stoner was vulnerable today, Lorenzo thought, but he didn’t account for Pedrosa, who’d been near the top of the order all weekend. When he saw Stoner run off and Dovi serve his penalty he thought “maybe it’s the opportunity today to win the race. But then Dani was improving his lap times and coming better, so he was really inspired and really riding very well. So I push at the limit all the race not to, well, to recover some gap. That was impossible.”
Japanese Grand Prix MotoGP Results:
1. Dani Pedrosa (SPA) Honda
2. Jorge Lorenzo (SPA) Yamaha
3. Casey Stoner (AUS) Honda
4. Marco Simoncelli (ITA) Honda
5. Andrea Dovisioso (ITA) Honda
6. Ben Spies (USA) Yamaha
7. Nicky Hayden (USA) Ducati
8. Colin Edwards (USA) Yamaha
9. Hiroshi Aoyama (JPN) Honda
10. Randy De Puniet (FRA) Ducati
11. Cal Crutchlow (GBR) Yamaha
12. Kousuke Akiyoshi (JPN) Honda
13. Shinichi Ito (JPN) Honda
DNF Toni Elias (SPA) Honda
DNF Alvaro Bautista (SPA) Suzuki
DNF Damian Cudlin (AUS) Ducati
DNF Hector Barbera (SPA) Ducati
DNF Valentino Rossi (ITA) Ducati
