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MotoGP 2009 - Round 12 - Indianapolis - Race |
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MotoGP 2009 - Round 12 - Indianapolis - Race |
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MotoGP Rnd 12 The battle for the 2009 FIM World Championship was blown wide open on Sunday at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix as Jorge Lorenzo scored a great win and his Fiat Yamaha colleague Valentino Rossi suffered his first DNF of the year. Lorenzo eventually crossed the line with a 9.5s winning margin to cut Rossi’s championship lead in half, as the deficit dropped from 50 to 25 points, with five races remaining. Behind Lorenzo there was a great ride from San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Alex de Angelis who did his quest to remain in MotoGP no harm at all in second place, gaining his first ever premier class podium from fourth on the grid. Nicky Hayden also rode brilliantly after qualifying sixth, repeating his 2008 Indianapolis podium, this time in third position – his best result to date with Ducati. Hayden got the better of Andrea Dovizioso, despite a stiff challenge from the man who replaced him in the Repsol Honda team, the Italian yet again having to settle for fourth on the last lap. World Champion Valentino Rossi hit the ground on lap nine when battling for the race lead with Lorenzo, the Italian able to remount and try to continue, only to have to retire a couple of laps later due to the damage his M1 machine sustained. It is the first time Rossi has failed to finish a race since Valencia in 2007. Earlier on there was also a crash for Dani Pedrosa on the fourth lap when the pole man was leading the race. He bravely picked up his RC212V and rejoined in last place, doing well to finally finish in 10th position. Adding to the American representation towards the front Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) finished in fifth place, whilst there was a late crash from Marco Melandri (Hayate Racing) when battling with James Toseland (also Tech 3) for sixth. Melandri’s mishap left the Englishman to again match his best ever MotoGP result. The top ten also featured Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki), Mika Kallio (Ducati) and Toni Elías (San Carlo Honda Gresini). A special mention must go to Pramac Racing’s temporary replacement rider Aleix Espargaró who earned three points in 13th place on his MotoGP debut. In what will be the first and last ever 250cc race at Indianapolis, a good performance by World Champion Marco Simoncelli (Metis Gilera) kept his championship hopes alive as he crossed the line in first place, two seconds ahead of current standings leader Hiroshi Aoyama (Scot Racing Team). With the cancellation of last year’s 250cc contest at Indy due bad weather and the arrival of the new Moto2 class next season, this was a one-off race and Simoncelli wrote his name into the history books with his fourth win of 2009. Simoncelli now trails the Japanese rider by 27 points with five races remaining. Aoyama suffered a big front end moment with four laps to go and dropped back from Simoncelli, but he is still consistently scoring points. Álvaro Bautista (Mapfre Aspar Team) lost ground in the championship as he finished third, though he remains second in the standings, 16 points behind Aoyama. Pole man Mike di Meglio (Mapfre Aspar) was fourth, 12 seconds back on Simoncelli, whilst Roberto Locatelli (also Metis Gilera) and Héctor Barberá (Pepe World Team) were fifth and sixth. A five-way battle which lasted for the majority of the 125cc race went down to the very last lap and ultimately ended with Pol Espargaró (Derbi Racing Team) earning his first Grand Prix win. The 18 year-old Spaniard made up for his disappointment in last year’s event, when he just missed out on the win, by judging the race to perfection and holding off his rivals on the last lap to win by 0.120s from Briton Bradley Smith (Bancaja Aspar). Simone Corsi (Fontana Racing) finished in third place, three tenths down on Smith, to claim his second podium of the season. The front quintet crossed the finishing line with just 1.8s separating them, with Nico Terol (Jack & Jones Team) in fourth place and championship leader Julián Simón (Bancaja Aspar) fifth. |
| MotoGP Rnd 10 - Race Result |
MotoGP Rnd 10 - Championship Standings |
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| -- MotoGP Quotes Jorge Lorenzo, 1st - “This is fantastic for me and for my team! I’ve had two crashes in a row but now I’ve won, and my closest rivals have crashed instead. Of course I’m sorry for them but these are the highs and lows of racing and it’s an amazing result for me. I was strong all weekend and I really want to thank my team for giving me a great bike. I had a hard start and I had to try very hard to pass people and get back to third, but then I had a good rhythm and I was able to go with Valentino and Dani. Once Dani had gone I knew it would be a hard fight between me and Valentino and in fact when he crashed I didn’t realise for a while, because I misread my pit-board and thought it said +0! Anyway, my bike was great and from then on it was quite easy, I just stayed focused. I had great fun on the slow-down lap with the fans and I am so happy to win here at this amazing track. The championship was almost gone but in one day things have changed a lot. It will be hard but we won’t give up!” Alex De Angelis, 2nd - “I have to thank the team for the incredible job they have done this weekend – the bike has been fantastic ever since we unpacked it on Friday and we have gone from strength to strength over the course of the weekend. They also gave me a lot of confidence this morning and honestly I think they had more belief that I would be on the podium today than I did! It is a fantastic result, but it is no fluke because we have been in great form over the last five races. It is a long time since I was on the podium back in the 250cc class and I had almost forgotten what a great feeling it was. Now I want to enjoy it and celebrate with another good performance at my home race next weekend.” Nicky Hayden, 3rd - “It feels great to be on the podium here at Indianapolis and I want to thank all the team, my friends, family and fans for their support because this has been a tough season and I’ve needed every one of them. I was really careful at the start because I watched the 125cc race earlier on and the guy in my grid position made a jump start – it made me think that I really didn’t want to do that today! As a result I didn’t get a great start but I saw Lorenzo charge past a few guys, making a hole in the pack, so I tried to follow him. I pushed hard and in the middle of the race I went as fast as I have all weekend, but I didn’t have any more than that. Dovizioso came on strong at the end so I gave myself a little pep talk and made sure I was ready for whatever he had. He was going to have to come up with something special to keep me off the podium here at Indy! Thankfully I kept it together and brought it home. We don’t have long to the next race at Misano but I’m in the mood for a little party tonight. My buddies have seen the sun come up every day since Friday but hopefully they’ve got something left in the tank for me!” Andrea Dovizioso, 4th - “After the warm-up today we made a radical change to the set-up and I have to say that my team has worked really well because, thanks to this modification, my feeling with the machine improved a lot in the race. I could ride faster than during the practice sessions and my rhythm in the race was also consistent. Considering how the weekend had gone up to this point, finishing fourth is quite positive result. We still have to improve though of course. I was close to Nicky and I tried to overtake him several times by taking big risks. It’s a pity to finish fourth because the podium was not impossible. The important thing is that we have taken an important step forward. We are close the podium and we will start again in Misano building on this good base.” Colin Edwards, 5th - TBC James Toseland, 6th - TBC Loris Capirossi, 7th - "The final position is not too bad, but I am disappointed with my start because it was not very good and on turn two I was involved in a big casino with some other bikes - luckily I didn't come off as bad as Chris! I kept up a good pace and I overtook a lot of guys, I had a good rhythm throughout the race and if I'd have had that rhythm without the incident early on and the bad start I think I could have challenged for a top-five place. I want to thank all my guys for another good job this weekend and they are all working hard to discover the best performance for the new chassis, I already think it is a lot better than the old one, but we still don't know its full potential. We got good data from the race and it was a better result than the grid position, but we expect more and we will be pushing hard in Misano!" Mika Kallio, 8th - "We tried some different things with the suspension for the warm-up, which didn’t really work, but we tried something else for the race and it improved. I was able to push harder in the race in practice and my best lap in the race was actually even better than my qualifying time. That is a good thing but overall I’m still not too happy. My feeling with the bike isn’t perfect and for some reason my confidence is low. I don’t know why that is but it makes it hard to be consistent and easy to make small mistakes. The end position is not so bad but I think we could have been half a second quicker today and that would have moved us up some important positions. The goal for the next race is to find that half second and try to get my confidence back. To have at least finished the race after the recent bad luck is a boost and we will try to build on it at Misano." Toni Elias, 9th - “Ninth place is not what we had hoped for before we came here, but I can’t complain because after making a bad start to the weekend we have made continual improvements and we were in good shape for this race. Unfortunately I was pushed onto the grass by Aleix (Espargaro) into the second turn and it ruined my race. He came to apologise at the end of the race and I told him not to worry – it has happened to all of us in the past! It is a shame because I think we could have been on the podium today, or at least in the top five, but to take ninth under the circumstances is still a positive result.” Dani Pedrosa, 10th - “This result was a real shame, but sometimes it happens. We did a great job all through practice and qualifying, I was confident for the race and of course I was hoping to win today. I was pushing very hard at the start of the race and perhaps I pushed too much. There was some cloud cover today and maybe the front tyre was a little cooler than before, but whatever the reason, I made a mistake and lost the front. I’m sorry for the team because they’ve worked really hard for me, and also to the fans who’ve given me great support. I wanted to win in American again but it wasn’t to be. There was some damage to the bike - the handlebar was bent inwards and the footpeg was worn away quite badly, but actually I was able to recover and ride at a fast pace to take some points at the end. Looking on the positive side, we’ve been very fast here and that means we can take a lot of confidence to Misano next weekend.” Chris Vermeulen, 11th - "I got a good start off the line and made up a few places on the outside at turn one, but on turn two I got hit by Kallio and pushed out on the grass and I lost a lot of time. I was about last and had a lot of work to do from there. We made some changes to the bike for the race and I did my quickest run this afternoon from the whole weekend. I moved up some places and towards the end I was fighting for ninth, but had a bit of bad luck on the last lap and a couple of guys got past me. It was certainly the best we have been all weekend and we have some positive things to take to Misano." Randy de Puniet, 12th - "In yesterday’s qualifying I felt better on a hard rear tyre and that was my choice for today’s 28-lap race. But obviously it has been the wrong decision. From the beginning I had not enough grip on the left and I could not open the throttle where I would like. I thought that the grip would have improved after a few laps, but it did not happen and I struggled for the whole race. At seven laps to go I also went wide on turn two and (Toni) Elias and (Chris) Vermeulen were faster than me today. The ankle aches a lot like in Brno but I think that Misano race track will suite me better than Indy.” Gabor Talmacsi, 14th - “Session by session we improved - and this is OK. At the beginning of the race I was in a condition to attack, ad operated a few overtaking, and I enjoyed it. But to do so I had to ride constantly over the limit. In the second part of the race it was a struggle. This is what worries me most: We have to find something big to improve.” Valentino Rossi, DNF - “Today is a disappointment of course! We struggled here with the setting all weekend but we made an improvement today and I got a good start and was able to stay in touch with Pedrosa. Once he fell, I knew it would be between Jorge and I but I honestly don’t know how it would have finished, because Jorge was very fast today. Of course, it would have been better to have finished second than not to finish at all! Unfortunately I ran wide on to a dirty part of the track at turn one and lost the front. I tried to carry on but there was a problem with my throttle and it wasn’t possible. I want to congratulate Jorge for his victory and now we look forward to coming back to the front at Misano. We are still leading the championship and this is the most important thing.” -- Bridgestone Report - Bridgestone slick compounds available: Front: Medium, Hard. Rear: Hard, Extra hard (asymmetric) Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo took a dominant victory at the second Indianapolis Grand Prix today, using the harder option front and softer option rear asymmetric Bridgestone slicks to set the fastest lap and a new lap record in the process. Completing the top three were two new visitors to the MotoGP podium in 2009; San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Alex de Angelis who recorded his best ever MotoGP finish in second position and Ducati Team’s Nicky Hayden, the American scoring his best result and first podium of the season on home soil. De Angelis used the same slick tyre compound options as Lorenzo, but Hayden made best use of his softer front slick to climb from sixth on the grid to a hard-fought third, resisting increasing pressure at the end of the race from Repsol Honda’s Andrea Dovizioso on a harder front slick. Lorenzo’s victory exactly halves teammate Valentino Rossi’s championship lead, leaving the race for the 2009 MotoGP World Championship wide open with five races remaining in the first year of Bridgestone’s tenure as Official Tyre Supplier. Mikio Masunaga - Bridgestone Corporation Vice President and Senior Officer “I would like to congratulate Jorge Lorenzo and the Fiat Yamaha Team for their excellent victory here today in Indianapolis. America is a very significant market for Bridgestone Corporation and we are honoured to be able to come here for the second time this season as MotoGP's Official Tyre Supplier. I would like to thank all the teams and Dorna for their continued support and for organising another fantastic grand prix.” Tohru Ubukata – Manager, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department “Yesterday Dani set a new pole position record on Bridgestone tyres, and today Jorge set a new lap record on our tyres so this has been a good weekend for us at Indianapolis. We saw some good battles, particularly between Nicky and Andrea, and James and Marco. I’d like to congratulate Alex and the San Carlo team for his first MotoGP podium, and also Nicky and the Ducati Team for a very well deserved third place at his home grand prix. “I am pleased with the durability of our tyres over a race distance as Indianapolis is an abrasive circuit and some riders, like Alex, set their fastest lap right at the end of the race. The fight between Nicky and Andrea also gave us a good comparison between the softer and harder front tyres, and their close battle shows the wide operating range of each of the compounds we have developed this season. Even in the last laps Nicky and Andrea were evenly matched on laptimes, demonstrating the crossover in performance of tyre compounds we have achieved as sole tyre supplier.” Jorge Lorenzo - Fiat Yamaha Team – Race Winner “What a race! You know, in a world championship like this you have to always be on the limit to win. In the last two races I was on the limit and crashed, but today the situation changed completely. Today everything felt great on the bike and I think I could have done a 1m 39.8, but when Valentino crashed I closed the throttle a bit. Before this race I said the championship is almost impossible, but now it is possible for sure. I had a lot of fun in the last lap and I am very happy!” |
