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MotoGP
2005 - Round 13 - Sepang 250cc Race Report September 25th, 2005 |
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MotoGP
2005 - Round 13 - Sepang 250cc Race Report September 25th, 2005 |
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While Dunlop does not take part in the savage MotoGP tyre war that is dominated by Michelin and Bridgestone they do whitewash the 250cc class. In fact if a Dunlop runner wins the 250 race at Sepang it will be the 150th successive race victory for Dunlop as the last non Dunlop win in the class was Tetsuya Harada's victory at the Indonesian GP in 1996 using Michelin tyres. Casey Stoner managed to break away early and Dani Pedrosa went down trying to close the gap and Dovizioso was also out so things in the championship were looking very rosy for Stoner who had the perfect opportunity to close the gap to Pedrosa down in the championship standings and also to significantly strengthen his second place in the series over Dovizioso who was the next closest man in the series standings. Out to put a spoiler on a perfect 25 points haul though was a charging De Angelis. Both men were having some large rear end slides only a couple of laps in to the race. Randy De Puniet had worked his way forward to 3rd place and was having a 3-way battle for the position with Aoyama and Porto. Stoner had managed to break away from De Angelis and with 15 laps to run had built a 2-second buffer over his pursuer who in turn had a further 4 seconds on the battle for third place. Anthony West retired from the race after five laps with an engine failure. Nine riders were already out of the race before even the halfway mark of the 20 lap race. As they passed the half way mark Stoner had more than 3 seconds on De Angelis and was looking strong for the win with his Aprilia wearing hard compound tyres while De Angelis was shod with medium compound rubber. Randy De Puniet had been looking strong in 3rd place before he ran a little wide and allowed Sebastian Porto to take that position off him with 9 laps to run. That tyre difference really started to become apparent as the race entered is final third with De Angelis having a few sideways moments which allowed Stoner to stretch his gap out to a significant 5 seconds with six laps to run. Stoner then managed that gap to score a brilliant controlled win that is made all the more important by the fact that Pedrosa took no points enabling Stoner to take the maximum 25 points back on the brilliant Honda man, and of course it also strengthened his second place to the tune of the same amount with a significant 44 point margin over the third place Dovizioso in the race for the World Championship.
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MotoGP Championship
2005
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