MotoGP 2005 - Round 3

MotoGP Race

Heavy rain and plenty of standing water greeted riders on their warm up lap. Warm up being somewhat of a misnomer in the conditions.

Melandri got away well but quickly up front leading the way out in front it was a Suzuki 1-2 with Hopkins leading from Roberts. Rossi took 3rd place off Melandri around halfway into the first lap and then slotted past Hopkins for 2nd place and then closed onto new race leader Kenny Roberts. Toni Elias had also been on a charge and was right on Rossi’s hammer as the first lap came to a close.

Gibernau got past Hopkins to move up to 4th place in an effort to prevent the leaders escaping from him. Nakano returned to the pits with some sort of problem.

Roberts continued to lead the way from Rossi and Elias had started to lose touch with that duo and was starting to be threatened by Gibernau. Olivier Jacque on a charge forward on the Kawasaki. The Frenchman standing in for the injured Alex Hofmann and doing a sterling job of it. Barros was shown the board for a stop go penalty awarded to him for a jump start.

Gibernau went past Elias and shortly afterwards Biaggi pushed the Yamaha man back even further. To add insult to that Elias was then showed that he had a stop-go penalty for a jump start.

Meanwhile up front Roberts and Rossi looked to be pulling away. Roberts ran a little wide which allowed Rossi through but only half a lap later Roberts started to slow markedly with some sort of bike problem. Rossi the leader by a fair margin from Gibernau and Biaggi as a result. Bayliss went down and Checa also went down shortly afterwards. Jacque was trying hard to get past Hopkins and nearly paid the price with a big save out of one of the tighter turns. Hopkins was not quite so lucky on the next lap as he visited the kitty litter after running in a little too deep, he did fight his way out to rejoin the track though.

Kenny Roberts retirement was most unfortunate for this race as the Suzuki man had set the fastest lap on every one of the first four laps and then on the 5th lap it was his Suzuki team-mate who was the fastest man so we really could have seen a likely Suzuki victory here today. The rain gave them that chance of course but it was also the rain that cost Roberts his chance at the win as apparently the machine failure was related to water getting into the electrics of the bike and putting out the ignition.

From lap seven Olivier Jacque then started putting in fast laps in his quest to work his way forward and the Kawasaki guest rider was doing just that as he took 3rd place off Biaggi on lap 8 of the 21 lap race.

Jacque was then the fastest man on lap 9, 10, 11 and 12 to move past Gibernau before then starting to take bite size chunks out of Valentino Rossi’s lead.

Another guest rider having a great showing in the wet was Dutchman Jurgen van der Goorbergh to be running in 5th place aboard Makoto Tamada’s Konica Minolta RC211V Honda.

Rossi had many laps with a clear track in front of him and his advantage was considerable but Jacque had it down to 6 seconds as they entered the final third of the race. Melandri was stalking Biaggi and he made move stick on the Repsol man with 6 laps remaining in the race.

Hopkins had recovered from his early sojourn into the kitty litter and was putting in good laps. The Suzuki man was the fastest man on the track on lap 17 as he tried to get in a position to try and challenge Jurgen van der Goorbergh for 6th position.

Rossi’s lead had been narrowed to 5 seconds by Jacque but with only a few laps remaining Rossi was looking fairly safe. Well it did look safe for a little while but over the next couple of laps Jacque was catching Rossi hand over first and by the time they started the last lap the Kawasaki man had narrowed Rossi’s advantage to only 2.5 seconds.

Jacque did not give up the chase on that final lap and took another second out of Rossi to score 2nd place. Marco Melandri got Sete Gibernau on the final lap as the Spaniard looked to be struggling with some sort of problem which put Gibernau off the podium.

Rossi’s win gives him a very significant 25 point advantage over Marco Melandri in the championship standings with only three rounds down. Third in the points is Alex Barros who incidentally put in the fastest lap of the race on the final lap to take 11th place off Loris Capirossi. A good recovery for Barros after that slow drive through pitlane penalty for jumping the start.

Repsol man Max Biaggi is 4th in the championship standings with a 3 point advantage over Sete Gibernau.

Next up MotoGP heads to Le Mans for round four in a fortnights time.

Race Result

Rossi
Jacque
Melandri
Gibernau
Biaggi
Vd Goorbergh
Hopkins
Edwards
Hayden
Xaus
Barros
Capirossi
Ellison
Elias
Ukawa

Championship Points

Rossi 70
Melandri 45
Barros 43
Biaggi 36
Gibernau 33
Edwards 25
Jacque 20
Nakano 19
Checa 17
Hayden 16

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