Different luck for the Repsol Honda Team in Brno.
Dani Pedrosa, third, adds a new podium finish to the record of his already successful season in the MotoGP class. Team mate and overall leader Nicky Hayden finishes ninth after a complicated race.
Good and bad luck for the riders of the Repsol Honda Team this afternoon in the Czech track of Brno. While young Dani Pedrosa was heading towards his seventh podium of the 2006 season, team mate Hayden was set back due to problems with the tyres, having to settle for the points rewarded for the ninth position.
Despite a good start of the race both for Hayden third after the first lap and for Pedrosa fifth Hayden began alarmingly loosing ground on the leading riders on the eighth lap of the race. From the start, Capirossi made his own race, opening a big gap and riding in solitary to achieve his second victory of the season. Further in the back, Rossi second and Hayden third, also escaped from their rivals, while watching helplessly how Capirossis Ducati number 65 was disappearing in the front. After getting rid of Stoner, Pedrosa caught and passed team mate Hayden, taking Rossis slipstream. Both riders opened a gap and featured one of the most exciting duels of the season five laps before the end of the race. In one and a half laps, Pedrosa and Rossi overtook each other five times but when everything seemed as if they would reach the finish together, Pedrosa made a small mistake that allowed the Italian rider to open a small but wide enough gap to cross the finish line in second position.
Pedrosa was third, three seconds behind Rossi. Nicky Hayden, who lost performance as his tyres were loosing grip and had problems with his bikes clutch, finished ninth after loosing two positions in the last lap. After this race, Hayden keeps the leadership with an advantage of 25 points over Dani Pedrosa, who is second, and 38 over Valentino Rossi who is third in the overall standings. After todays result, the Repsol Honda team keeps the leadership in the teams standings with 377 points, followed by the Camel Yamaha Team with 253 points.
In the 250cc class, positive race of Martín Cárdenas, who made an excellent start, moving up to fifth after the first lap and finishing seventh after giving in some position in the face of the larger experience of some of his rivals. Team mate Shuhei Aoyama, sixth after the first lap, finished the race in the same position. The race of the quarter-of-a-litre class was won by Jorge Lorenzo. Repsol rider Bradley Smith did not take part in the quarter-of-a-litre class. After suffering an injury during the second qualifying session, Smith was not able to take the start after fracturing the radius of his left arm yesterday afternoon. The British rider is waiting to know the exact state of his injury he will be examined tomorrow in Barcelona and the possibilities of racing in Malaysia. Todays race was won by the current leader of the 125cc World Championship, Spanish rider Alvaro Bautista.
Rider´s comments:
Dani Pedrosa:
I think we did a great race and third place is very good for me because I started from ninth on the grid. I made a good start but I think it could have been even better and I could have made up even more places into the first corner. When I caught Valentino I was waiting because it was very early in the race. By that point though, Capirossi was already gone he was too fast for us today. So we were battling for second place and we did some very good overtaking manoeuvres, some of them very aggressive. We were pushing very hard. With three laps remaining I made a mistake at one corner and lost a second that I couldnt recover, so for the last lap I decided to finish third. Im looking forward to the next races.
Nicky Hayden:
I was going pretty good for the first part of the race. I made a good start and was feeling comfortable running in third. The results frustrating and we had a few little issues in the race but Im not going to dwell on that. The bottom line is that the result is not what we wanted this weekend, but thats racing. One week you win and the next youre ninth thats the level of the competition in MotoGP. Weve had some tough results this year and weve bounced back so well regroup and do that again. Ive got some great support from fans at home and abroad and that means a lot to me. I knew it was going to be hard work but me and my boys are strong so well put in a couple of days testing and come back fighting for the next one.
Shuhei Aoyama:
Im not really happy. I made a bad start and at the beginning of the race I wasnt really able to push as much as I wanted. I hadnt a good feeling and I didnt want to crash. My main aim was to finish the race so I wasnt able to be as fast as I wanted at the beginning of the race. Then I found my pace and tried to stay in the second group, but I finally lost contact and wasnt able to catch up with them again. Im not really satisfied because I expected more from this race.
Martín Cárdenas:
I made a very good start today and I have been able to be in the top group from the beginning which was of great help for the result. I didnt want to take any risk during the race because my main aim was to finish. During one or two laps I had a nice fight with Barbera, Debón and Shuhei, but as I said, I didnt want to take any risk. I was finally seventh and considering that the aim was finishing the race, I think that its a very good result.
Standings
MotoGP
- L.Capirossi (Ducati) 43.40.145
- V.Rossi (Yamaha) + 4.902
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) + 8.012
- K.Roberts (KR) + 14.800
- M.Melandri (Honda) + 15.025
9. N.Hayden (Honda) + 17.061
World Championship
- N.Hayden, 201 puntos.
- D.Pedrosa, 176
- V.Rossi, 163
- M.Melandri, 161
- L.Capirossi, 151
250
- J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 41.29.204
- A.Dovizioso (Honda) + 2.507
- H.Aoyama (KTM) + 2.524
- R.Locatelli (Aprilia) + 15.294
- H.Barberá (Aprilia) + 30.098
- S.Aoyama (Honda) + 30.223
- M.Cárdenas (Honda) + 39.405
250 World Championship
- J.Lorenzo, 199 puntos.
- A.Dovizioso, 192
- Y.Takahashi, 133
- H.Aoyama, 132
- A.de Angelis, 131
10. S.Aoyama, 58
14. M.Cárdenas, 37
125
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) 41.00.673
- M.Kallio (KTM) + 0.028
- G.Talmacsi (Honda) + 11.409
- S.Gadea (Aprilia) + 11.843
- T.Luthi (Honda) + 12.155
125 World Championship
- A.Bautista, 230 puntos.
- M.Kallio, 161
- M.Pasini, 147
- S.Gadea, 133
- H.Faubel, 123
21. B.Smith, 8
