History making Grand Prix staged today at the Japanese circuit of Motegi, with hard fought, intense races in the three classes, including incidents, crashes and extreme overtaking manoeuvres. In the MotoGP class, the rider of the Repsol Honda Team Max Biaggi was very close to the victory but finally had to settle for the second place after a superb race in which only the superiority of the Capirossi-Ducati-Bridgestone ensemble was able to hinder him from getting on the highest step of the rostrum. The race started with Melandri taking the lead, pushing hard and followed by Capirossi and Biaggi, with Tamada and Rossi behind. The three in the lead opened a gap to the rest of the pack leaving Tamada and Rossi behind, while Hayden who was loosing positions after being sixth in the first lap, dropped back to the twelfth place. The first changes in the lead came halfway the race, with Biaggi moving ahead, Capirossi second and Melandri, lacking concentration, falling back to third, finally being caught by Rossi. While Biaggi and Capirossi were opening a gap, Melandri ended up in the gravel, as did Rossi while latter was trying to overtake him in a braking manoeuvre. With Tamada in a comfortable third position after the incident of the two Italians, Biaggi was not able to do anything in the last laps in order to resist Capirossi´s strong attack, who after setting several best laps, went away heading for his first victory of the season. Nicky Hayden benefited from the several crashes and finally crossed the finish line in seventh position.
Brilliant race today for Dani Pedrosa in the 250cc who is step by step moving towards his second consecutive title in the quarter-of-a litre class. Despite the pain after the three crashes suffered on the two practice days, Dani made a very intelligent race, controlling all of his rivals. With five laps to go, he went on the offensive until moving up to second. Difficult race for the riders of the Aspar Repsol Team, with Randy De Puniet finishing fifth and Sebastián Porto retiring after crashing 11 laps before the end of the race while he was being ninth. It was a grouped race, with Repsol rider Hiroshi Aoyama in the lead from start to finish. The local hero made his race, opened a gap to the rest of the pack and crossed the finish line victoriously in front of his home crowd with an advantage of more than five seconds. He was followed by De Angelis, Lorenzo, Stoner, Pedrosa, Dovizioso, De Puniet and Porto, although the Repsol riders began loosing ground, finally loosing contact with the leading group. Dani Pedrosa stayed in fifth or sixth place, controlling Stoner, his highest rival in the fight for the title, waiting for the last laps to start his attack. And so it was; with his team-mate Aoyama already escaped and riding towards the victory, Pedrosa launched his attack with five laps to go. After getting rid of Stoner and Dovizioso he went for De Angelis, but the San Marino rider fought hard to defend his second place. Dovizioso, who also wanted to be part of the battle, made some mistakes that made him loose a lot of ground, while Lorenzo, in the back, made good use of the intense fight and constant overtaking between Pedrosa and De Angelis to catch-up with them. On the last lap De Angelis made a mistake, Lorenzo had a fright after slightly touching Pedrosas´s bike and they both crashed, while Pedrosa crossed the finish line second, after a hard weekend filled with crashes and bruises. Third was Stoner, who sees the championship title getting further away, but getting closer to Repsol rider Dani Pedrosa.
The 125cc race was spectacular, very exciting and with a clear finish. With six laps to go, an accident on the main straight involving Luthi and Repsol rider Sergio Gadea forced the track marshals to show the red flag, and declare the race as finished. The race went off with a group of ten riders, lead by Kallio, Luthi, Pasini, Talmacsi and Faubel actively setting the pace. Sergio Gadea, who had started from behind, caught-up with the leading group after the first three laps securing himself a comfortable place for the last race laps. Mateo Túnez, with an excellent performance throughout the weekend was leading the following group and was getting closer lap by lap. Unfortunately the Repsol rider crashed in lap eight while being eleventh, just after contacting with the leading pack. Some laps later it was Talmacsi who ended up on the tarmac and with six laps to go, when Kallio had changed the pace in order to try to escape, Luthi, who was riding behind him, crashed on the main straight and was run over by Gadea who was at the end of the group. With bike debris spread all over the track, the tack marshals waved their red flags and the race ended. According to the regulations, the valid positions are those of the previous flag, so that Kallio was finally first, Luthi second and Repsol rider Héctor Faubel third. Sergio Gadea, finished seventh despite the crash, because of his position on the previous lap.
Riders comments
MotoGP. Max Biaggi
2nd, 4´1.978:
“That race was so hard and I am very happy with the result in the end. Michelin did a great job with the tyres – the grip on the edge was unbelievable! When we open the throttle there was so much traction it was incredible. My team have done a great job and even if we didn´t win we improve again in the championship. It is good to be the best Michelin finisher and the first Honda back as well. I´m confident in Malaysia that we can take revenge on Bridgestone! They did a great job and Loris rode very hard – congratulations to them. A good battle to watch for the fans I think.”
MotoGP. Nicky Hayden
7th, 4´6.393:
“Things never really clicked here for the moment I got of the plane really. Seemed like I was on the back foot all weekend and things never came good to be honest. In the race I had a good battle with a few guys and went back and forth with Barros a few times then I overshot at the end of the straightaway and lost a few places. I got things back together and made up some places and rode for the points. I feel I let my boys down here and don´t feel good about it. I just want to make sure we come out of the gate fast in Sepang next week and put things straight.”
250. Hiroshi Aoyama
1st, 4´2.454:
“My first victory in the World Championship and at home; this is more than I ever dreamed of. This victory is incredible for me. I´ve been very focussed throughout the weekend, although it was complicated not to think about all the people I have here, by my side; I hadn´t seen them for such a long time! The pole had already been a good sign, but I knew that I couldn´t relax for the race because it would be a very hard one. And it was. I started strongly from the beginning, focussing on my own pace and with seven laps to go I began to push as hard as I could. I want to dedicate this victory to my team and my family; I´m very happy”.
250. Dani Pedrosa
2nd, 4´7.767:
“I suffered a lot today. I think that I´ve never had such a hard fought race. The first time I tried to overtake Dovizioso, inside the tunnel, the carburetion failed and Stoner passed me, so I fell back again. I had trouble getting the pace at the beginning and during the race the right side of the body felt very heavy because I had to force the position on the bike a lot. When I caught up with De Angelis it began to be really hard because he wasn´t very fast but closed the gaps very well, braking late, and it cost me a lot to overtake him. We touched a couple of times, but in the end I was lucky with the touch of Lorenzo and De Angelis and managed to finish second. This is much more than I expected after the second crash on Friday, we were even thinking about whether I would be able to race at all. I´m also very happy for my team-mate Hiro. He´s done a great weekend. Today was his day. He deserves it”.
250. Randy De Puniet
5th, 4´3.217:
“I´m satisfied with this fifth place here in Motegi, because I started from eighth, one second behind the pole. We managed to improve the set-up a lot on Saturday, compared to what we had on the first practice day, and the engine performed quite well. I didn´t make a good start, but I got the race pace from the start, although I was forced to slow down with seven laps to go because the bike was skidding a lot in the rear end and I wanted to avoid any mistake. Under these conditions, today´s result isn´t bad at all and I trust to be able to do better in Malaysia, if we manage to find a good setting from the first practice day.”
250. Sebastián Porto,
crashed out:
“It hasn´t been a good day for us, we started from the back and I wasn´t able to recover many places during the start. I had a lot of trouble at the beginning and in addition, almost everything happened to me. One rider crashed in front of me, I lost the group and then it cost me a lot to recover. When I caught them, something happened with the engine, and I´m not sure whether this had also an influence on the crash or not. I gave 100%, but this weekend things just didn´t work out well for us.”
125. Héctor Faubel
3rd, 3´2.371:
“I´m really happy about this result, and also for all the hard work my team has done this whole weekend. We prepared well for the race during practice and we knew it wasn´t going to be easy. I´m happy because it looks like my bad luck has come to an end at last, and now I´m eager to get over to Malaysia and get another good result. If we are lucky, I think that we could e up there fighting for victory.”
125. Sergio Gadea
7th, 3´3.615:
“It was a horrible crash, and I was lucky to walk away from it. I made a good start, but it was hard work to get up to the front group. I could tell overtaking wasn´t easy, and I decided to hold tight until the end of the race. With four laps left, I saw Luthi´s bike in my path and I couldn´t avoid it. Let´s see if things can go better for us in Malaysia.”
Tyre´s choice
- Max Biaggi: Medium – Soft
- Nicky Hayden: Medium – Medium
- Sebastián Porto: Medium – Medium
- Randy De Puniet: Medium – Medium
- Dani Pedrosa: Medium – Soft
- Hiroshi Aoyama: Medium – Soft
- Héctor Faubel: Medium – Medium
- Sergio Gadea: Medium – Medium
Standings
125cc.
- Mika KALLIO – 3´0.854
- Thomas LUTHI +0.111)
- Hector FAUBEL +1.517 )
- Tomoyoshi KOYAMA +2.349)
- Mattia PASINI +2.406)
250cc.
- Hiroshi AOYAMA 4´2.454
- Daniel PEDROSA +5.313
- Casey STONER +7.781
- Yuki TAKAHASHI +10.222)
- Randy DE PUNIET +10.763)
MotoGP
- Loris CAPIROSSI 4´0.499
- Max Biaggi +1.479
- Makoto TAMADA +16.227
- Carlos CHECA 4´2.647 +22.148
- John HOPKINS +33.212
