New podium finish for Dani Pedrosa in MotoGP and first for Shuhei Aoyama in the 250cc
Pedrosa third after a race in which he was very close to victory; Hayden, physically weakened, is fifth and keeps the leadership. Shuhei Aoyama third in the 250cc.
Positive result for the Repsol Honda Team in the French Grand Prix. Despite this not being the best MotoGP race of the Repsol riders this 2006 season, the team will leave France with a new podium finish, the points scored by Dani Pedrosa’s third position and Nicky Hayden’s fifth, and with the North American rider leading the overall standings despite a complicated weekend due to a strong flu that held him offside during the three days.
Dani Pedrosa, who had serious chances to win the race, finally had to settle for the third place due to the wrong race tyre choice. However, Dani finishes the weekend fourth overall, ten points behind the leadership. In the teams’ classification, the Repsol Honda Team keeps the top position from the first race, after France with an advantage of 33 points. The highlight in the 250cc was the first podium finish of Repsol rider Shuhei Aoyama in his first ever race at the Le Mans Circuit, where he managed to finish third this morning.The rain was threatening to destroy the aspirations of many and give wings to those of others, but finally it didn’t show up until the MotoGP podium ceremony, and even though it only did for a short time and lightly.
After the start of the MotoGP race, Hopkins and his Suzuki took the lead, followed by Melandri, Pedrosa and Capirossi. Nicky Hayden was ninth after the first lap. Valentino Rossi, who started to recover after a bad start, took the leadership of the race in the fifth lap and began to open a gap. Watchful Dani Pedrosa, was the only rider to keep up with the Italian at the beginning escaping with him from the rest of the pack. But Dani and his team did not make the best choice of tyres today and halfway the race Pedrosa decided that it would be better to secure the 20 points of the second place and let Valentino escape. And so it was until, 8 laps before the end of the race, the engine of Rossi’s Yamaha stopped working, so that Pedrosa was leading the race. However the tyres of the Repsol rider were at their limit, so Dani was not able to defend himself from the attacks of Melandri – winner of the race – first and then Capirossi, who finished second.
With Dani third, team mate Nicky Hayden, who had spent a large part of the race fighting with Stoner, finally entered the track in fifth position, thus keeping the leadership after overcoming a really complicated weekend.Le Mans witnessed today the first podium finish of the Japanese Repsol Honda Team rider Shuhei Aoyama in the 250cc, a deserved and fought-for podium finish that could have even been more & Aoyama has still the incident in Turkey in mind, so again he was extremely cautious after the race start. Despite starting from the second row and being fifth after the first lap, only a couple of laps later, the younger of the Aoyama brothers fell back to ninth. The leading group of the race was stretching, and Takahashi and Dovizioso opened a gap. Behind them a group of six riders, Shuhei among them, were fighting for the third step of the podium. The young Repsol rider began to overtake his rivals -Locatelli, Barberá and his own brother, Hiroshi Aoyama-, until putting himself third, some three seconds from the escaped riders, and his brother closely following him. The last lap was an intense fight between the Japanese brothers, with final victory for the Repsol rider, thus taking the third step of the podium in a race won by fellow countryman Takahashi.
Sebastián Porto, who was starting from the tenth place of the grid, has been loosing positions along the race until taking the chequered flag in fourteenth position. Tomorrow, the Argentinean rider will stay in France with his team to make private tests and look for solutions for his technical problems.The race of the minor class started with the asphalt covered with damp areas due to the rain that fell in the morning, causing several accidents during the first laps. Repsol rider Bradley Smith who started from the twenty-fifth position, was twenty-third after the first lap. During the race and while the track was drying, Smith fought for the twentieth position against Bradl, Toth, Hernández and Baroni, finally crossing the finish line in twenty-first position, after protagonising a thrilling fight against these riders.
Rider´s comments:
Dani Pedrosa:
‘I’m happy with the result because I was lucky today. We are on the podium which is good for me and my team, and also the race was dry. At the beginning I was strong but then I realised Valentino was gaining a few tenths every lap and I was trying not to lose ground on him, yet every time the gap was bigger and I had to focus on controlling the gap behind me. When I took the lead I knew they were catching me and I knew I would only lead for two or three laps. On one lap I made two mistakes and I realised I was going slowly whilst on the limit! So I decided I didn’t want to crash like in the race in Turkey and I closed the throttle and focused on finishing the race. But the result is good and we must keep consistent and learn from this.’
Nicky Hayden:
‘It’s been a tough weekend, all weekend! Since we got off the plane from China it hasn’t come real smooth – it’s been bad with the weather, bad with the flu we’ve had a few things go against us today. Yesterday we went backwards with the set-up so me and team put our heads together after the wet warm-up this morning and made some changes. The Repsol Honda boys did a good job giving me a lot better bike that I felt good on so we just fought as hard as we could toady and ended up fifth. It’s not great – it’s not the result we want – but we’re still holding on to that championship lead and hopefully we can get some dry weather here tomorrow for testing and improve things a little and get ready for the summer. It’s on now to Mugello in a couple of weeks and a lot of races coming up. I hated to see that consecutive podium streak end but hey, we’ll bounce back and get ready for the next one.’
Shuhei Aoyama:
‘I’m very very happy. It was difficult to up the pace at the beginning but towards the middle of the race I was able to find my own rhythm. I could see the top group and my brother was pushing hard from the back so I decided to go for them and not to let him pass. I want to thank my team and Alberto and continue like this in the next races.’
Sebastián Porto:
‘It’s a shame because I thought that we could do a good race today. But once again I haven’t felt comfortable on the bike. I tried, but it didn’t work out and the more I tried to follow those ahead of me the harder it was. We’ll stay around tomorrow to do some calmed testing without the pressure of a racing weekend, and we’ll try to find solutions to get this situation straight. The whole team is working hard to help me and I’m really thankful for it.’
Bradley Smith:
‘The first few laps it seemed that I had improved a little bit but not much; I was in a group of three. I was caught behind a rider and then they opened a gap but I couldn’t catch the gap back. I made a few mistakes, got passed by Hernandez and then I passed him back and then he passed me back again and then I finally made an aggressive pass and managed to break away and catch the group in front. When I arrived to the group I wasn’t aggressive enough, I couldn’t pass and ended up back in twentieth. Then, on the final lap I was pushing to Baroni but ran over the kerb and got the wrong side of the kerb. Imre Toth passed me and from then on I was trying to pass him but it was never enough and I ended up twenty-first. Maybe or definitely a different approach is needed for Italy, which is the next round.’
Standings:
125
- T.Luthi (Honda) 42’54.555
- M.Kallio (KTM) + 3.380
- F.Lai (Honda) + 9.807
- A.Bautista (Aprilia) + 10.789
- P.Nieto (Aprilia) + 14.850
21. B.Smith (Honda) + 46.581
Mundial 125
- A.Bautista, 99 points
- M.Kallio, 78
- H.Faubel, 56
- S.Gadea, 54
- M.Pasini, 49
250
- Y.Takahashi (Honda) 43’42.773
- A.Dovizioso (Honda) + 0.098
- S.Aoyama (Honda) + 2.215
- H.Aoyama (KTM) + 2.484
- A. de Angelis (Aprilia) + 11.270
14. S.Porto (Honda) + 46.545
Mundial 250
- A.Dovizioso, 92 points
- H.Barberá, 78
- H.Aoyama, 75
- Y.Takahashi, 67
- J.Lorenzo, 63
10. S.Aoyama, 27
14. S.Porto, 17
MotoGP
- M.Melandri (Honda) 44’57.369
- L.Capirossi (Ducati) + 1.929
- D.Pedrosa (Honda) + 2.269
- C.Stoner (Honda) + 5.494
- N.Hayden (Honda) + 5.709
Mundial MotoGP
- N.Hayden, 83 points
- M.Melandri, 79
- L.Capirossi, 79
- D.Pedrosa, 73
- C.Stoner, 65
