Double podium for the Repsol Honda Team in Germany.
Alex Barros second and Nicky Hayden third after an excellent MotoGP race. Sebastián Porto is second in the 250 and Pablo Nieto third in the 125.
Successful weekend for the Repsol Honda Team, watching how their riders ended up on the podium after a difficult and complicated race. After the start, Biaggi took over the lead and began pushing hard. Barros touched Gibernau during the first lap and almost crashed. After the first lap, Barros was eighth and Hayden twelfth. Despite the backward positions, none of them gave up and they began to remount together after the North American had managed to catch-up with the Brazilian. The crashes of Checa, Gibernau and Capirossi, in this same order, made the remounting job of both Repsol riders much easier, who managed to overtake Melandri, Edwards, Tamada, Rossi and Roberts. Halfway the race, Barros got Biaggi and Rossi, who were fighting for the leading spot. A bit further in the back Hayden was closing the gap to the leading pack bit by bit. But six laps before the end of the race, Biaggi changed the rhythm, Barros followed him and Hayden stayed with Rossi. The race was going to be a thing for two. Rossi began to slow down and was finally overtaken by Hayden, who took the chequered flag in third position. During the last two laps Biaggi and Barros had an intense duel for victory, with the Roman rider closing all the gaps and the Brazilian trying hard to overtake him. Victory was finally for Biaggi, and Barros had to settle for second. The third Repsol rider of the class, rookie Rubén Xaus, made an improving race. Sixteenth after the first lap, Xaus recovered positions, and making good use of the other riders crashes managed to finish eleventh.
The 250cc race was no big story: Dani Pedrosa started in the lead, set constant fast laps from the beginning, opened a gap and won the race with a comfortable advantage of almost five seconds. In the back Sebastián Porto, was second after the first lap but fell back for a while and moved back to second after overtaking Rolfo and De Puniet in order to try to go for Pedrosa. The Spaniards advantage of one second over Porto seemed to be reachable but it increased after a few laps and the Argentinean Repsol rider had to settle for the final second place. His teammate Fonsi Nieto, ninth after the first lap, finished eighth.
A typical 125cc race today, with many overtakings and a large group fighting for the lead; some touching and a much contended finish. The race began with a leading group of thirteen riders including all favourites for the victory: local hero Jenkner, Dovizioso, Nieto, Barberá, Locatelli, Simoncelli, Giansanti….
After the typical initial sounding out, Pablo Nieto decided to attack, taking over the lead and pushing hard in order to break up the race. The strategy worked out well and three laps later the advantage over the rest of the group was of more than two seconds. He was followed by Barberá and Dovizioso who had also left the rest of the pack behind. From that moment on, the three riders made their own race, watching each other carefully and controlling one another in order not to let any of them escape, waiting for the last laps to fight for the final victory. But their slow pace let Locatelli reach them after a couple of laps. Locatelli took no rest, but the lead and kept it until taking the chequered flag. The three other riders finished right after him, making the Italians victory much easier after the fight for the second place that had them busy during the last two laps. Barberá finished second and Pablo Nieto, with a clearly slower bike than those of his rivals, finished third after overtaking the current championship leader Dovizioso in the last corner of the last lap. Sergio Gadea, in his best race of the season, finished fourteenth, thus scoring his first points of the World Championship. Gadea, who started from the eighteenth position made a very bad start and was thirtieth after the first lap. He then began to remount position until the fourteenth final place.
