Dani Pedrosa stormed to his first win of the season with a flag-to-flag victory at Sachsenring. The Spaniard was joined on the podium by Ducati's Loris Capirossi and his own Repsol Honda teammate,
Nicky Hayden. The championship points leader, Casey Stoner, finished in fifth but still managed to extend his points lead with Valentino Rossi suffering a DNF.
The win at Sachsenring was never in doubt for Dani Pedrosa, who led the race from flag to flag.
Pedrosa led at Sachsenring straight out of the box, snagging the holeshot with his 250 rival, Stoner, in tow, along with Gresini Honda's
Marco Melandri. The front three worked up a slight lead when, just three laps in, the first of five DNFs occurred with Carlos Checa taking a nasty tumble into the gravel.
The big news at Sachsenring, however, occurred with 25 of the 30 laps to go, when Rossi low-sided after performing an overtaking maneuver past
Randy de Puniet. Rossi had not been able to make a good start to begin the race and put a big dent in his title quest by pitching his Fiat Yamaha into the gravel.
With The Doctor out of commission, Pedrosa was not giving anything up to his competitors at the front and continued with the lead. Behind the Repsol Honda rider, however, there was a bustle of activity.
Around the midway point, Hayden, who had been wallowing in a poor starting position back in 14th, began to make his move. Creeping up positions until the final moments, the reigning champ was able to push his Repsol Honda bike up onto the podium in third. Mirroring Hayden's success, was fellow American Colin Edwards, who managed to turn a 13th-place start into a fourth-place finish.
During the final laps, while Hayden made his charge up through the ranks, Stoner faded to his eventual fifth-place result - the Australian surrendering positions to Hayden and Edwards, as well as teammate (for now) Loris Capirossi.
The fade of Stoner and Melandri coupled with the rise of Hayden and Edwards hints that perhaps Michelin had the advantage this round. Dwindling performance of the Bridgestones as the laps wore on was mentioned by eventual seventh-place finisher, John Hopkins, who ran into tire issues at about seven to go.
The victory by Pedrosa was never in question and may signal a resurgence for the expected 800 ace in the second half of 2007, although at 52 points back the Spaniard will have to make winning a habit to find championship success.
Loris Capirossi: "It's been a long time, but I'm back! My team worked really hard here to find the best solution for the race. We changed the weight distribution, putting more weight on the front to give me more confidence going into the turns. The first half of the season was tough but I hope that we have now found a good way to go quick for the rest of the season. "
The fifth-place result for Stoner equals his worst finish of the season, but the young Aussie still managed to extend his championship advantage courtesy of Rossi's premature exit. At 32 points over The Doctor, Stoner cannot afford to be lax, but his lead is reminiscent of last season when everyone waited for Hayden to crumble under the pressure.
"Today was a damage limitation exercise," said Stoner. "Dani rode a great race, he was untouchable today. Towards the end Marco and John seemed to have a lot more grip than me in a few places, anyway, I fought them off and we were able to keep fifth position which is a few more points. I'm kind of disappointed, I felt we could have had a minimum of second today, reasonably easy, so we'll just have to come back at the next race and try to be stronger and iron out our weak points."
The podium finish for Hayden delivers another boost of confidence to the defending champ as he heads into his home GP next weekend at Laguna Seca. The Kentucky Kid has owned Laguna in the past and now has a couple recent podiums to wash away the bitterness of what has been an awful title defense.
As for Rossi, the five-time MotoGP champion is looking beatable and downright human this season. Expect the Yamaha ace to bounce back at Laguna, however, at one of the few tracks he has never tasted victory.
"I'm so disappointed because today our package was working very well and we missed the chance to make up a lot of points on Stoner," said Rossi. "We know from Pedrosa and Colin's performance that the Michelin tires worked well until the end and I'm sad that we weren't there to fight. Luckily Stoner was only fifth so the points situation is not as bad as it could have been. I'm very glad we only have seven days until the next race because right now I'm feeling quite bad, but very determined for America!"
MotoGP Sachsenring Race Results:
1. Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda)
2. Loris Capirossi (Ducati Marlboro)
3. Nicky Hayden (Repsol Honda)
4. Colin Edwards (Fiat Yamaha)
5. Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro)
6. Marco Melandri (Honda Gresini)
7. John Hopkins (Rizla Suzuki)
8. Anthony West (Kawasaki Racing)
9. Alex Hofmann (Pramac d'Antin)
10. Michel Fabrizio (Honda Gresini)
11. Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki)
12. Kurtis Roberts (Team Roberts)
13. Makoto Tamada (Tech 3 Yamaha)
14. Carlos Checa (LCR Honda)
DNF Randy de Puniet (Kawasaki Racing)
DNF Shinya Nakano (Konica Minolta Honda)
DNF Alex Barros (Pramac d'Antin)
DNF Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha)
DNF Sylvain Guintoli (Tech 3 Yamaha)
Championship Points Standings:
1. Stoner - 196
2. Rossi - 164
3. Pedrosa - 144
4. Hopkins - 103
5. Melandri - 97
