Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo stole the win from Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa in Spain.
The first Spanish round of the 2010
MotoGP World Championship held at Jerez saw Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo steal the race win over fellow countrymen and archrival Dani Pedrosa with Valentino Rossi finishing third.
At the start of the race it was polesitter Pedrosa with the holeshot. Following him was Rossi, Marlboro Ducati’s Nicky Hayden, Lorenzo, and the second factory Ducati of Casey Stoner. Pedrosa and Rossi would immediately open a tiny gap in the first few laps while the rest of the pack battled for position.
Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi would be the first casualty of the race when the Italian crashed out of 8th position on the second lap. After circulating in ninth place, Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Ben Spies retired on Lap 8 with some sort of mechanical problem.
On Lap 10, Lorenzo would move past Hayden for third position and set-off toward the leader. By halfway through the race Pedrosa had opened a small 1.5-second gap over Rossi, with Lorenzo slowly creeping up to the leaders. With six laps to go Lorenzo had finally caught and passed Rossi.
As the race neared its end Lorenzo had his nemesis in sight. The two battled back and forth looking like they might crash in to each other to the cheers of 122,000 Spanish fans. Rossi was still poised a second or two behind looking to pounce on the two youngsters potential mistake. The one to make the mistake would be Pedrosa when he came into a corner too fast on the final lap allowing Lorenzo to come by on the inside and pull away to win the race.
Lorenzo went around Rossi on lap 21 of 27 then began chasing Pedrosa.
"It has always been one of my dreams to win a MotoGP race in Spain and this was like a movie,” exclaimed Lorenzo. “Everything that could possibly happen did! It was a very hard race because I made such a bad start and then found it very difficult in the first laps - I gave myself a tough job to do.”
“After that I started to feel better and rode like a demon to get to the front,” he continued. “Once I passed Valentino I knew that I couldn't take it easy, I had to try everything to win and it was all I could think about. I had a great fight with Dani and in one moment we nearly crashed so I had to try again, on the very last lap! This has been an amazing day, I can't believe I've achieved this dream of mine, in front of all the Spanish fans at this magical place."
Third would go to Rossi who was just under a second off Lorenzo. Following him would be Hayden and Stoner some 9-plus seconds behind.
“Fourth place is no disaster but I was hoping to stay closer to the top three towards the end and put up a bit of a fight,” said Hayden disappointedly. “I’m not happy to be nine seconds adrift but we’re trying to build something here and we’ve had another solid weekend. The team, the bike, everything has been great this weekend but we just fell a couple of tenths short on race day. To be honest I thought we might find a little extra for the race, like we did in Qatar, but it wasn’t to be. Like I said yesterday my guys worked like dogs to put me in this position today and we’ve got more to do tomorrow so I want to give a big thanks to them. This is the Ducati factory team and we don’t jump up and down at fourth place but we’ll take it. We got some great data to work from that should help us be stronger at Le Mans and hopefully we can keep this upward trend going.”
Nick Hayden continued his impressive start to this year’s World Championship with another fourth place finish.
The second Repsol Honda of Andrea Dovizioso would take sixth position followed by Pramac Ducati’s Mika Kallio and Honda Gresini’s Marco Melandri. American Colin Edwards would finish in 12th position some 38-seconds behind the race winner.
Lorenzo has been known for his wacky Rossi-inspired post race celebrations and after winning in front of his people he again kept things light hearted by planting his signature Por Fuera Flag into the gravel. But he wasn’t done yet. After prancing around the track aboard his M1, he hopped off and sprinted toward the track’s pond jumping in with all his gear on!
MotoGP Jerez Results:
American Ben Spies retired on Lap 8 with a mechanical problem.
1. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) +0.543
3. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) +0.890
4. Nicky Hayden (Ducati) +9.015
5. Casey Stoner (Ducati) +10.034
6. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) +23.144 7.
7. Mika Kallio (Ducati) +34.489
8. Marco Melandri (Honda) +34.687
9. Randy de Puniet (Honda) +36.160
10. Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki) +36.791
11. Marco Simoncelli (Honda) +37.155
12. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) +38.260
13. Hector Barbera (Ducati) +38.371
14. Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda) +1'02.052
15. Aleix Espargaro (Ducati) -3 laps
Moto2
In the newly formed Moto2 class it was former MotoGP rider and Spain’s own Toni Elias with the win over last round’s race winner Shoya Tomizawa and Thomas Luthi. Elias’ victory would come after the race was shortened to 17-laps after being stopped due to a huge pile-up started when Simone Corsi and Tomizawa made contact.
It was an all out battle after the restart with riders banging into each other for the entire duration of the race. Near the end of the race it was Elias, Tomizawa, Luthi and Yuki Takahasi all dicing for the win, but it was Elias who ended up crossing the line in first a mere 0.190-seconds in front of Tomizawa.
American Kenny Noyes put in an inspiring ride, running up front in only his second-ever Grand Prix, leading for a good numbers of laps, before getting relegated to seventh at the end.
American Kenny Noyes rode the race of his life in Jerez, battling for the lead right to the very end in only his second-ever Grand Prix.
“This is a wild class. I was only three tenths of a second off the pole but that put me ninth, on the third row,” said Noyes. “I knew from the race in Qatar that you have to fight for every inch with these guys so, after getting taken down in the big crash at Dry Sack on lap 2, I was glad to get a second chance when we went for a full restart. I got a better start and when I found myself in the lead coming into the stadium section and saw and heard that huge crowd, it was like a dream. I’m happy because we showed we can run with these guys, but the goal is to win races. This is a track where I have won in the Spanish Nationals, but with this bike and this team I think we can get on the pace even at the tracks we don’t know….like the next one at Le Mans, a track I have only seen on TV and raced on Playstation."
Moto2 Jerez Results:
Spain’s Toni Elias (center) won his home Moto2 race at Jerez.
1. Toni Elias (Moriwaki)
2. Shoya Tomizawa (Suter) +0.190
3. Thomas Luthi (Moriwaki) +0.261
4. Yuki Takahasi (Tech 3) +0.558
5. Simone Corsi (Motobi) +1.449
6. Sergio Gadea (Kalex) +1.496
7. Kenny Noyes (Promoharris) +2.215
8. Julian Simon (RSV) +2.576
9. Gabor Talmacsi (Speed Up) +3.825
10. Yonny Hernandez (BQR-Moto2) +6.691
11. Jules Cluzel (Suter) +8.123
12. Roberto Rolfo (Suter) +11.965
13. Dominique Aegerter (Suter) +12.190
14. Stefan Bradl (Suter) +12.295
15. Anthony West (MZ-RE Honda) +12.545
