Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa sealed his third MotoGP victory of the 2010 season on Sunday at the Indianapolis circuit. His win in Round 11 is the first time the Spaniard has taken more than two wins in a single season. Pedrosa was followed by American Ben Spies who, despite losing grip in the final half of the contest, held on to finish second at his home race. For the first time this season, Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo finished lower than second after getting a poor start in fifth-place. The Fiat Yamaha rider rounded out the top-three finishers in third while his teammate, Valentino Rossi, took fourth after suffering a total of three crashes over the weekend.

"Of course I shouldn't be disappointed with third-place but at the same time I'm not happy with my race today," said Lorenzo. "I didn't ride as well as I could have and I didn't get a good start. The conditions were incredibly hard and I simply didn't have the physical strength to push as hard or do the same times I did in practice; it was like a race in Malaysia! The track was so slippery and it was very difficult to use the tires as you wanted to, I think honestly I'm quite lucky to have finished third today. The good thing is we took some points and now I have to concentrate on recovering before Misano because we don't have much time."
 
Spies had a great start from pole position and took the early lead in the contest. Also getting a solid start from fifth on the grid was Pedrosa, who quickly maneuvered ahead of his Honda teammate, Andrea Dovizioso, and settled into second-place. Lorenzo and Rossi followed in fourth and fifth respectively while Ducati’s Nicky Hayden was pushed back to sixth following an incident which caused his knee slider to come loose.
 
In the opening laps Pedrosa made things incredibly difficult on Lorenzo, who tried his hardest to make the pass on Pedrosa for second. San Carlo Honda’s Marco Melandri suffered an early fall while in seventh which put an early end to his day.
 
On Lap 5 Hayden was passed by his Ducati teammate, Casey Stoner, for sixth-place. Further back Mika Kallio and Alvaro Bautista were running in ninth and tenth respectively as Pedrosa began to close in on Spies for the lead. In one swift move Pedrosa flew by Spies on Lap 6 during the start/finish straight. The Spaniard then began to pull away from the American after setting the fastest times lap after lap.
 
Meanwhile Stoner, who had been been struggling with grip levels with his Ducati machine all weekend long, lost the front-end at Turn 11. The Aussie was forced to call it quits when the crash broke his handlebar. Yamaha Tech 3’s Colin Edwards also retired early after experiencing minimal grip levels from his hard option rear tire.
 
On Lap 7 Lorenzo moved into third-place ahead of Dovizioso while Pedrosa continued pulling away from Spies. Further back Rossi was more than nine seconds adrift of Pedrosa in fifth-place as he started pressuring Dovizioso for fourth.
 
"This was a good race for us after the weekend," Rossi said. "Fourth is quite good in the circumstances but the important thing is that my rhythm in the race was strong and I felt much happier on the bike. I did some good laps and I wasn't too far from the other Yamahas, but unfortunately I paid a lot for my lack of fitness in this heat and in the end I had to stop pushing because I didn't have any strength left in my body. I'm happy though because we came back to a good setting and with me riding well, and if you consider I had three small crashes in the weekend, fourth isn't so bad. Now we will look forward to Misano, my home race!"

With nine laps remaining Spies began showing signs of tire wear, and it appeared that Lorenzo may be within striking distance.
 
Despite an extremely hot track surface and sweltering conditions, Pedrosa rode a consistent race out front to finish more than three and a half second ahead of Spies. Spies held it together in second with Lorenzo taking third after not being able to close in on the rookie. Rossi eventually made the pass on Dovizioso for fourth and Hayden, without any knee slider, crossed the line sixth and more than 35 seconds adrift of Pedrosa. Only eight-hundredths of a second separated San Carlo Honda's Marco Simoncelli and Rizla Suzuki's Alvaro Bautista as they took the checkers in seventh and eighth respectively.
 
“It was a hard and very difficult race because it was so hot that you could feel the heat coming from the bike and from the ground," Bautista said. "It made it a very physical race, but that was also a good test for me to see how my body had healed and at the end I still felt strong. I lost a few places at the start, but I was able to overtake other riders very quickly and I got behind Kallio and decided to follow him because he had a good rhythm and I didn’t want to use all my energy with a long race ahead. I finished in the top-10 and we did a good job through the whole weekend."

Pracmac Racing Ducati's Aleix Espargaro was nearly eight seconds behind in ninth, with Ducati’s Hector Barbera rounding out the top-10 finishers.
 
Spies now moves into sixth-place in the championship - just one point ahead of Hayden. Lorenzo still leads the series by 68 points, and Pedrosa has made up nine points on the leader after taking the victory at Indianapolis.
 
2010 MotoGP Indianapolis Results:
1. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
2. Ben Spies (Yamaha)
3. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
4. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
5. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda)
6. Nicky Hayden (Ducati)
7. Marco Simoncelli (Honda)
8. Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki)
9. Aleix Espargaro (Ducati)
10. Hector Barbera (Ducati)
11. Loris Capirossi (Suzuki)
12. Hiroshi Aoyama (Honda)
13. Randy de Puniet (Honda)
DNF Mika Kallio (Ducati)
DNF Colin Edwards (Yamaha)
DNF Casey Stoner (Ducati)
DNF Marco Melandri (Honda)

2010 MotoGP Championship Points:
1. Jorge Lorenzo, 251
2. Dani Pedrosa, 183
3. Andrea Dovizioso, 126
4. Casey Stoner, 119
5. Valentino Rossi, 114
6. Ben Spies, 110
7. Nicky Hayden, 109
8. Randy de Puniet, 78
9. Marco Simoncelli, 63
10. Marco Melandri, 61

Moto 2

Moto 2 action at Indy got off to a rocky start when two separate crashes occurred between Turns 1 and 2. Some of the riders involved included VDS Racing’s Scott Redding, American Honda’s Roger Lee Hayden, Fimmco Speed Up’s Gabor Talmacsi, Technomag-CIP’s Shoya Tomizawa and Tech 3 Racing’s Raffaele de Rosa. The incident brought out a red flag and there was a 30-minute delay as teams attempted to repair the bikes. Tomizawa was unable to make it back to the starting grid for the restart after being injured in the crash, and Simone Corsi was forced to the back of the starting grid after illegally entering the pit area following the crash.

In the restart Gresini Racing’s Toni Elias got a terrific start from sixth-place on the grid, and quickly shot to the front ahead of Redding and Mapfre Aspar’s Julian Simon. MZ Racing’s Anthony West and VDS Racing’s Hector Faubel rounded out the top-five in the opening lap, with Viessmann Kiefer Racing’s Stefan Bradl running just behind in sixth. After qualifying 26th on the grid, Andrea Iannone was up to 18th by the end of the first lap as the top-three riders began pulling away from the pack.
Some of the many crashes that took place on Sunday included Alex Debon, Bradl, Yuki Takahashi, Roberto Rolfo, Jules Cluzel and Ratthapark Wilairot. There was a dramatic crash involving Hector Faubel that caused gasoline to spill out of his tank and ignite, emitting a huge fireball.
 
By Lap 3 Iannone was proving himself to be one of the fastest riders on the track as he moved up to 10th. Up front Simon made a successful pass on Redding to claim second behind Elias, while Thomas Luthi advanced into fifth ahead of Talmacsi. As the top-three continued pulling ahead of the field Simon took over the lead from Elias. Further behind, Iannone was up to fifth and charging hard while Redding began dropping off the pace from his third-place position. Simon’s lead didn’t last long, however, as Elias made a beautiful pass on the outside of the leader with seven laps remaining.
 
Elias went on to take his fifth victory of the ’10 season ahead of Simon. Seventeen-year-old Redding took one of his highest finishes of the season in third after crossing the line more than four seconds behind Elias. Iannone made a strong comeback to take fourth, and JIR Moto 2’s Simone Corsi rounded out the top-five finishers in fifth.
 
2010 Moto 2 Indianapolis Results:
1. Toni Elias (Moriwaki)
2. Julian Simon (Suter)
3. Scott Redding (Suter)
4. Andrea Iannone (Speed Up)
5. Simone Corsi (Motobi)
6. Sergio Gadea (Pons Kalex)
7. Thomas Luthi (Moriwaki)
8. Gabor Talmacsi (Speed Up)
9. Jason di Salvo (FTR)
10. Anthony West (MZ-RE Honda)
11. Dominique Aegerter (Suter)
12. Mike di Meglio (Suter)
13. Claudio Corti (Suter)
14. Axel Pons (Pons Kalex)
15. Yonny Hernandez (BQR-Moto2)
 
2010 Moto 2 Championship Points:
1. Toni Elias, 186
2. Andrea Iannone, 119
3. Thomas Luthi, 108
4. Julian Simon, 108
5. Simone Corsi, 84
6. Shoya Tomizawa, 82
7. Jules Cluzel, 74
8. Yuki Takahashi, 72
9. Gabor Talmacsi, 70
10. Sergio Gadea, 59