June 11 : Fighting third keeps Dani Pedrosa in championship hunt

An intense MotoGP race fought out over 25-laps of Montmelo went to Casey Stoner (Ducati) who held off a fierce challenge from Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) who finished second with valiant local idol Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC212V) a close third.
 

A crowd of 112,000 race fans witnessed one of the best battles in recent premier class history as the three main contenders for World Championship honours pulled clear of the field to contest a three-way dice for what may prove to be one of the more significant races of what is already a tense season.

With the track at a heady 43 degrees and ambient temperature nudging 31 degrees, the lights went out and Dani made it to turn one at the head of the field. The first lap passed without any of the multiple crash drama that marred last year’s race and it was Stoner who led across the line for lap two having edged past Dani.

The Aussie Ducati man held an advantage of just 0.2 seconds as Dani harried Stoner with Rossi in pursuit, the Yamaha rider in turn pursued by John Hopkins (Suzuki) and Toni Elias (Gresini Honda RC212V). Stoner and Pedrosa had pulled clear of Rossi by half a second as lap six began – and it was soon clear that these four were setting a pace no others could match.

Hopkins set the fastest lap of the race on lap eight at 1m 43.252s and by mid-race distance just 1.4 second covered the top four of Stoner, Rossi, who had found a way past Dani, and Hopkins, who would eventually find the going just too hot to handle in the closing laps.

Elias, who had been running in sixth place, dropped out of the race on lap 16 with a machine problem as Stoner headed Rossi by just by 0.2 seconds with Pedrosa shadowing their every move from third place. Hopkins was by now losing ground and this race would now rise to a frantic intensity as the three leading contenders in the World Championship fought it out around this challenging 4.727km track.

Randy de Puniet (Kawasaki), in fifth, was 9.3 seconds behind Hopkins in fourth as all eyes were fixed on the all-out war for the podium positions. On the penultimate lap Stoner led into turn one and held it for the lap although all three riders were clearly prepared to ride right on the edge to grab maximum points.

Stoner had showed his ability to ride under significant pressure in Turkey when pressed by Rossi, and he again failed to wilt under a last lap onslaught from the Italian. Dani lurked behind them in prime position to pounce should a mistake hamper one or both of his rivals, but he had to settle for third at the flag, just 0.321 seconds behind the winner.

Pedrosa said: “Third is OK and I finished right with the leaders so I’m happy for that. It was difficult to keep up with Casey and Valentino, especially in the middle of the race, but with 10 laps remaining I was able to get close again. I was actually enjoying watching them because they weren’t overtaking each other in typical places and that’s why I wanted to get in there too! However, in one part of the track I was losing a lot and I needed the other part of the track to recover, so all the time I was right there with them, but I couldn’t fight with them.”

Marco Melandri (Gresini Honda RC212V) finished ninth and said: “We’re going through a rough patch. The team is giving their best, working hard, but the results just aren’t coming. The bike doesn’t give me any confidence and I can’t ride it how I want. I'm really disappointed. We’ve struggled with the front-end all weekend and after a few laps I lost
confidence in it. We’ll have to make some drastic changes.”

Nicky Hayden (Repsol Honda RC212V) was 11th. The reigning World Champion said: “The race was a tough one. Somewhere along the way it looks like the rear tyre became unbalanced and started to vibrate and chatter really badly – especially in the last five or ten laps, I could hardly ride it. After that I just started losing positions and it wasn’t a fun race because it was hard to tip it into any of the corners. We didn’t need that problem today so we’ll just have to look into why it happened and move on to the next one at Donington.”

A dejected Elias, who failed to finish, said: “I’m really disappointed because I was having a good race. I got a good start and it looked like fifth place was a real possibility until the engine packed up on the 14th lap. I don’t know exactly what it was. These things happen in racing but I’m really disappointed because this was my home race in front of all my fans.”

Shinya Nakano (Konica Minolta Honda RC212V) came home in 15th place and said: “It was a very frustrating and difficult race for me. I said yesterday that I had a good feeling in hot conditions but we just didn’t have that today for some reason. When I pushed hard the bike would run wide in the corners. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and having more time out on the track so we’ll be working hard again to make more improvements.”

“I’d never seen them race like that at this level,” said Kenny Roberts (Roberts KR212V), who finished 16th “It would be better if we were racing further up the field instead of where we are at the moment. It's apparent that the motor doesn’t accelerate, but then we have no grip. I think we’re learning, but it’s going to take six weeks to build something different.”

Carlos Checa (LCR Honda RC212V) split the Roberts brothers as 17th finisher. He said: “This is a difficult moment for me, I cannot remember when I had a worse feeling in a race and this is not the result I wanted. Everyone in the LCR team has worked very hard over the weekend but we could just not find the balance or feeling that gave me any confidence to push. It is not fun to race like this but now we must look forward and hope the situation can improve.”

“I was just hung out to dry,” said Kurtis Roberts (Roberts KR212V) in 18th. “Just sliding the thing everywhere. I knew I was catching Checa, but Kenny, when he passed me, I thought I screwed up. I didn’t even realize he was towing me along that good. But it was fun. When you watch Little Kenny, he’s Mister No Mistake and I made a lot of mistakes.”

The World Championship points table looks like this after seven of 18 rounds. Stoner has 140 points after four wins, Rossi is on 126, Dani lies third on 98 and Marco Melandri has 75 points in fourth.