Dani Pedrosa claimed his fourth win of the season today at the San Marino, but the win was overshadowed by the tragic death of Moto2 rider Shoya Tomizawa. The young Japanese rider was under pressure from Aleix De Angelis and Brit Scott Reading, when he lost control of his machine at full speed, and as the chasing pair were so close there was nothing they could do to avoid hitting the stricken rider. Tomikawa sustained cranial, thoracic and abdominal trauma, and passed away after being transferred from the circuits medical center to a local hospital.
In the MotoGP feature race, Dani Pedrosa and his Repsol Honda made a blistering start off the line, and took an easy lights to flag victory to close FIAT Yamaha‘s Jorge Lorenzo‘s championship lead to 63 points. It was Lorenzo who lost out on the line as Ducati’s Casey Stoner shot past in the first corner, but the Spaniard took back 2nd before the end of the first lap.
Once Lorenzo and Pedrosa had gotten away, Stoner began slipping into the clutches for another FIAT Yamaha rider, Valentino Rossi and the pair became embroiled in a battle to claim 3rd. After swapping positions over several corners Rossi finally gained 3rd. However as this was occuring, Repsol Honda‘s Andrea Dovizioso closed the gap on the pair, and Stoner had a fight on his hands in order to keep 4th. However, the Honda racer also got past the Ducati rider pushing him down to 5th.
Behind the battle for 3rd, the Monster Yamaha Tech3 pairing of Ben Spies and Colin Edwards were battling for 6th. Initially it was Edwards who had the advantage, but the younger of the two Americans eventually got the edge and went on to claim 6th, with Edwards finishing in 7th.
Behind the squabbling Tech3 boys, yet another race long battle was taking place. Rizla Suzuki’s Ãlvaro Bautista, Héctor Barberá on his Páginas Amarillas Aspar machine and Marco Melandri on his San Carlo Honda Gresini were tussling over 8th, 9th and 10th, and the riders finished in the order above. Aleix Espargaro managed to get a decent result compared to the rest of his season so far, finishing in 11th, where team mate Mika Kallio retired late on in the race.
The walking wounded of Hiroshi Ayoama and LCR Honda’s Randy De Puniet put in impressive performances considering they are both still recovering from their mid season crashes, finishing in 12th and 13th respectivly, and Marco Simoncelli was the final finisher in 14th on the second San Carlo Honda Gresini.
Nicky Hayden‘s weekend ended on the first lap, after being involved in a coming together with Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi, who was starting his 200th MotoGP race. The accident did more damage to Capirossi than to both the bikes though, as his little finger was ground away from the slide. Hayden managed to recover, but after going a lap down, the American parked up his Ducati.
