Dani Pedrosa took a dominant third win of the season Round 11 of the MotoGP Championship, held at the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Repsol Honda rider held his nerve off the line, as pole sitter, Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Ben Spies led the field into turn 1, as championship leader FIAT Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo slipped down the order after a poor start from 2nd.
Ducati’s Casey Stoner day got off to a bad start, as he dropped to 9th in the pack. By Lap 7 it couldn’t get any worse for the Australian. As he was closing in on Valentino Rossi, he went in too deep causing him lost the front end, and the bike ended up ditched on the in-field. As Stoner was trying to pick his machine up, the cat and mouse battle between Spies and Pedrosa was coming to an end. As the pair crossed the line, Pedrosa got the tow and breezed past Spies into turn 1.
Lap 9 saw another Honda rider,
It would seem that after qualifying yesterday, there was to be no fairytale ending to this weekend, as Pedrosa romped away to a lead, that at one point was 5.3s, of 3.5s across the line, followed by Spies. Lorenzo managed to hold onto 3rd and keeping the championship lead to a comfortable 68 point lead. Valentino Rossi made the best of a bad weekend as he also managed to get past Dovizioso to claim 4th, with the Repsol Honda rider finishing behind in 5th.
And for the other Americans in the pack, Lady Luck was absent from the Brickyard today. After getting his first Ducati front row start, Nicky Hayden lost a knee slider early on in the race, and was unable to keep pace with the pack, ending up in 6th. Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider Colin Edwards struggled to make his tyres work, stopping after 10 laps to change from a hard rear to a soft rear. Even this was not enough to keep Edwards in the race. Afterwards, it was discovered that a close family friend, young racer Peter Lenz died from injuries sustained in an accident in a support race at the circuit.
Rookies Marco Simoncelli, riding for San Carlo Honda Gresini and Ãlvaro Bautista on his Rizla Suzuki showed some impressive form, placing seventh and eighth respectively, with Aleix Espargaró putting in a good performance for Pramac Racing in 9th and Héctor Barberá rounding out the top 10 on the Aspar Honda. Loris Capirossi, Hiroshi Aoyama, on his return from injury, and Randy de Puniet were the final three riders to finish the race.
Marco Melandri failed to finish his 200th Grand Prix, after hitting a bump that has claimed many victims this weekend sent him sliding off the road, and Mika Kallio getting his share of the Pramac Ducati bad luck, sliding out in similar fashion.
