Laguna Seca

Yeay, today's our local chance to see a race live around here. I am
about to hop on the bike and head there after having breakfast with 2
buddies.

Predictions - everybody pciks Rossi, and with Lorenzo battered up
after crashing not once but twice (nasty highside he explains with
slowing down and then pushing too hard on cold tires), and Stoner
still looking burned out... well, Rossi seems a safe choice. But
nothing is safe on this tricky circuit, as a number of riders can
attest to. But I pick Rossi - he'll be quite fresh compared to the
other top 2.

The battles behind are also going to be intriguing - the Honda duels,
in the Repsol garage Pedrosa vs Divizioso; and in the Gresini team
Elias (awesome result, this guy seems so inconsistent though among
strokes of genius) truly humiliated De Angelis in qualifying for now.
Hayden with something to prove on his best circuit - advantage or
curse? Edwards staying on track for the Mr Regularity award.

 

decent motogp race out there. wish i'd walso seen 125 and 250.

who would have thought pedrosa would have run such a dominating race?
probably slowed down way too much on the last lap, allowing rossi to
get dangerously close. also very important that dovizioso tossed it -
that sets things in the honda garage straight for now. it's amazing
lorenzo was able to do what he did considering how banged up he got
yesterday, but then again, you pay for your mistakes. stoner once
again utter exhaustion syndrome. much better day for hayden, finally -
let's see if the can keep this up, but "this" is ultimately playing
midfield on a factory ride - hopefully he improves further. great
result for elias. edwards keeps the top ten dfinishes coming,
impressive.

 

How did Lorenzo keep on the bike in that incident when he passed
Rossi? On top of his recent injuries, a crash then could have been a
serious complication.

I hope both those two survive their intense rivalry this season.

Cheers, Tony.

 

And yet that was what he said on the BBC interview from the box. I bet
Captain Darling (Puig) had some choice words about it.

I had the same thought, also said by Neil Spalding on Eurosport. No
obvious problems getting back to the pits though.

What was odd was that the Pedrosa - Rossi gap seemed quite inconsistent
during the race. Without looking at all the stats, I'm not sure where
this came from. I remember seeing lots of red and blue against Rossi in
the second half of the race and no obvious mistakes from anyone, but lap
to lap it seemed to jump around by as much as a second.

It also seemed like this year's Bridgestones made setup harder than last
year and Rossi's strengths were at different parts of the circuit. Very
early in the race Rossi seemed to have a problem and yet just after that
he posts a fastest lap. More inconsistency. If he'd (and Lorenzo) had
managed to stay with Dani early on, I think they might have beaten him.

I loved the way Lorenzo's crew put out "3rd OK" just after he came out
of his near crash at the last turn. Good timing.

 

That's what Pedrosa himself claimed in his post-race interview with
the BBC. He said he'd seen a 2 second lead on his pit board, and
decided to drop the pace slightly. He acknowledged that he had almost
overdone it.

Cheers,