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Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi took battling podium
positions in the Italian Grand Prix today, after an
action-packed afternoon saw the riders forced to swap
bikes for the second race in a row due to changing
weather conditions. Lorenzo recovered from a crash on
the sighting lap of the MotoGP race to come home in
second behind Casey Stoner, whilst Rossi finally
surrendered the crown he has worn at his home track for
the past seven years and had to be content with third.
The rain had stopped by 1.30pm but the Mugello track was
still very wet and Lorenzo slid out on the penultimate
corner just before he reached the grid. He managed to
remount and made it back to the box to swap bikes,
exiting for a second sighting lap just seconds before
the pit lane closed and leaving his team facing a race
against time to rebuild the damaged bike before the
drying track forced a pit stop. The Spaniard had a shaky
start and dropped as low as tenth on the first lap
before crossing the line in sixth first time round. He
made little progress in the opening laps, trading places
back and forth with Marco Melandri and Dani Pedrosa, and
it was not until riders started to come in to change
bikes that he began to creep through the order. On lap
ten he was in third behind Stoner and Rossi and it was
time for a pit stop to change onto dry tyres, with
Lorenzo lying fourth after the reshuffle. From then on
the 22-year-old made a determined charge for podium,
passing Andrea Dovizioso and Loris Capirossi to take a
deserved second place, one second behind Stoner.
In the first, wet part of the race Rossi had looked his
usual menacing Mugello self, stalking through the field
from fifth after the end of the first lap to take the
lead from Stoner on lap eight. He pitted at the same
time as his team-mate on lap ten but a wrong tyre choice
set him back and it was several laps before he had
enough heat in his tyres to start really pushing and he
lost several places in the process. In the final stages
he was the quickest man on track and set the fastest lap
of the race on lap 23, but by then it was too late to
challenge for the lead and he had to make settle for
fighting his way through to third, holding off a
determined last-lap challenge from Dovizioso.
Lorenzo loses the championship lead to Stoner but the
first three are still within ten points with the
Australian on 90, the Mallorcan on 86 and Rossi close
behind on 81. The next round of the championship is
Lorenzo’s home race at Montmelo in Catalunya in two
weeks time.
Valentino Rossi
“Of
course I am disappointed not to win again in
Mugello but seven times in a row is not so bad
and the important thing is that I made it onto
the podium. It’s a very special moment in
Mugello, with all the fans below, and I would
have been very sad to have missed that! It was a
very hard race today and once again the weather
was a problem for us, we’re very unlucky in
these half-and-half races and I think this is my
first podium in one. In the wet we were very
fast because we had found a great setting, but
then when we changed bikes we made a mistake and
chose a front tyre that was too hard, so it took
me a long time to be able to put enough
temperature on it and I lost a lot of time. At
the end I was able to ride better and I knew
that I had to make it onto the podium, so I am
happy for this. Of course after Le Mans this is
a big improvement and these points are important
because it’s very close between the three of
us.”
Jorge Lorenzo
“Honestly, this is as good as a win for me and I
can’t really believe the race today, it was like
a movie! This morning in warm-up I was quite
worried because I was slow in the rain, then on
the sighting lap I slid off into the gravel pit.
All I could think about was making it back to
the pits as quickly as possible in case there
was still a chance to make the grid and luckily
I made it just in time. My team had the second
bike ready and I was able to still start from
the pole position. On the grid I tried not to
think about the crash, I just tried to focus.
But then I had a big slide off the line and the
first part of the race wasn’t so good for me. I
have to say the biggest thank you to my guys
today for getting the damaged bike ready in such
a short time; it was a brilliant job and after I
swapped bikes everything changed. From then on I
had a great rhythm and I was able to stay on
fighting to the end and take this second place.
It’s a really amazing result because things
could have been much worse today, so thank you
again to everyone for making it possible. I’m
really happy with this result.”
Davide Brivio
“Of
course this is not what we expect from Mugello,
but we have taken an important podium and these
16 points are key for the championship. It is
easy to say now that we could have done things
differently, but we took a decision before the
race based on the characteristics of our bike,
on Valentino’s riding style and on our
experience. You only know at the end of the race
if the decision you took was the right one.
Today we leave with a good points haul, we
remain close to the top of the classification
and we continue towards our goal: getting more
and more points in order to make sure that we
have more than everybody else at the end of the
season!”
Daniele Romagnoli
“We
can consider this like a victory after crashing
on the sighting lap; we were very lucky to be
able to get back to the pit in time to change
the bike and to still be able to start from the
grid. The mechanics were incredible today and
showed their ability when repairing the damaged
bike in such a short time; without such a
brilliant job from them our race would have been
over today so I have to say a huge thank you to
them. The team did a great job and that enabled
Jorge to do his part to take a fantastic second
place. Congratulations to everyone!”
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