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Jorge Lorenzo (top and middle) took an
impressive seventh win of the season in Brno
this afternoon with a clinical performance
that saw him lead from the first lap to the
chequered flag. In stark contrast to his
Fiat Yamaha team-mate's good fortunes,
Valentino Rossi (bottom) ran into problems
from the start and could only finish fifth.
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Jorge Lorenzo took an impressive seventh win of the
season in Brno this afternoon with a clinical
performance that saw him lead from the first lap to
the chequered flag. In doing so he becomes only the
third premier-class rider in history to finish in
the top two at the opening ten races of the season.
In stark contrast to his Fiat Yamaha team-mate's
good fortunes, Valentino Rossi ran into problems
from the start and could only finish fifth.
Despite surrendering pole position
for the first time in six races, some bold moves from
the Spaniard around the first two turns saw him take the
lead before the first split and he looked in imperious
form on his Yamaha M1, with yesterday's front-end
troubles clearly a thing of the past. Dani Pedrosa kept
close on his heels for the first few laps but every time
his fellow countryman closed the gap a few tenths
Lorenzo responded with renewed vigour and by the tenth
lap he was a second clear. From then on he was
unchallenged and he crossed the line 5.494 seconds clear
of Pedrosa to take the 33rd win of his career and his
12th in MotoGP.
With the weather looking favourable
following heavy rain this morning, Rossi was confident
that he would be able to mount a strong challenge for
honours this afternoon but it was not to be for the
Italian today. He had felt strong all weekend despite
sliding off yesterday but he never had the same
confidence in the race and was unable to ride as he
would have liked. He had dropped from fifth on the grid
to eighth by the end of the first lap before rallying to
pass Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden to move to fifth by
lap six, but from then on he could make no further
headway and rode a lonely race to the flag.
Another maximum-points haul for
Lorenzo leaves the young Mallorcan 77 points clear of
Pedrosa in the standings, with eight rounds remaining.
Rossi holds on to fifth, 14 points behind Andrea
Dovizioso. Tomorrow will see both Fiat Yamaha riders
back out on track, weather permitting, for a one-day
test before the bikes are shipped off to Indianapolis
for the second US round of the season in two week's
time.
Jorge Lorenzo
"After
my problems yesterday and the crash I didn't expect this
today, I thought it would be much more of a struggle.
Once I got to the front I expected Dani to come with me
and I knew it was my moment and that I had to push as
much as possible. I thought he would try to overtake me
but I felt good, pushed hard and little by little I was
able to lose him. I know I said I was riding for the
championship now and that's still true but when there's
the chance to win I have to take it! To take my seventh
win in one season is fantastic, thank you to all of my
team for such a good job after we had difficulties
yesterday. Tomorrow we have an important test which we
hope will help us in the last part of the championship
and then we go to Indianapolis, a track that I love."
Valentino
Rossi
"We are
really disappointed tonight because we had hoped to do a
good race and I was confident that I could challenge at
the front today. It seemed everything was right and
yesterday we had a good pace but today we just weren't
as fast and I couldn't stay with the leaders. We are sad
but tomorrow we will have the chance to test and try to
understand what went wrong today, which will help us to
be in better shape in Indianapolis. As for my future,
you will know something at 6pm today."
Wilco Zeelenberg - Team Manager, Lorenzo
"A
surprisingly good result because after the crash of
yesterday and Dani's speed in qualifying we had some
doubts about today. Jorge really stuck his neck out to
put in a great first half of the race and actually Dani
couldn't stay with him. The lap times were equal or even
slower to yesterday so we didn't make a huge change to
the bike, so we really have to put this down to Jorge
doing an excellent job and the others struggling a bit
today. Well done to everyone for another great weekend."
Davide Brivio - Team Manager, Rossi
"Unfortunately during the race Valentino never felt good
with the front and this made it very difficult for him
in corner entry. Luckily we have a test tomorrow so this
will give us the chance to really investigate what
happened. We had a good pace throughout the weekend and
we hoped to be able to stay with Lorenzo and Pedrosa but
we weren't able to today so we're a little bit
disappointed. Tomorrow will be a good opportunity for us
to improve and work towards our target of a good end to
the season."
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