Casey Stoner riding the works Repsol Honda won the GP of Catalunya at Barcelona. The second and third places went to Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies respectively; both riding the factory Yamahas. The second Repsol Honda of Andrea Dovizioso finished in fourth while Valentino Rossi on the factory Marlboro Ducati finished in fifth position ahead of pole sitter Marco Simoncelli on the Gresini Honda who finished sixth. Cal Crutchlow in his rookie season took his best position in a race so far with seventh on the Tech3 Yamaha while Nicky Hayden on the second factory Ducati took eighth. The only excitement of the race was for the ninth position which was taken by Loris Capirossi on the Pramac Ducati while Karel Abraham finished in tenth position on the Cardion AB Ducati ahead of the Mapfre Bankia Ducati of Hector Barbera in eleventh and Rizla Suzuki of Alvaro Bautista in twelfth. The hapless Tony Elias finished in the final position of thirteenth on the LCR Honda. Hiroshi Aoyama riding the second of the Gresini Hondas and Randy De Puniet riding the second of the Pramac Ducatis collided and went out of the race. The third Repsol Honda factory bike of Daniel Pedrosa and the second Tech3 Yamaha of Colin Edwards did not start since both riders are recovering from surgeries to their collar bone injuries.
Prior to the MotoGP race Stefan Bradl won the Moto2 race with Marc Marquez and Aleix Espargaro taking second and third respectively while in the incident marred 125cc race victory went controversially to Nico Terol while second and third places went to Maverick Vinales and Jonas Folgar respectively. Nico Terol was pushed out of the racing tarmac by Johan Zarco who crossed the line first, but was immediately handed a 20 second penalty for an illegal overtaking manoeuvre by race direction and that demoted him to 6th position. The next race is at Silverstone in a week’s time.
The FIM and Dorna were to announce the names of new teams joining the premier class grid either as regular teams or as Claiming Rules Teams this weekend at Barcelona. But that move has now been postponed and it is believed that the announcement will come at Silverstone next week. The rumour mill suggests that 9 teams (not necessarily of two riders each) will get the FIM nod and therefore grid numbers maybe boosted to around 25.