The Dani Pedrosa and Marco Simoncelli incident promoted Valentino Rossi on to the podium since Pedrosa could not continue the race after the incident and Simoncelli was given a ride through penalty that dropped him down the order. With two fast and strong riders out of the way, Rossi found himself the gift of third place and a podium on a Ducati for the first time. Rossi was delighted with his podium and said so in as many words, though he expressed what seemed to be genuine sympathy for Dani Pedrosa. Rossi is now fifth in the world championship standings after four races.
Yearly Archives: 2011
If there is one person in the MotoGP paddock is more unpopular than Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo, it has got to be Alberto Puig. Universally disliked by riders and fans, Puig holds a lot of power in MotoGP due to his proximity to Repsol and Honda. He also controls Dani Pedrosa’s life. Dani Pedrosa is considered to be a nice person under the influence of a control freak called Alberto Puig who is without any humour. After the incident on track at Le Mans involving Marco Simoncelli and Daniel Pedrosa, Puig called Simoncelli a moron. He also said that Simoncelli does not know what he is doing. Pedrosa bemoaned his bad luck that has dogged him for sometime now and Valentino Rossi a friend of Simoncelli, felt that Simoncelli’s move was a bit hard and did lead to Pedrosa’s crash that saw him break his right clavicle. Rossi expressed sympathy for Pedrosa.
Marco Simoncelli is absolutely unrepentant about his riding and the overtaking manoeuvre which left Dani Pedrosa no space on the track at Le Mans. Pedrosa crashed and broke his right clavicle and will need surgery to fix it so that he can come back and ride in Barcelona in three weeks time. Simoncelli is sure that it was all Pedrosa’s fault and believes that he does not owe Pedrosa an apology. He also stated that the ride through penalty that was handed out to him for his dangerous overtaking manoeuvre was totally wrong. Not very nice on Simoncelli’s part. To make a mistake is one thing but to defend it and pretend as if he is the affected party is another.
Casey Stoner is getting quite arrogant. After being fined 5,000 Euros for punching Pramac Ducati rider Randy De Puniet, he said that it was money well spent. Stoner and De Puniet were summoned by race direction and Stoner was fined while De Puniet was let off with a warning for riding slowly. Stoner now claims that Randy De Puniet apologized to him. This incident on track won the already unpopular Stoner more enemies from within the fans who booed him wildly.
2011 Le Mans MotoGP Race Analysis
The MotoGP field fell to a hail of bullets sprayed by a manufacturer named Honda this weekend. HRC riders made an authoritative stamp on the timesheets while others were playing catch-up including the reigning champion, Lorenzo. Honda’s time and again showcased it’s got the bike to beat this year.
With Stoner on pole and RC212V under him, it was not surprising to see him getting off to a good start. But it was Pedrosa, who, unsurprisingly, lead at the first corner and he did pit his skills against Stoner but his relegation to second place was a matter of time. Frankly, there’s nothing to write about Stoner’s race performance as he ended up doing what he does best – get the lead, put the head down and set a fiery pace till the chequered flag thereby ticking off Le Mans to 2011 victory tally.
With Stoner slowly opening a sizeable gap, a relentless Simoncelli was in hot pursuit of Pedrosa. We expected a pitched battle between the top three, though only for the fateful and headline-grabbing incident of the weekend to flare things up on lap 17. Marginally having a superior pace, Simoncelli approached Pedrosa with his habitual ferocity and a move was imminent, but what followed few moments later could more aptly be termed another blow in Honda’s hopes of winning the crown. Having recently come under a spate of criticisms for dangerous riding, Super Sic championed his aggressive-rider cause by attempting a foiled outside-line pass on Pedrosa that left Pedrosa tumbling down and was later seen scampering to the marshals pointing at his right shoulder.
It was a shame that the accident broke Pedrosa’s right collarbone and has added another injury to the list of injuries to take care. This could potentially pose a threat to his championship chances as he’s left despairing at this uneventful happening.
Some riders drive you crazy and some are crazy with Super Sic eventually falling into latter category. With this move, Sic has clearly incurred the wrath of Puig, another face of HRC. Everybody knows Honda wants results and it doesn’t care about who gets it. Anyone who jeopardizes the chances could face dire consequences and this incident could be no exception. While at Jerez, Rossi took Stoner down, this time, the protagonist was well within the HRC enclosure. HRC has, till now, lost 50 critical points for no mistake of theirs. Whether HRC would issue a caveat to the Italian needs to be watched out.
We honestly expected a conscience-smitten Sic to pay his apologies to a ravaged Pedrosa as the Spaniard could do nothing about the move. Expectedly or unexpectedly, Simoncelli not only brushed aside this as a racing incident but rather bewailed the penalty imposed on him. His apology, due or undue, could have soothed an anguished crowd but instead he’s only fanned the flames at Pedrosa’s side of the garage.
Race directions wasted no time in deeming Simoncelli’s move as illegal and rewarded him with a ride-through penalty. This means another opportunity lost and he needs to put his podium aspirations on hold for another three weeks. On the racing front, despite the penalty, Simoncelli’s pace was hot enough to secure fifth position.
What was forgotten amid Le Mans action was Lorenzo’s eyebrow-raising move on Dovizioso during the early laps. This move had all the ingredients to stir controversy had Lorenzo taken Dovizioso down over the course of the manoeuvre. Having crashed his M1 during warm-up and injuring his finger fourth is indeed a decent result as he managed to get a good points’ haul to still sit at the pinnacle of standings. A small mistake on lap 24 meant he’d forfeited the scrap for second position to Rossi and Dovizioso.
Le Mans would remain in the memories of Yamaha for its 2008 run for an all-Yamaha podium and this year would surely be one to forget for obvious reasons. Spies was evidently off-colour all weekend and his performance on race-day was no different. His factory career has not gotten off as expected and four races have gone by with sixth place being his best finish. He’s yet to justify the factory he’s conferred with, although getting the better of his compatriot Hayden could be taken as a little consolation.
Dovizioso resumed where he left off last race with the Italian again locking horns with Rossi and held the spectators in tenterhooks all the way to the flag. Just like in Portugal, until the final corner it was uncertain who’d come off best. It was, again, Dovizioso, who had the last laugh. The sheer power of the Honda was enough to keep a crafty Rossi on the not-so-sorted Ducati at bay. Despite being denied second position, Rossi was ecstatic in claiming his first podium on a Ducati.
All in all, controversies and aggression of riders momentarily overshadowed the supposedly dull nature of the 800s. MotoGP heads for a brief hibernation with the action set to resume at Spanish soil in Barcelona on June 5. Spanish round means MotoGP carnival as Spanish heroes try to capture the attention of the local crowd, which means increased pressure on Lorenzo to fend off the Honda threat. Adios until then.
Lets face it Casey Stoner maybe a genius when it comes to racing but he is hardly a likeable person. Testimony to this borne out by legions of Stoner hating MotoGP fans who applaud every mistake he makes and dance gleefully when he crashes. The Australian follows in the footsteps of Mick Doohan who also was never a darling of the fans in spite of his considerable accomplishments. Mick Doohan could not bear being beaten by his team mate Alex Criville whose presence on the Honda NSR500 brought the Repsol sponsorship after Rothmans terminated their MotoGP sponsorship and that of the factory Hondas in order to sponsor the Williams Formula1 team. Mick Doohan unable to bear being beaten by Criville once brought the Spaniard down while both were dicing for first position. Stoner too has the same dirty Australian grit that one sees even in cricket in the form of sledging and it now appears that as he grows older and more desperate for another world championship he is finding it more difficult to tolerate other riders. His barbs at Valentino Rossi when the latter went to apologize after causing an accident and his pursuance of the idea that the whole MotoGP paddock is only for Rossi on several occasions through out this season points to a person who is probably disliked for good reason. This is of course not to exonerate Rossi of his wrong doings and megalomania on occasions. But in the free practice before the Le Mans race when Casey Stoner tried to hit a slowing down Randy De Puniet and this is probably the nadir of Stoner’s increasingly swollen headed behaviour. He was fined by race direction for his misdemeanour and rightly so. The post Le Mans race podium celebrations hardly looked like celebrations with all three riders ignoring each other and Rossi making it a point to congratulate only Andrea Dovizioso and not Stoner. As it is MotoGP is a farce with seventeen riders and points for fifteen of those guaranteed. It does not require this Australian gladiatorial rubbish to drive fans away further. Stoner with this swollen head is top heavy and if he is not careful he could just topple.
Casey Stoner overcame an uncharacteristically bad start to fight his way up to the lead of the MotoGP race at Le Mans and took victory in the French Grand Prix. Dani Pedrosa who lead the race early on was brought down clearly by Marco Simoncelli whose riding has been criticized by Jorge Lorenzo as being dangerous. The crash not only ended Pedrosa’s race but also broke his collarbone. For many races now Pedrosa has been struggling with injuries and the latest is not going to do any good for his chances of a World Championship in a year when Honda is proving to be the motorcycle to beat. Both Pramac Ducatis of Loris Capirossi and Randy De Puniet crashed out of the race as did the Tech3 Yamaha of Cal Crutchlow. The biggest beneficiary of the crash fest was Andrea Dovizioso who overtook Valentino Rossi and stayed ahead in spite of mounting pressure to take second place in the race. Valentino Rossi also benefitted from the Simoncelli-Pedrosa skirmish to finish on the podium in third place, the first time ever for Ducati. It must have been satisfying for Rossi to overtake Lorenzo in the race while Simoncelli was able to comeback from his moment to overtake Ben Spies for fifth place. Lorenzo finished fourth and Spies sixth. It is obvious that Spies is finding it difficult to fill Rossi’s shoes. Nicky Hayden claimed seventh while Hiroshi Aoyama claimed eighth place. Colin Edwards on the second of the Tech3 Yamahas finished thirteenth and last.
Valentino Rossi and Marco Simoncelli have shrugged off the problem of overtaking in MotoGP. Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo have been complaining about Rossi and Simoncelli respectively and the matter has gone to the safety commission of MotoGP where Stoner, Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso were on one side and Valentino Rossi, Simoncelli and Loris Capirossi were on the other side. Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpelata has said that the riders know that they cannot afford to take big risks when riding at 200 mph. Simoncelli has said that this all talk about nothing and Rossi claims that this is what “pussies” do.
In the recent past Autocar India had brought out a piece of news which claimed that Jaguar was readying a Bugatti Veyron beater in the form of a hybrid car. Apparently the British have a thing or two about the Veyron because Autocar India is now reporting that even McLaren is in the process of building a Veyron beater. Apparently the car is internally called the Mega Mac in McLaren. Good thing they did not call it the Big Mac.
No, no, don’t jump to conclusions. You must be wondering how Renault wants to do something that Toyota (with all its brand value) and Honda could not yet do in India, in spite of being here for aeons. Renault is not talking about numbers. According to BS Motoring, Renault wants to be in the top three in terms of brand value and brand recall in India. Its India Head has been saying that Renault will have to build a perception of a French car in a market that knows Japanese, German, American and Indian cars. Renault seems very serious in its intent about India.