barrygrussell
Senior Member
We saw a different Casey Stoner at Laguna Seca this weekend. Whereas most of his wins have come from a Mick Doohan style pulverisation of his opponents from the first lap of free practice until the chequered flag, this was different and more reminiscent of Valentino Rossi’s crowd pleasing late romps to victory during his glory days in the premier class.
The championship leader, having watched Spies, Lorenzo and Pedrosa take victories since his fourth win of the season at Silverstone, struggled with rear grip through practice and qualifying, but found a solution during Sunday’s warm up that brought his pace up to that being shown throughout the weekend by his two Spanish rivals, lapping in the low 1:22s and high 1:21s to set a fastest lap of 1:21.747 on soft compound tyres.
The first three laps saw Lorenzo getting away at the front, with Pedrosa and Stoner chasing and Andrea Dovisioso keeping a respectful distance behind in fourth ahead of Rossi and Spies, who had been mugged at the start and pushed back to seventh from his fourth place grid position.
As the Repsol Honda riders got their tyres up to temperature, Pedrosa got close to Lorenzo and put him under pressure, with Stoner maintaining his pace half a second behind his teammate. By half distance, Pedrosa began to fall back and Stoner, recognising the danger of letting the reigning world champion get away, upped his pace into the 1:21s and caught and passed Pedrosa with a breathtaking outbraking manoeuvre on the inside as they went into the Corkscrew and got his head down to close the one second gap on the leader. Lapping at between one and two-tenths quicker than the Spaniard, Stoner got to within striking range by the beginning of lap 24 and began to formulate a plan to get through into the lead.
The decisive move came with four of 32 laps left. Stoner got tremendous drive coming out of the final turn 11, nailed the Repsol Honda down the home straight and through the fast kink turn one and outbraked Lorenzo with another stunning move, this time around the outside into the Andretti Hairpin. The Spaniard, probably feeling the effects of the previous day’s body-slamming highside, was unable to respond and Stoner pulled out more than a second a lap to win by 5.634 seconds, with Pedrosa a further four seconds behind.
The first American home was Ben Spies, who stalked Dovisioso and then deprived him of another fourth place finish when he got ahead with three laps left. Behind them, Valentino Rossi won a close battle for sixth with his Ducati teammate and then added insult to injury by hugging the disconsolate American when they got back to the pit garage. Colin Edwards was the third and last American finisher after wild card Ben Bostrum gave up the job after running off the track twice, declaring that the “bike is better than the rider” and went off to focus on the AMA Pro Superbike race, in which he managed to bag a fifth place.
As well as Bostrum, non-finishers were Cal Crutchlow and Marco Simoncelli, who crashed early and appear to be suffering injury and discipline related mid-season doldrums and Alvaro Bautista, who crashed at mid-distance while trying to join in with the factory Ducati battle for sixth place.
It was a fine performance and a big win in championship terms for Casey Stoner, enabling him to take back some of the advantage that Jorge Lorenzo had begun to eat away at. He appeared happier with the win than usual, grinning broadly from the moment he arrived in parc ferme to receiving his corkscrew-shaped trophy in the podium ceremony. During the post-race interview the Australian avoided revealing the nature of the late advantage they had discovered, but did leave some of us wondering whether his awkward use of the first person plural could in fact be referring to the help of an invisible friend.
http://www.motogp.com/en/videos/2011/La ... sey+Stoner
MotoGP now has its summer break and will resume at Brno on 12-14th August.
Full results and analysis
http://www.motogp.com/en/Results+Statistics
The championship leader, having watched Spies, Lorenzo and Pedrosa take victories since his fourth win of the season at Silverstone, struggled with rear grip through practice and qualifying, but found a solution during Sunday’s warm up that brought his pace up to that being shown throughout the weekend by his two Spanish rivals, lapping in the low 1:22s and high 1:21s to set a fastest lap of 1:21.747 on soft compound tyres.
The first three laps saw Lorenzo getting away at the front, with Pedrosa and Stoner chasing and Andrea Dovisioso keeping a respectful distance behind in fourth ahead of Rossi and Spies, who had been mugged at the start and pushed back to seventh from his fourth place grid position.
As the Repsol Honda riders got their tyres up to temperature, Pedrosa got close to Lorenzo and put him under pressure, with Stoner maintaining his pace half a second behind his teammate. By half distance, Pedrosa began to fall back and Stoner, recognising the danger of letting the reigning world champion get away, upped his pace into the 1:21s and caught and passed Pedrosa with a breathtaking outbraking manoeuvre on the inside as they went into the Corkscrew and got his head down to close the one second gap on the leader. Lapping at between one and two-tenths quicker than the Spaniard, Stoner got to within striking range by the beginning of lap 24 and began to formulate a plan to get through into the lead.
The decisive move came with four of 32 laps left. Stoner got tremendous drive coming out of the final turn 11, nailed the Repsol Honda down the home straight and through the fast kink turn one and outbraked Lorenzo with another stunning move, this time around the outside into the Andretti Hairpin. The Spaniard, probably feeling the effects of the previous day’s body-slamming highside, was unable to respond and Stoner pulled out more than a second a lap to win by 5.634 seconds, with Pedrosa a further four seconds behind.
The first American home was Ben Spies, who stalked Dovisioso and then deprived him of another fourth place finish when he got ahead with three laps left. Behind them, Valentino Rossi won a close battle for sixth with his Ducati teammate and then added insult to injury by hugging the disconsolate American when they got back to the pit garage. Colin Edwards was the third and last American finisher after wild card Ben Bostrum gave up the job after running off the track twice, declaring that the “bike is better than the rider” and went off to focus on the AMA Pro Superbike race, in which he managed to bag a fifth place.
As well as Bostrum, non-finishers were Cal Crutchlow and Marco Simoncelli, who crashed early and appear to be suffering injury and discipline related mid-season doldrums and Alvaro Bautista, who crashed at mid-distance while trying to join in with the factory Ducati battle for sixth place.
It was a fine performance and a big win in championship terms for Casey Stoner, enabling him to take back some of the advantage that Jorge Lorenzo had begun to eat away at. He appeared happier with the win than usual, grinning broadly from the moment he arrived in parc ferme to receiving his corkscrew-shaped trophy in the podium ceremony. During the post-race interview the Australian avoided revealing the nature of the late advantage they had discovered, but did leave some of us wondering whether his awkward use of the first person plural could in fact be referring to the help of an invisible friend.
http://www.motogp.com/en/videos/2011/La ... sey+Stoner
MotoGP now has its summer break and will resume at Brno on 12-14th August.
Full results and analysis
http://www.motogp.com/en/Results+Statistics
. arrghh!! sounds like it was a good one from the reports.....have to try and catch a replay now!
