MotoGP News
Date: 2/October/2011
Japanese MotoGP winner Dani Pedrosa was the only rider in the top seven to complete the race without clashing with another rider, running off track or being given a ride-through penalty!
It was an emotional victory for the Repsol Honda rider, coming at the Honda-owned racetrack where he broke his collarbone one year ago.
"I'm super happy with this victory," said Pedrosa. "This is the first win at Motegi for both myself and Repsol Honda. I've had good and bad results and some bad injuries here, so to come back one year later and win is fantastic".
Pedrosa kept his nose clean to claim his third win of the season by over seven-seconds from Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo, who collided with Valentino Rossi at turn two of the race - sending the Italian megastar to the ground.
Lorenzo said: "I made a bad start, really terrible and lost a lot of positions and then I nearly crashed at the second turn when Valentino was too late on the brakes. I don’t know what happened."
Rossi refused to blame Lorenzo for the incident, which ended a run of 25 consecutive points finishes and also saw Lorenzo's team-mate Ben Spies pushed off track.
Rossi said: "Lorenzo went onto the grass slightly in Turn 1, and in the next turn he moved suddenly to get his trajectory right. He didn’t see me because I was slightly behind. When he touched me, it pushed me into Spies, who touched my front brake lever. It was normal racing contact, but I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Joining Pedrosa and Lorenzo on the podium was world championship leader Casey Stoner, who looked on his way to a ninth win of the season - until suffering a major scare, while leading, on lap 5.
As Stoner powered downhill some bumps sent his RCV shaking violently. The Australian kept control but couldn’t stop for the following turn and speared off into the gravel.
Stoner explained: "Everything felt good and the bike was fantastic. I saw Andrea [Dovizioso] had closed in a little so I thought 'right we'll go a bit quicker'. I came onto the back straight and I got a big 'tank-slapper'.
"The bike was shaking and my hands nearly came off the handlebars. Then when I went for the brakes there was nothing there. I pumped them up a couple of times and as the brakes came back I nearly went over the front."
Stoner kept control but had to paddle his way out of the deep gravel before rejoining the race in seventh. That quickly became fifth when Dovizioso and Marco Simoncelli were both hit with a ride-through penalty for jumping the start.
"I cannot believe it. I have never had a jump start in my career and it happened today, in a race where I felt that I could fight for the win," sighed Dovizioso. "I don’t know why the bike moved a little before the green light."
“I saw Dovizioso move and let the clutch out just a tiny bit, but enough to be given a ride-through penalty," commented Simoncelli.
Cal Crutchlow in turn reacted to Simoncelli's movement and was also penalised.
While the Dovizioso and Simoncelli worked their way forward from the tail-end of the top ten, Stoner caught and overtook Nicky Hayden (Ducati) and Alvaro Bautista (Suzuki) to claim third.
Both riders made mistakes soon after; Hayden running off track and Bautista crashing out.
Those incidents allowed warring Honda riders Simoncelli and Dovizioso to reach fourth and fifth, while Spies - who had rejoined in last place after the Rossi incident - took advantage of the chaos to take sixth place, just ahead of Hayden.
Colin Edwards (Tech 3) in eighth place was thus the first rider after Pedrosa to avoid contact, stay on the race track - and stay out of pit lane.
"What a race that was!" smiled Edwards. "It seemed like each time I went round a corner somebody else was in the gravel! There was so much chaos it was just about surviving."
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