MotoGP'09: The best and worst of the Le Mans race
MotoGP'09: The best and worst of the Le Mans race

Video: MotoGP'09: The best and worst of the Le Mans race

Video: MotoGP'09: The best and worst of the Le Mans race
Video: 2009 #GermanGP | MotoGP™ Full Race 2024, March
Anonim

Le Mans was a race. Spectacular. He kept us glued to the chair from start to finish. Motegi was a great race, but Le Mans was a complete show. Since the Laguna Seca'08 race he hadn't enjoyed that much. I admit that I had always been skeptical about the flag-to-flag racing and motorcycle changes. The first experiences were not to shoot rockets and my doubts grew. But at the Le Mans race, the change of motorcycles during the race showed all its strategic potential. The funny thing is that now that they have convinced us all, they propose the only bike for next year: How are you going to change bikes with one bike per rider?

This year the fight is four pilots and the results of Le Mans have closed a lot the differences placing it in a small difference of 9 points. Four in a handkerchief. This season, getting off the podium pays dearly and consistency is going to be decisive. For now they have already had their "fiasco" Dani Pedrosa (in Qatar), Jorge Lorenzo (in Jerez) and Valentino Rossi (in Le Mans). Casey Stoner has had a couple of half failures, with which the result is the tight classification of these moments. A season that is exciting. Hopefully the next races maintain the Le Mans level. And now for post-race Le Mans reflections.

The best and the worst of the MotoGP race at Le Mans:

The best:

  • Huge Jorge Lorenzo. You can't go faster from the ground (Jerez) to the sky (Le Mans). On this occasion Jorge Lorenzo was immeasurable in what has surely been his best and most complete career. In the wet. Dry. In strategy. Jorge Lorenzo and his team were intractable. If you maintain the level, you are running as a strong candidate for the title.
  • Spectacular final reaction from Dani Pedrosa. Looking at the result of Melandri, who stopped to refuel just after Dani, one can think that Dani lost the second position with his conservative attitude after seeing Rossi's fall. But Dani showed talent, courage and chaste to get on the podium, recalling the hierarchies in the HRC team with the forceful overtaking of Dovizioso on the last lap. You just had to see how exultant he was at the end of the race in the corralito, explaining his career excited and talkative.
  • The incredible second position of Marco Melandri. I think everyone was happy for Marco and his black Kawasaki, sorry Hayate, after what the brave Italian rider went through this year. Looking at Honda in f1 and Kawasaki in MotoGP I think the Japanese strategies are rather peculiar when leaving competition categories. The best thing is that Marco's case is not the flower of a strange day, but that he had already been several races showing signs of his good performance. How far away is what he experienced at Ducati last year!
  • The motorcycle changes. It was curious why it happened the other way around than usual: leaving the bikes with wet wheels and taking the dry ones. It was interesting to be able to check the strategies and the different moments chosen by each rider for the bike change. It was also clear in the pits that not many tests had been done to change the bike: each one stopped where they wanted and there was even a rider who collided with his mechanics when changing bikes: did anyone notice who it was?
  • The few falls that there were in MotoGP. In fact I think there was only Rossi's. I have doubted a lot about whether to put this point in the best or the worst. But it hurt me to feel worse that there were hardly any crashes in MotoGP. A simple comparison with the races we saw in 125 and 250, where half of the grid went to the ground, shows the decisive importance of traction control in keeping the bikes on the track, avoiding skidding, scares and skids. We live in the age of electronics.

Worst:

  • Fateful day of Valentino Rossi. Rossi's race was worthy of a number 13. Everything happened to him, and the result was three bike changes and a pit stop as a penalty for a childhood mistake that only he made: speeding in the pits. And that the day the teammates on the other side of the wall made a perfect race hurts more. But he had the pride and the courage to stay on track to fight to catch a point, which in the end he did not get.
  • Gray Casey Stoner. He tried but couldn't. And there are already several races in which he is not quite comfortable on the bike. The races are happening and he needs to be able to get the Ducati ready for the races.
  • The fall of Sete Gibernau. The season is being very different from what Sete expected. Again the left clavicle is broken, but fortunately from a different site. Let's see if the season goes back, which is what we all want.
  • Dovizioso's conformity. Perhaps Pedrosa was unstoppable because he came with determination to get on the podium. But personally, I expected more of a fight from Dovizioso to maintain third position, considering that he is his teammate and perhaps a little more than third position was at stake.

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