Dani Pedrosa wins an extreme MotoGP race at Sepang

The MotoGP World Championship race at the Sepang Circuit has been a lottery. As in the Moto2 and Moto3 races, the big protagonist has once again been the rain: the race was declared wet from the start, but conditions worsened as the laps went by, reaching an extreme point where many crashes followed one after another.

The start of the race was very good for Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo; both were the fastest off the line and began to open a gap, with the 99 leading, closely followed by the 26. The two riders set their pace at maximum and left the rest of the group behind, a very large group with Casey Stoner, Andrea Dovizioso, Valentino Rossi and more riders.

So we once again had the two Spanish riders at the front, without much fighting between them given the track conditions, but with Pedrosa studying his main rival and overtaking Lorenzo under an extreme braking zone, side by side, without doubt a great deal of emotion and intensity between the man from Honda and the Yamaha rider. Pedrosa then took P1 and pushed to the limit, opening a gap on the category leader, who saw Stoner closing in from behind, a rider who was somewhat more comfortable in the wet given his injury.

At that moment we saw Lorenzo raise his hand, as was done several years ago, to signal that track conditions were difficult and the rain was extreme, calling for the red flag. Right after that the 99 saved a “sure” crash; it was incredible how Lorenzo managed to save that situation… what control from the Yamaha rider. After that tricky moment for Lorenzo, and seeing four riders crash on the same lap, Race Direction decided to show the red flag, but since two-thirds of the race had not been completed, there was a big mess in MotoGP: the riders pitted, and were informed there would be a restart in 7 laps, all dependent on the weather improving. It went the other way, and after waiting several minutes it was confirmed the race was CANCELLED.

The 16th race was a madness: Pedrosa finished 1st in the overall classification for this event, leaving Lorenzo 2nd more than 3 seconds behind; Stoner 3rd, Hayden 4th, Rossi 5th, Bautista 6th, Barberá 7th, Espargaró 8th, Ellison 9th, Abraham 10th, Petrucci 11th, Pirro 12th and Dovi 13th. Therefore the best CRT was our Aleix, from 8th place, so a great result. Meanwhile crashes were the protagonists of this race, with Spies, Dovi (who rejoined), Crutchlow, De Puniet, Bradl and Silva. It was also reported that Spies was taken to the medical centre to check his left shoulder.

Victory for Dani, who is now 23 points behind Lorenzo, who remains leader and is in a very good position ahead of next week’s Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island Circuit.

A strange race, and by the way, the first Dani Pedrosa has won in the wet, one of the things the Catalan MotoGP rider was missing.

On to Australia.

Photo | MotoGP Official website