|  | Jorge Lorenzo gave the Fiat Yamaha Team a reason to smile in Mugello this afternoon as he brought his M1 home in second position, extending his Championship lead after two wins and two seconds so far this season. Lorenzo took to the podium wearing a yellow number 46 shirt as a nod to his team-mate Valentino Rossi, who watched the race from his hospital bed after breaking his leg in practice yesterday.
Lorenzo got a good start behind Dani Pedrosa but soon realised he was not able to keep yesterday's blistering pace, quickly losing ground to his fellow Spaniard as he became embroiled in a fight with Andrea Dovizioso. The Italian passed Lorenzo on lap three but the Mallorcan got his nose back in front three laps later, the pair then remaining locked closely together until three-quarter race distance, when Lorenzo managed to stretch his lead to over half a second. By then Pedrosa was several seconds clear and the 23-year-old had no choice but to settle for a safe runner-up spot, meaning he has taken an impressive 90 points from a possible 100 so far this season. His lead is now 25 points over Pedrosa in the championship, with the injured Rossi in third.
This was the first time Rossi has not started a race since he began his illustrious career over fourteen years ago in Malaysia at the age of 16, and the Italian holds the record of 230 consecutive starts. He is currently recuperating at the Centro Traumatologico Ortopedico in Florence following surgery yesterday to repair his broken right leg.
Jorge Lorenzo - Position: 2ndTime: +4.014
"Unfortunately my pace today wasn't as good as yesterday and I could only finish second; something happened and I couldn't ride in the same way but in the circumstances I am happy with my result. Anyway Dani had a perfect race today; he had an amazing pace and I don't know if I could have beaten him even if I had been as fast as yesterday! To take 90 points from 100 is great and I am leading the championship, so I cannot ask for more. I need to make some improvements to my riding style and Yamaha needs to try to improve the power of the bike a bit so we have some things to work on, but I am confident about the next weeks. It was very strange today without Valentino, I am so glad the fans honoured him so well. I wanted to win to dedicate the victory to him but that wasn't possible so all I can do is say 'get well soon!'"
Wilco Zeelenberg - Team Manager
"After the weekend our team has had with what happened to Valentino this was a good result for us, we have 90 points, two wins and two seconds and we are happy with our season so far. Jorge had some issues today and we need to analyse why it happened and why he couldn't keep the same pace, but we are not too worried and he rode a good race today. We are 25 points clear in the championship which is great but we all know why, because Valentino isn't here, and it's a sad situation. We all wish him the best."
Ben Spies battles hard for seventh at majestic Mugello
Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team rider Ben Spies got his 2010 world championship campaign firmly back on track with a battling seventh place finish in today's Italian MotoGP race at Mugello. Spies showed his failure to finish the previous two races had done little to dent his confidence as he made a stunning start from the third row of the grid. The 25-year-old slotted into a brilliant fourth place before he slipped back to seventh in a hectic opening few laps. He briefly moved back into the top six with an overtake on Randy de Puniet on lap six but spent the remainder of the 23-lap encounter giving his maximum effort to try and clos e in on captivating battle for fourth position.
Spies brilliantly hunted down Casey Stoner, de Puniet and Marco Melandri but despite launching a persistent challenge he was never able to get sufficiently close to mount an attack. The Texan's morale-boosting result though moved him back into the top ten in the world championship standings on 20-points with four of the 18 rounds completed.
American team-mate Colin Edwards finished in a brave 13th place despite having to race in extremely difficult circumstances. Edwards suffered a mystery fatigue issue in this morning's warm-up session and it was obvious from the start of the race that his physical condition would prevent him from showing his true potential as he dropped from fifth to 11th. Despite feeling well below his best, Edwards bravely rode to 13th to collect three valuable po ints and preserve his 100 per cent points-scoring record this season.
The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team now embarks on a new adventure when MotoGP visits the Silverstone circuit in England for the first time since 1986. |
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