Lorenzo leads from start to finish at Misano

Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo scored a dominant victory in a dramatic San Marino and Rimini Grand Prix today ahead of Ducati’s Valentino Rossi and San Carlo Honda Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista.
 
The start of the race was interrupted, resulting in the race having to be restarted and reduced in distance by one lap. A technical problem for Dani Pedrosa meant he had to restart from the back of the grid and the Repsol Honda rider suffered further bad luck after being involved in an incident on the first lap that saw him crash out of the race. With his main rival out of the contest, Lorenzo took control at the front of the field and eventually won the race by 4.398 seconds from Rossi in second place, while Bautista claimed third by a meagre 0.003 seconds over the fast-finishing Andrea Dovizioso on the Monster Yamaha Tech3 M1. Power Electronics Aspar’s Randy de Puniet was the top placed CRT rider in ninth place.
 
Weather conditions for the race were fine and warm with a peak track temperature of 35°C and as was the case in qualifying yesterday, the combination of the softer rear and harder front slicks was the preferred tyre choice for the race, with every rider on the grid utilizing this arrangement.
 
Lorenzo’s sixth win of the season coupled with Pedrosa’s DNF sees his championship lead swell to thirty-eight points. Pedrosa remains in second place in the championship table ahead of teammate Casey Stoner who is still recovering from injury.
 
Kyota Futami – General Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Department
“Congratulations to Jorge and Yamaha for their dominant win today, but all three riders that made the podium today put in brilliant performances. It was great for the Italian fans to see Valentino achieve his best result in dry conditions on the Ducati, and Alvaro’s first MotoGP podium was also a fitting tribute for the San Carlo Honda Gresini team at a circuit that was renamed to honor Marco Simoncelli. It was pleasing to have such a memorable race to commemorate Bridgestone sharing in its one-hundredth MotoGP victory and I’d like to thank the all the teams and riders, Dorna, IRTA and the FIM, and of course the legions of MotoGP fans, for all the support they’ve given Bridgestone since we joined the premier class of Grand Prix racing in 2002.”
 
Masao Azuma – Chief Engineer, Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development Department
“Track conditions today were at the best level of the entire race weekend as there was no overnight rain and the ambient temperatures were higher than yesterday. Every rider on the grid selected the same tyre combination of the softer rear slick paired with the harder front, which was not surprising as this was widely used in yesterday’s qualifying session which took place in similar weather conditions. Overall, tyre performance for the race was positive as the softer rear provided consistent grip levels over the race for both the works and CRT bikes and worked well in conjunction with the harder front option.”
 
Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing – Race winner
“Well to be honest we’ve been really lucky today as without the problem with the lights at the beginning of the race, maybe Dani wouldn’t have crashed. I almost crashed myself in the first corner on the third lap, but somehow I saved it and after that it was hard to keep concentration as I saw Valentino was quite fast in the middle of the race. This was an important race to win and it was a fantastic result for the championship.”