Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi took battling podium positions in the Italian Grand Prix today, after an action-packed afternoon saw the riders forced to swap bikes for the second race in a row due to changing weather conditions. Lorenzo recovered from a crash on the sighting lap to come home in second behind Casey Stoner, whilst Rossi finally surrendered the crown he has worn at his home track for the past seven years and had to be content with third.
The rain had stopped by 1.30pm but the track was still very wet and Lorenzo slid out on the penultimate corner just before he reached the grid. He managed to remount and made it back to the box to swap bikes, exiting for a second sighting lap just seconds before the pit lane closed and leaving his team facing a race against time to rebuild the damaged bike before the drying track forced a pit stop. The Spaniard had a shaky start and dropped as low as tenth on the first lap before crossing the line in sixth first time round. He made little progress in the opening laps, trading places back and forth with Marco Melandri and Dani Pedrosa, and it was not until riders started to come in to change bikes that he began to creep through the order. On lap ten he was in third behind Stoner and Rossi and it was time for a pit stop to change onto dry tyres, with Lorenzo lying fourth after the reshuffle. From then on the 22-year-old made a determined charge for podium, passing Andrea Dovizioso and Loris Capirossi to take a deserved second place, one second behind Stoner.
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In the first, wet part of the race Rossi had looked his usual menacing Mugello self, stalking through the field from fifth after the end of the first lap to take the lead from Stoner on lap eight. He pitted at the same time as his team-mate on lap ten but a wrong tyre choice set him back and it was several laps before he had enough heat in his tyres to start really pushing and he lost several places in the process. In the final stages he was the quickest man on track and set the fastest lap of the race on lap 23, but by then it was too late to challenge for the lead and he had to make settle for fighting his way through to third, holding off a determined last-lap challenge from Dovizioso.
Lorenzo loses the championship lead to Stoner but the first three are still within ten points with the Australian on 90, the Mallorcan on 86 and Rossi close behind on 81. The next round of the championship is Lorenzo’s home race at Montmelo in Catalunya in two weeks time.
Jorge Lorenzo - Position: 2Time: +1.001
“Honestly, this is as good as a win for me and I can’t really believe the race today, it was like a movie! This morning in warm-up I was quite worried because I was slow in the rain, then on the sighting lap I slid off into the gravel pit. All I could think about was making it back to the pits as quickly as possible in case there was still a chance to make the grid and luckily I made it just in time. My team had the second bike ready and I was able to still start from the pole position. On the grid I tried not to think about the crash, I just tried to focus. But then I had a big slide off the line and the first part of the race wasn’t so good for me. I have to say the biggest thank you to my guys today for getting the damaged bike ready in such a short time; it was a brilliant job and after I swapped bikes everything changed. From then on I had a great rhythm and I was able to stay on fighting to the end and take this second place. It’s a really amazing result because things could have been much worse today, so thank you again to everyone for making it possible. I’m really happy with this result.”
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