Italy’s Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha won the MotoGP race at the Czech Grand Prix meeting here on Sunday to extend his overall championship lead and all but clinch a ninth world title.
After a thrilling head-to-head duel with Spanish stablemate Jorge Lorenzo, Rossi profited from the latter’s fall five laps from the finish to extend his lead to 50 points. AFP
Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa inherited second after Lorenzo’s error with Toni Elias, Andrea Dovizioso and Loris Capirossi rounding out the top five.
With Casey Stoner beginning his three-race break to recover from a mystery illness, Mika Kallio stepped into the factory Marlboro Ducati team for his debut and was lying in a creditable ninth before crashing on the penultimate lap, while British rider James Toseland was ninth on his Tech 3 Yamaha. The Press Association
Fin Name Team 1 V. ROSSI Fiat Yamaha Team 2 D. PEDROSA Repsol Honda Team 3 T. ELIAS San Carlo Honda Gresini 4 A. DOVIZIOSO Repsol Honda Team 5 L. CAPIROSSI Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 6 N. HAYDEN Ducati Marlboro Team 7 C. EDWARDS Monster Yamaha Tech 3 8 A. DE ANGELIS San Carlo Honda Gresini 9 J. TOSELAND Monster Yamaha Tech 3 10 R. DE PUNIET LCR Honda MotoGP 11 C. VERMEULEN Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 12 N. CANEPA Pramac Racing 13 G. TALMACSI Scot Racing Team MotoGP
UPDATE: August 16, 2009 07:28 am
Rizla Suzuki racer Loris Capirossi missed a podium position at today’s Czech Republic Grand Prix by less than a second as he battled to the line to try and repeat his third place from last year.
Capirossi had a fantastic first lap that saw him storm into sixth place from ninth on the grid. He stuck with Toni Elias and Andrea Dovizioso for the whole race and although he made a couple of attempts to get past them he never found the opportunity to make an overtaking manoeuvre stick. When Jorge Lorenzo crashed whilst leading, the trio of riders knew a podium was up for grabs and they all fought to take that third place On the last lap Capirossi used his wealth of experience to try and get through, but narrowly missed out on the line, bringing his Rizla Suzuki GSV-R home in fifth to equal his best result of the season.
Team-mate Chris Vermeulen didn’t have such an eventful race. After getting blocked on the first lap and losing a lot of places, he found himself relegated to 15th after starting from 11th. He fought his way past a couple of riders and also benefitted from a crash between two other riders, to bring his bike home in 11th place and score some much needed championship points.
Today’s race was held in hot and sunny conditions with temperatures reaching 29ºC. A huge crowd of over 138,000 people baked in the sun as World Champion Valentino Rossi coolly took his fifth win of the season to strengthen his lead in the title race.
Rizla Suzuki will now stay in Brno for a day of testing tomorrow, before it heads over the Atlantic to the Indianapolis Grand Prix on Sunday 30th August.
Loris Capirossi:
“Overall it has been a good day for us, because we have been able to fight the whole weekend and were nearly rewarded with a podium. We had a big problem with chatter and we managed to resolve that for the race. We made the right choice of tyre today, but a couple of times I nearly lost the front which meant I didn’t quite have the right feeling and that caused me to lose a bit of time. I managed to clean off the tyre by riding a bit less aggressive and then I was able to push again right till the end of the race. I lost out a bit to the other guys in front of me on acceleration and it was then difficult to overtake on the brakes because I was never quite close enough - even though I was faster through the corners. I really want to say a huge thank-you to the whole team because their effort this weekend was fantastic. I also want to thank Suzuki for giving us the chance to comeback with a better package; this is a really good thing and will help us for the rest of the season.”
Chris Vermeulen:
“I got quite a good start, but on turn one I got blocked and was then passed by a few people - that’s what you get I suppose when you start from the fourth row of the grid! I then got pushed very wide on the first lap and lost a few more places. Everybody was going very quickly and it took me quite a few laps to get past the guys in front that I had more speed than and by then the main pack was well away in front. I am a bit disappointed with my own performance, I couldn’t get down to the lap-times I expected to do. I kept pushing till the end and gave it 100% and caught up to De Puniet and Toseland near the end, but there was not enough laps left to get past. We got some points from today, but it hasn’t been a great weekend again for us. We have made a significant step with the bike and I am looking forward to the test tomorrow and then getting to some good tracks for me and Suzuki.”
Paul Denning - Team Manager:
“We’d hoped that the changes that Suzuki introduced here in Brno would help our performance - and despite a difficult weekend with a number of problems - it was certainly the case for Loris. We have managed to get back to a more competitive situation and that is a positive to take away from here. The gap in pace to the factory Yamahas was far too big, but aside from that Loris’s speed was quite competitive and the result was helped by an awesome first lap by him to force his way into the top-six. The podium was in sight and Loris was apologetic to the team and frustrated that he couldn’t get there, but we now need to keep concentrating on the performance of the GSV-R on this 22-lap run, because it gives us some great data for the rest of the season.
“Chris had a difficult race, as he has been unable to find a comfortable rhythm all weekend. The team is now really glad that we have a test tomorrow where Chris and Loris will run through a significant test programme, but more importantly we need to boost Chris’s confidence and give him a positive outlook for the next few races.”
UPDATE: August 16, 2009 07:48 am
Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa took a clear second place in the Grand Prix of the Czech Republic today, and his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso fought hard to join him on the podium - eventually finishing in a close fourth position.
Pedrosa shot from his third place grid slot into the lead through the first two corners before slipping back to second behind Valentino Rossi. The 23-year-old Spaniard looked capable of taking the fight to Rossi in the initial laps and managed to keep Jorge Lorenzo behind him until lap four when his compatriot snuck past. From then on Pedrosa consolidated third place as the front pair escaped. When Lorenzo fell with five laps to go however, a grateful Pedrosa inherited second place and came home with a comfortable 10s gap to third. Pedrosa’s RC212V was also consistently fastest through the speed traps this weekend, recording a maximum speed of 302.6km/h (188mph).
The battle for that third place was intense and involved the Repsol Honda of Dovizioso and the Gresini Honda of Toni Elias. Dovizioso rode with passion and commitment, passing Elias several times in the closing laps as he sought to follow up his win at the last race at Donington Park with a podium at Brno. However, the Italian just lost out to his fellow Honda rider and brought his RC212V home in fourth - a result which saw three Hondas in the top four places. With Lorenzo gone, Valentino Rossi rode to a lonely victory today.
The strong result for Repsol Honda cements the team’s second place in the Team World Championship standings. Tomorrow the factory Honda squad will join the rest of the MotoGP field back at Brno for the final day’s testing of the 2009 season.
DANI PEDROSA – 2nd – World Championship position: 4th - 135 points
“At the start of the race I pushed really hard to stay with the leaders and for the first few laps I was with them. Then they kept getting faster on every lap and, though I was pushing to the maximum, I couldn’t maintain that sort of pace today. So for the rest of the race I just had to concentrate on not making a mistake because there was a big gap in front of me and also behind me. Second place is a good result for me and the team, though obviously we would have wanted to be closer to front-running pace. It’s great to finish a race on the podium and feel in good physical condition after the problems I had in the first part of the season - especially because it was very hot out there today and this is a demanding track. We have a test tomorrow and it is going to be really important for us to work on the areas we still have to improve so that we can challenge for wins again.”
ANDREA DOVIZIOSO – 4th – World Championship position: 6th - 107 points
“I was riding really hard out there and I had a tough battle for third place in the last few laps. From the start I tried to stay with Dani and the leaders but it wasn’t possible. The gap to Elias was always small and my pace was very similar to his which made it very difficult to overtake him. I tried really hard in the middle of the race without any success and then in the last few laps the front-end grip dropped off a little and to overtake Toni I had to take some risks. I really wanted that podium finish so I was pushing very hard, and also I had Capirossi behind who was putting a lot of pressure on too. Fourth is not a bad result but I can’t say that I’m satisfied with the result today. Still there is a day of testing tomorrow and this will give us a chance to make improvements to our machine package and prepare for the next races.”
KAZUHIKO YAMANO - REPSOL HONDA TEAM MANAGER
“Both riders fought hard today and second and fourth places for the team reflects a useful weekend at Brno. We have mixed feelings because it would have been nice to see two Repsol Honda riders on the podium, and for a while it looked like that might happen. In the end though, Andrea just missed out and of course he’s frustrated not to follow up his Donington win with another top-three finish. Tomorrow we will work flat out to close the gap to our rivals. This is the goal the whole team is focused on.”
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