MotoGP Sachsenring, Germany

Round 9 of the MotoGP Championship at Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland seemed like déjà vu of Barcelona, with Rossi and Lorenzo battling for first in the last laps of the race.

Tyler Hopper

AllAboutBikes Staff-Writer

In the difficult, squally conditions, Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner filled the front line. The launch of the race saw Rossi take and early lead with Dani Pedrosa, Randy De Puniet, and Stoner close behind.

With still cold tires, on one of the few right-handers of the circuit, De Puniet crashed as he went up and over a slight right on one of the fastest corners on the circuit. Stoner nearly misses him as he goes down and slides off the track into the gravel.

Pedrosa chases Rossi’s tail and Nicky Hayden makes a move on Loris Capirosi, making his way around him on the outside. Into the start finish straight the front five breaks away and Andrea Dovizioso is the fastest man on the circuit so far in round 9 with only two laps down.

Dovizioso makes a move on the inside as Lorenzo tries to hold on to outside line, but Dovizioso takes the place from Jorge. Stoner moves to 3rd place, while Dovizioso receives pressure from Lorenzo as he tries to take back what was stolen from him moments earlier.

With 26 laps to go, Rossi tries to pull away from the pack as Stoner goes through Pedrosa into second. Stoner gets on the tail of Rossi on the second half of the track where he is strongest, looking for his chance to move into the leadership position.

With 24 laps to go, Stoner moves toward the inside of Rossi and takes him as they approach the start line. Coming up from fourth, Pedrosa begins to close in on Rossi and Lorenzo follows close behind. Rossi starts to slow down give Lorenzo and Pedrosa the opportunity to plan an overtaking, and Stoner gets the chance to pull away as they storm into the last half of the circuit.

Rossi sits on the tail of Stoner, he starts to take the outside but changes his mind. Into the starting line, with 18 to go, The Doctor still trails stoner, closing in and looking aggressive into the first two turns.

The sun begins to shine with 17 laps to go. Pedrosa starts to catch up with the pack. Rossi on the rear wheel of Stoner through turns 13 and 14 and Lorenzo moves up on Rossi. At around the half way point, in lap 15, Stoner pushes hard and Lorenzo and Rossi come up empty handed.

Pedrosa pushes hard and closes the gap, making it a 4 way battle for the podium. With 13 to go, Rossi takes the lead, and his fellow Yamaha rider follows him into second. Stoner and Pedrosa have to push even harder to make up for the dominance of the Yamaha machines. In turn 1, with 9 to go, Stoner is lagging behind number 1 and 2, the Yamahas lead the way, and Stoner begins to trail farther back, hope for his victory is diminishing.

Rossi pulls out an advantage on the front straight with 7 to go, Stoner and Pedrosa struggle to stay in the race. Lorenzo nearly makes it past Rossi on turn 12 in lap 24. Crossing the line with 6 to go, Lorenzo gets on the tail of Rossi and Pedrosa gets on the tail of Stoner. Two and two they race down the track, horizontally attacking the turns.

Lorenzo is showing signs of an overtaking, and side by side he and Rossi go into the first turn, Lorenzo leads. Pedrosa moves into third. The line up is Lorenzo, Rossi, Pedrosa, and Stoner. Rossi closes in on Lorenzo with three and a half laps to go, Rossi begins to make a move on Lorenzo, but falls back and rides his tail. On inside of turn one, Rossi sneaks past Lorenzo with two to go. Lorenzo only has two laps to take back the lead.

At the front, Rossi tries to pull away and take advantage of his lead; he doesn’t want to let Lorenzo get around him. Across the straight, Lorenzo goes around the outside, but Rossi takes shuts him down along the inside. With nearly half of a lap left, Lorenzo closes in, looking down across the inside of Rossi’s bike, but The Doctor defends his position. As they approach the finish line, Lorenzo accelerates, lining his front tire up with Rossi’s rear as they cross the line. But Lorenzo didn’t have enough room to get past Doctor Rossi. Finishing the podium in third, Pedrosa is followed by Stoner in fourth and Alex DeAngelis in fifth.

Rossi’s 100 GP wins – the statistics

Some facts and figures relating to Valentino Rossi’s remarkable 100 career wins, since his first victory in the 125cc class in Brno in 1996

MotoGP Press Release

With his victory at the Alice TT Assen Valentino Rossi became only the second rider ever to reach the milestone of 100 Grand Prix victories, as motogp.com documented in Monday’s video tributes to the Fiat Yamaha star.

Today we offer a selection of statistics relating to Rossi’s colorful and triumphant march to a century of GP successes, which along the way have brought him eight World titles across the three Grand Prix classes:

• The 100 victories have come from 217 Grand Prix starts – a win rate over his career of 46.1%. Rossi has won on six different types of motorcycle: 125cc Aprilia (12 wins), 250cc Aprilia (14 wins), 500cc Honda (13 wins), 990cc Honda (20 wins), 990cc Yamaha (25 wins) and 800cc Yamaha (16 wins).
• His 41 wins riding for Yamaha is more than any other rider. The second most successful Yamaha rider is Phil Read with 39 victories.
• Rossi has won Grand Prix races at 27 different circuits. The circuits at which he has had most success are Mugello and Catalunya with nine wins at each.
• The most wins Rossi has had in a single season is 11, which he has achieved on four occasions: 1997 (125cc), 2001 (500cc), 2002 and 2005 in MotoGP.
• His 11 wins in 1997 is a record for most victories in a single season in the 125cc class.
• Rossi’s 74 race victories in the premier-class is more than any other rider in the 61-year history of Grand Prix racing.
• With his victory in Jerez this year Valentino Rossi became the first rider to achieve at least one Grand Prix victory for 14 successive seasons.
• The total length of his winning career from his first win in the 125cc race at the Czech GP in 1996 to his latest victory at Assen, is 12 years 313 days. Only four riders have had a longer winning career in Grand Prix racing: Loris Reggiani, Phil Read, Angel Nieto and Loris Capirossi.

MotoGP heads west to Laguna Seca

The riders in the premier class this week make a dash across the Atlantic to the West Coast of the US, to the superb Californian track of Laguna Seca.

Press Release

This weekend’s Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix at Laguna Seca is the first of two World Championship visits to America this year and is the second of four GPs in a five week period as the 2009 season really begins to gather pace.

With Indianapolis to come in August the MotoGP riders will this weekend enjoy their first Stateside trip of the campaign as they head to California, with visits to Sachsenring and Donington Park still to come on the busy schedule before the summer break.

After seven rounds so far this year things are tight at the top, with three main protagonists emerging as the title candidates. Heading to Assen in the Netherlands last weekend, Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner were all square on points at the head of the standings and even though Rossi has pushed ahead with the superb 100th GP victory of his career at the Dutch track his young rivals are still snapping at his heels.

Last year at Laguna Rossi took a hugely important win over Stoner, passing him brilliantly on infamous Corkscrew corner and scoring a significant psychological blow against the Australian. This year, however, he has two key rivals to contend with.

World Champion Rossi goes into round eight in great from, with a five point lead over Lorenzo in the general classification, having relegated his Fiat Yamaha team-mate to second place in the last two races at Catalunya and Assen. The Italian looks as strong as ever, with his Yamaha M1 machine working brilliantly as he looks to turn up the heat on his rivals.

Lorenzo, meanwhile, has never completed a race at Laguna having crashed out on the first lap on his debut at the Californian track last year. He insists however that this year he is finding things more comfortable at tracks which did not favour him in the past and can be expected to be pushing Rossi hard at the front again this weekend.

Fitness doubts for Stoner could be the major factor hindering the Ducati star following another grueling race in The Netherlands, where for the second round in succession he finished third, but was totally exhausted on the podium. If he can recover full strength he will be confident of another good performance on Sunday, at a track where he won in 2007 and finished second in 2008.

Behind the leading three in the championship, the Repsol Honda duo of Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa will be desperate to bounce straight back from their Assen disappointments having both crashed out of the Dutch contest, in separate incidents at the same corner, when well positioned to earn some decent points. Dovizioso is currently fourth in the standings, some distance behind the top three, but with just a two point advantage over Pedrosa and Colin Edwards.

Texan rider Edwards arrives for his home race in good form following his fourth place at Assen and is hoping for another good result as he seeks to extend his MotoGP career. The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider was on the podium at Laguna Seca in 2005 but since then has struggled for good results there and will aim to correct that pattern on Sunday.

His compatriot Nicky Hayden, the only other American rider in the premier class at present, boasts two of his three MotoGP career wins at Laguna and would love nothing more than to get his first top five result of 2009 on his Stateside debut for Ducati this weekend.

The Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix promises to be a memorable event, coinciding with the American 4th July celebrations and commencing this Friday, 3rd July, with Free Practice 1 at 1.55pm local time, (9.55pm GMT, 10.55pm CET). The 250cc and 125cc classes do not compete at Laguna and will be back in action at Sachsenring on the 17th-19th July weekend.

June 30, 2009

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