This fourth MotoGP round at Le Mans will not only be remembered for Casey Stoner dominating the race after a close battle with Dani Pedrosa for the first part of the race, but mostly for Jorge Lorenzo’s almost prophetic warning words in these last weeks against Marco Simoncelli for being an aggressive rider, that will spark even more controversy, even though one of Lorenzo’s passes on Andrea Dovizioso at the beginning of the race wasn’t exactly clean and picture perfect.
Stoner began outdistancing a fading Pedrosa who ended up clashing with a hard charging Simoncelli, who caught up to him with ten laps to go, the Italian passed the Spaniard and then immediately lost the place again when Pedrosa passed him on the straight, but on his second overtaking manouever at the Chemin aux Boeufs, Simoncelli roughly cut Pedrosa off with an outside move sending the Repsol Honda rider tumbling heavily into the gravel pit.
Pedrosa would be later be unfortunately diagnosed with a fractured right collarbone and for the umpteenth time his fight for the championship will be once again conditioned by injury.
Simoncelli was justly punished with ride-through penalty (even if many think that he should have been black flagged) by the Race Direction and with Pedrosa out and Simoncelli riding through the pit lane, the battle for the final two podiums was between Jorge Lorenzo, nursing an injured finger picked up this morning in the warm-up, Andrea Dovizioso and a suprisingly competitive Valentino Rossi.
With only a handful of laps to go Lorenzo ran wide letting through Rossi and Dovizioso immediately loosing precious tenths and then unable to re-catch the two duelling Italians settling for fourth, but still the leader in the standings.
Dovizioso and Rossi fought it out for the last two laps, but at the end it was again Dovizioso who got the better of Rossi on the last corner of the penultimate lap and then protect all his lines to finish second.
Rossi would take a very happy third spot on the podium, his first of the season with the Ducati.
Simoncelli despite his ride- through and riding like a mad man pipped Ben Spies for fifth at the finish line.
Nicky Hayden took home a seventh place.
Hiroshi Aoyama was eighth while Hector Barbera finished in 9th ahead of rookie Karel Abraham.
Four riders crashed, Randy de Puniet, Cal Crutchlow, Loris Capirossi and then Colin Edwards who was able to rejoin and finish 13th, but 2 laps down.
MotoGP Le Mans race results01- Casey Stoner – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC212V – 28 laps in 44’03.
95502- Andrea Dovizioso – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC212V – + 14.
21403- Valentino Rossi – Ducati Marlboro Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 14.
56404- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing Team – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 21.
07505- Marco Simoncelli – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC212V – + 31.
24506- Ben Spies – Yamaha Factory Racing Team – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 31.
60907- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Marlboro Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 35.
56608- Hiroshi Aoyama – San Carlo Honda Gresini – Honda RC212V – + 51.
50209- Hector Barbera – Mapfre Aspar Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 1’03.
73110- Karel Abraham – Cardion AB Motoracing – Ducati Desmosedici GP11 – + 1’03.
88511- Toni Elias – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC212V – + 1’04.
06812- Alvaro Bautista – Rizla Suzuki MotoGP – Suzuki GSV-R – + 1’04.
19213- Colin Edwards – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – 2 laps
