MotoGP: San Marino 2009 *SPOILERS*

[Mothers Worry]

Rossi takes home pole at Misano

From autosport.com:

Rossi takes home pole at Misano

Saturday, September 5th 2009, 13:00 GMT

Valentino Rossi clawed back pole position from rivals Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo in an exciting last lap effort at his home track Misano.

After the first half-hour in the 60-minute session saw Yamaha team-mates Rossi and Lorenzo exchanging fastest laps, the second half was led almost exclusively by the reigning champion.

In the dying seconds of the session, however, Lorenzo shot to the top of the timesheets, but his time was almost immediately bettered by Pedrosa (Honda), who at that point went four tenths quicker than Rossi.

But the Italian, who had been pushed right down to fourth by a hard-charging Toni Elias (Gresini Honda), would have none of it, and in the end took pole with a blistering 1m34.338s lap.

Pedrosa and Lorenzo will thus start in second and third respectively, while Elias will lead the second row.

Americans Colin Edwards (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati) will be fifth and sixth on the grid, followed by Gresini Honda's Alex de Angelis and Andrea Dovizioso on the factory Honda.

Randy de Puniet put his LCR Honda in ninth, while Loris Capirossi's Suzuki completes the top ten.

Pos  Rider             Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha           1m34.338s
 2.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda            1m34.560s  + 0.222s
 3.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha           1m34.808s  + 0.470s
 4.  Toni Elias        Gresini Honda    1m34.907s  + 0.569s
 5.  Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha    1m35.184s  + 0.846s
 6.  Nicky Hayden      Ducati           1m35.223s  + 0.885s
 7.  Alex de Angelis   Gresini Honda    1m35.343s  + 1.005s
 8.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda            1m35.492s  + 1.154s
 9.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda        1m35.554s  + 1.216s
10.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki           1m35.561s  + 1.223s
11.  Mika Kallio       Ducati           1m35.601s  + 1.263s
12.  Marco Melandri    Hayate Kawasaki  1m35.785s  + 1.447s
13.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki           1m35.790s  + 1.452s
14.  James Toseland    Tech 3 Yamaha    1m36.070s  + 1.732s
15.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati    1m36.228s  + 1.890s
16.  Niccolo Canepa    Pramac Ducati    1m36.264s  + 1.926s
17.  Gabor Talmacsi    Scot Honda       1m37.091s  + 2.753

[Everso Biggyballies]

Nicky Hayden seems to have closed the gap on his earlier performances compared to the front of the field. 

[Mothers Worry]

Rossi takes commanding home win 

From autosport.com:

Rossi takes commanding home win 

Sunday, September 6th 2009, 12:48 GMT

Valentino Rossi has delighted his home Italian crowd by dominating the San Marino Grand Prix at Misano and widening his lead in the MotoGP championship over Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.

The reigning champion, once he managed to overtake Honda rival Dani Pedrosa for the lead on lap eight of the 28-lap race, took full advantage of the clear track in front of him to open a gap while Pedrosa was slightly slowing down Lorenzo who was just behind.

The latter took six more laps to overtake Spanish compatriot Pedrosa, but by then Rossi was already 1.4 seconds further up the road.

That gap increased to three seconds before the Italian, who had dropped down to fourth after the first two laps, slowed down in the last four laps to win by 2.4 seconds over Lorenzo.

Pedrosa, who made his usual perfect start from second on the grid to take the lead, reduced his pace a few laps after being overtaken by Lorenzo to take a safe third place, ten seconds behind second.

Andrea Dovizioso with the other factory Honda beat Suzuki's Loris Capirossi for fourth place after a hard battle, but the two were 14 seconds behind Pedrosa.

Gresini Honda's Toni Elias made a strong start to take second place behind Pedrosa from his brilliant fourth place on the grid, and even led for a momen. He managed to keep the second position for the initial four laps before being passed by the Yamahas. In the end, the Spaniard was classified sixth, ahead of Ducati's Mika Kallio and Hayate Kawasaki's Marco Melandri.

Suzuki's Chris Vermeulen and Tech 3 Yamaha's James Toseland completed the top ten.

Americans Colin Edwards (Tech 3 Yamaha) and Nicky Hayden (Ducati) had plenty to complain about after being wiped off the track by Alex de Angelis.

The San Marino rider braked his Gresini Honda too late into the second corner of the first lap and hit Edwards, who in turn hit Hayden, with the trio retiring on the spot.

Lorenzo's rear wheel was also clipped by Edwards's front in the crash, but he had a lucky escape by managing to keep control of his bike.

Pos  Rider             Bike               Time/Gap
 1.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha           44m32.882s
 2.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha           +   2.416s
 3.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda            +  12.400s
 4.  Andrea Dovizioso  Honda            +  26.330s
 5.  Loris Capirossi   Suzuki           +  26.539s
 6.  Toni Elias        Gresini Honda    +  28.286s
 7.  Mika Kallio       Ducati           +  30.184s
 8.  Marco Melandri    Hayate Kawasaki  +  31.757s
 9.  Chris Vermeulen   Suzuki           +  31.909s
10.  James Toseland    Tech 3 Yamaha    +  38.347s
11.  Aleix Espargaro   Pramac Ducati    +  46.673s
12.  Randy de Puniet   LCR Honda        +  52.041s
13.  Niccolo Canepa    Pramac Ducati    +1m03.198s
14.  Gabor Talmacsi    Scot Honda       +1m22.347s

Retirements:

     Colin Edwards     Tech 3 Yamaha    0 laps
     Nicky Hayden      Ducati           0 laps
     Alex de Angelis   Gresini Honda    0 laps

[auto]

The Yamahas are just too good.

For anyone to have a chance of beating them they would have to get in front early in the race and hold on for dear life

[ioan1988]

too bad hayden and edwards were taken out straight away. i was looking 4ward to see how hayden would do after getting that 3rd in indy last week

[Everso Biggyballies]

Indeed I was too.  Sadly we shall have to wait and see now, but it does appear that maybe Hayden is now turning something of a new page with Ducati and his rather drawn out settling in period.

This performance increase we have seen from him will no doubt be further boosted by the news that Ducati have taken up their option on Haydens services for next year following the uncertainty of whether Lorenzo would be tempted amongst others.

The next question of course really comes down to Casey's future in the sport following his apparent personal burnout problems (for want of a better word) that haveforced his miising a few races to recover his health and possibly motivation, depending on whose viewpoint you go with.

[Night crawler]

Valentino Rossi's Misano 'donkey' helmet


WHAT A SENSE OF HUMOUR!! THIS GUY IS LEGEND!!



This is the special helmet unveiled by Valentino Rossi on Saturday during his local grand prix at Misano.

The helmet has a smiling image of the donkey's face from the film 'Shrek' painted on top - similar to Rossi's memorable 2008 Mugello helmet, featuring a shocked picture of his own face. The choice of a donkey is a joke at Rossi's own expense for crashing at Indianapolis last Sunday.

“If anyone is wondering about my helmet - I have the donkey on it because in Italy, if you make a stupid mistake we say that you are a donkey.

“As soon as I hit the ground at Indianapolis I thought what a donkey I was. Later I thought that would make a good helmet design for my home race.

"So, I may have lost 25 points but I solved the problem of the helmet design for Misano!” smiled the eight time world champion. "I think it's very funny.”

The Indy fall marked Rossi's first non-finish since 2007 and means he starts round 13 of 17 with a reduced 25 point lead over Lorenzo.

Rossi took his special helmet design to pole position in qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix.


This dude is very likeable. Perhaps the only celeb i know who doesnt have any haters