If Dani Pedrosa didn’t expect to take the victory today at the Sachsenring circuit due to his recovering shoulder, you can imagine what his rivals, Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo thought, when halfway through the race he passed his Australian team mate and then turned on the afterburners on his RC212V for a couple of laps (he broke his own circuit record with a 1.
21.
846 on lap 20) to latch on to Jorge Lorenzo and then power pass him on the straight at the end of lap 21.
Pedrosa’s 2nd win of the season took him from seventh (he missed four races) in the championship to fifth and just four points behind Valentino Rossi.
“It’s an incredible feeling to be back and win a race so early; I didn’t expect it, but this circuit has been always very good for me and I made it happen,” said and ecstatic, but tired Pedrosa.
“I was already surprised yesterday with second position in qualifying and to finish the weekend in this way is amazing, a huge relief for me after a very hard time with injuries.
Here I suffered less than in Mugello because of the layout, but in the race today I had a strange feeling, something I’ve never had before.
At the beginning of the race I wasn’t feeling great on the bike, I was fourth but I didn’t get nervous or worried because I’m still not mathematically out of the Championship battle, but I know it’s almost impossible.
So, I just let the laps pass and in the middle of the race, with less fuel in the tank and when the tyres started sliding, I decided to step it up a little and it worked perfectly.
I’m very happy with this victory, I’ve been suffering a lot even though this race track is not physically demanding, because I’m still weak.
So a big thanks to my family and doctors that helped me to be back here because they all know how hard it has been.
Also to my team and to all my fans that never gave up, they deserve it also”.
Casey Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso couldn’t hide their disappointment with their third and fourth places, with the Australian suffering from rear grip problems and getting spanked by Lorenzo on the final turn, but he still earned some precious points and is still leading the championship by 15 points, heading to the 10th round at Laguna Seca next Sunday.
“We knew today would be a hard race, we found a good set up yesterday in qualifying but we had an issue with the rear tyre and the temperatures getting too high, with it spinning too much,” commented Stoner.
“We took it easy in the early part of the race and thought we’d try to preserve the tyre and warm it up slower than we did in Mugello.
After a few laps I decided to make a move to the front to see what we could do and we were able to pull a small advantage, but too small compared to the effort we were putting in so I backed off on my pace a little and tried to stay as smooth as possible and see what happens.
They came past me and Dani was riding so strong and was able to get past Jorge before I got there, he built a small advantage and by the time I got past Jorge and I struggled to chase him down.
I made a few small mistakes and that left just Jorge and I for the last few laps.
I tried everything I could, riding the cleanest lap possible and trying to block my line, but Jorge came up on the dirty part of the track and I thought it would be too high a risk but he made it stick and I have to settle for third place.
I’m still leading the Championship and I’m thankful for the points here today”.
While Dovizioso who entertained us at the beginning of the race with some impressive overtakes and his battle later on with Marco Simoncelli said, “It was a tough race because this circuit is small and difficult.
Our target was the podium so I’m a little disappointed with fourth position, but if we look at today’s race in a bigger perspective, we took a big step forward in terms of race pace compared to my previous records at this circuit.
We had a good start and tried to stay with the front riders.
It was a good battle with Simoncelli and Spies for fourth position and I’m happy we won this battle! We were consistently fast during the whole weekend and even though today we were struggling, we finished fourth.
We confirm that we are there and we have retained third position in the Championship, even if we aimed to gain more points on Lorenzo and Casey.
My congratulations go to Dani, Casey and Jorge for a great race”.
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