Do or Die!

France is now 'Lorenzo's Land'

That was the situation for all the riders at the Le Mans GP last Sunday. Ever since MotoGP kicked off this season, the rain Gods have been following the guys to every venue, first it was the testing in Qatar then the actual Qatar GP being postponed to Monday as Sunday night was too wet to be safe. Same goes for Japan and Spain where thankfully the races were not disrupted by rain but the pre-race sessions were not spared.

The French GP was declared as 'wet race' and all the riders started the race on full wet tyres, though it was not raining, the track was wet and was drying soon. Now that’s one situation a motogp rider does not want to see. Either it’s a rainy race or a bone dry one, anything in between is suicidal, almost!

That’s because at a wet race which is turning into a dry one, there has to be seamless switching between the wet tyres and dry slicks at the perfect moment, and that believe me can be the decision which can make a slow rider win the race or a fast rider suffer a DNF.

Dani Pedrosa being at pole had the perfect start as always but Lorenzo the wounded lion that crashed at his home GP the previous race weekend was fast catching up. The overall speed of the race was slow at the moment due to the grip levels the wet tyres provide on a drying track.

Unlike car racing, the rider in motogp has no way to communicate to his team, as there is no such thing as a radio between the pits and rider, which means the rider cant take track updates from the team and the team in turn cant guide the rider about the overall race scenario.

The rider is completely responsible to analyse the track condition, make calculations of his pit stop to change bikes (which is kept ready fitted with slick tyres) considering his position in the race and the riders behind him. That too much for a rider to think of while he is maneuvering a 220 bhp bike on wet track and avoid getting overtaken & more importantly not to crash.

Valentino Rossi, one of the most experienced riders, having won 98 races until Le Mans desperately wanted this win so he could celebrate his 100th victory in Mugello Italy, his home GP. Rossi in a desperate attempt to pick up speed, is the first rider to dive into pits to jump on his M1 with slick tyres, he is being followed by Dani Pedrosa.

Reason for an early pit stop being, the wet tryes had started degrading and rapidly. Usually this switch work out for the riders in front as they will be left with a open track once the others decide to pit. Unfortunately, either it was a very bad decision by Rossi or just plain over-confidence of being 'the doctor', hard to tell, what happened is that on the very first lap on dry tyres Rossi crashes on a tight left hander corner which was still very wet.

Tank Slap! That’s the technical term to define a crash caused when the front tyre of bike looses grip and the bike just slams on one side. Disaster for Rossi, his fairing is broken and is badly shaken to continue riding on slick tyres, what next? Pit again? That’s what he did, now as per rules he can only switch to a bike fitted with wet tyres.

So far, not so good, but so what! He had to continue and push even harder now. Dani saw this happen just meter’s ahead of him and suddenly realised the grave danger that posed against him too. Meanwhile rest of the riders were pitting one by one expect for Lorenzo who was flying as if the wet surface wasn't affecting his bike and had a lead of over 6 seconds.

Meanwhile Rossi is penalised for speeding in pit lane.

At around 16 laps till race ends, Lorenzo had to decide if its time to switch to dry tyres as the track was considerably dry, in such situation when you are leading the race its tough to give up the position and pit. But the Spaniard had all these questions sorted out with the lead he had and makes the switch, emerges a leader again and nothing changed for him since then.

Now the only rider on wet tyres is Rossi! He pits again, his fourth visit yet, switches to a bike with dry tyres and gets back to action hoping to get some points. But the race for him is almost pointless now as Lorenzo is set to win the race, surprisingly Marco Melandri is 2nd in position riding his Kawasaki powered Hayate bike [formerly the Kawasaki Ninja ZXR], his best finish in 09 and the team is going nuts over the result.

The battle for 3rd place had just started then between the Repsol Honda teammates Pedrosa and Dovizioso, Pedrosa covered a gap of 2.5 seconds in one lap and overtook his teammate at the last corner to take the third place leaving Dovizioso clueless as if lightning had struck him from behind! The expression at the finish line by Dovizioso said it all.

Overall, Rossi missed his chance of celebrating his 100th motogp victory at Italy, Pedrosa proved he was still in the game even with the Honda running on 08 chasis, Macro Melandri made the Kawasaki management think about if it was right to pull out of motogp when their bike could finish 2nd but most of all Lorenzo proved he is the next big thing in motogp!

Celebrates his victory in the usual method, stick the 'Lorenzo's Land' flag at the track.

Lorenzo claiming his land after victory.