by Mark
It was not the weekend anyone in MotoGP, or the fans, had wanted as first Ben Spies decided not to ride after his accident yesterday and then Jorge Lorenzo was declared unfit.
Lorenzo crashed during warm up in the morning and lost part of his finger, with marshalls looking around for his glove containing the rest of his finger.
Doctors said they would be able to re-construct the fourth finger of his left hand with only minimal long term cosmetic damage.
With Lorenzo out of the race Casey Stoner was as good as crowned the World Champion; he needed to finish in the top six, for a minimum of ten points.
And he made a great start to the race as he shot away as the lights went out and following him was none other than Nicky Hayden, Marco Simoncelli was in third place and Valentino Rossi shot up to seventh.
Just a few laps in and Stoner had a lead of over three seconds ahead of Simoncelli who’d past Hayden, as had Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa.
Hayden was left to battle for fifth place with Alvaro Bautista as the Suzuki was all over the back of the Ducati and side-by-side at some points.
With 18 laps to go we had the rain flags begin to wave which meant you could come in to change bikes, Stoner was leading the race by over five seconds at this point.
In second place, Simoncelli was coming under increasing pressure from Dovizoso and Pedrosa as the Honda only battle intensified.
As Hayden continued to move backwards through the field he was eventually passed by Bautista on the Suzuki leaving him in the clutches of his team mate Rossi.
Rossi passed his team mate with, it has to be said, relative ease and then, whilst trying to dive under Bautista, he slid off as the front end folded on him.
As the marshalls tried to run away with the bike, Rossi grabbed it back off them realising there was points to be had and tried to get going again but wasn’t able to.
At the 10 laps left mark Randy De Puniet managed to go straight on at turn four and was dumped into the guys fighting for eighth and ended up in eleventh position as Crutchlow and Aoyama passed him with ease.
As the race was coming to an end the ‘other two’ Repsol Honda’s of Dovizoso and Pedrosa decided to start battling for third behind Simoncelli as Pedrosa was all over the back of Dovizoso but couldn’t muster enough to get passed.
Karel Abraham managed to crash out of the race with just four laps to go, at the front Stoner was wobbling all over the place as the rain came down hard which caught out Bautista.
Hayden was the first rider to come into the pits to swap bikes with Capirossi following, Dovizoso meanwhile got past Simoncelli who’d slowed immensely due to the rain and Cal Crutchlow and Hiroshi Aoyama both crashed out whilst following each other.
Simoncelli got back past Dovizoso on the final lap as the race came to an end with just ten riders on the track.
Stoner crossed the line some five seconds ahead of second placed Simoncelli making the Australian the 2011 MotoGP World Champion and the final 800cc champion, as well as being the first.
- Casey Stoner (27) – Repsol Honda Team – 42.02.425
- Marco Simoncelli (58) – San Carlo Honda Gresini +2.210
- Andrea Dovizioso (4) – Repsol Honda Team +2.454
- Dani Pedrosa (26) – Repsol Honda Team +13.160
- Colin Edwards (5) – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +30.886
- Randy De Puniet (14) – Pramac Racing Team +48.800
- Nicky Hayden (69) – Ducati Team +1.16.314
- Toni Elias (24) – LCR Honda MotoGP +1 lap
- Loris Capirossi (65) – Pramac Racing Team +1 lap
- Karel Abraham (17) – Cardion AB Motoracing +2 laps
