Grand Prix Deutschland: a strange race

Only on Saturday I pointed out that Honda had been suffering one of the worst years of the last decade and on Sunday Pedrosa and Hayden took the first and third steps of the podium in the Sachsenring circuit. Indeed at the same track last year Pedrosa had the fastest time and Hayden took another third position. So the surprise was not much about the riders but the bikes and the …. tires. Once again in this championship tires were the critical factor. The Bridgestone squad, Stoner, Melandri, Capirossi, Hopkins and De Puniet chased Pedrosa for more than half of the race until the deterioration of their tires forced them to slow down the pace. Very strange weekend: if in the qualifying practice on Saturday we had 16 riders wrapped in .81 of a second, at the end of the race we had several seconds of gap from one rider to the other one with the exception of Stoner, Melandri and Hopkins that fought for the fifth position up to the end. I had expected a tight race with a lot of dicing and we got just the opposite. In reality the race was quite boring with just a few moments of thrill or, if you want, disappointment. On the fifth lap Rossi crashed after passing West on a long double right. He lost the front end and even thought he held courageously the clutch to keep the engine on until the bike stopped sliding into the gravel trap, a bent clip-on didn’t allow the Italian champion to jump back on the bike. After the race he apologized for his mistake with his team and his fans, all of them frustrated by the accident. After all, in 2006 he won the Gp starting from the 11th position, in the same way he did in Assen two weeks ago, and his record in the Sachsenring was certain one of the reasons we were expecting from him a better weekend. Personally my disappointment was mitigated once I learned that Valentino was suffering the effects of a bronchitis with fever at 38C (100.4 F): not too much but enough to dull the skills of our hero since it was a hot day, 33C (92F).
Rossi has spontaneously admitted his mistake, but was his crash really caused by an objective oversight? He had been trying to pass West unsuccessfully with his Yamaha overheating behind the opponent’s bike, when the Kawasaki rider went a bit wide into the turn and opened the door to him. Rossi, in grabbing the opportunity, was forced to connect the two apexes of the double right in a very tight arch that eventually overpowered the front tire grip. His desire to reach the race leaders had induced him to force the pace and gamble a race that, after the Bridgestone’s debacle, I say that he could have won.
Strange race for a strange podium … Pedrosa wins in his manner, riding the RC212V like a 250cc, and leading the whole race without being seriously challenged by anybody. I am sure that his miniature body must be an advantage in a track characterized by turns where the riders use the edge of their tires for a long time. Same comment goes to Capirossi who, for the first time in 2007, was able to precede his teammate Stoner. Sometime ago I read that Capirex carries more speed into the corner up to the apex than the Aussie but then he cannot match Casey on the throttle at the exit. Well this time Stoner’s aggressiveness didn’t pay because he worn too much his rear tire and trashed a potential second place.
For Nicky Hayden another third place before the Laguna Seca race was like shots of testosterone for his ego: he will be the man to set the standards in California.