The Repsol rider pulls through the pain in his knee and gets a valuable place on the podium. Team mate Nicky Hayden finishes fourth after a complicated race race. A superb performance of Repsol rider Dani Pedrosa at the Malaysian Grand Prix, after his impressive crash on Friday afternoon at 192 km/h, the deep cut in his right knee and the fissure of his left big toe, Pedrosa has given today a virtuoso demonstration of self-respect, resistance to pain and winner mentality. To warn the rest of the pack and make it clear to everybody that he was ready to give it all, Pedrosa took the lead at the end of the straight right after the start under the amazed look of riders and teams, including the members of the Repsol Honda Team.
The fast pace set by Rossi -who overtook Pedrosa on the first lap - quickly opened a gap, between the leading group, joined by Capirossi and Hayden, and the rest of the pack. The current leader of the World Championship showed clear signs of being suffering to keep the pace of the preceding riders and as the laps went by, he knew that the best he could do was to secure the fourth position, which he did until he took the chequered flag.
Ahead of Hayden, Rossi and Capirossi escaped looking for a victory for which they fought until the last corner, while Dani Pedrosa, pulling through the pain on his injured knee, was third, lapping all by himself, trying not to loose ground on the leaders and keeping an eye on the distance between him and team mate Hayden until the chequered flag. Rossi and Loris, in an extremely equal fast lap, almost crashed after touching each other, but the victory went finally to Rossi with Capirossi second. Thanks to the superb third position of Pedrosa, the Repsol rider keeps his second position in the overall standings and has shortened the advantage of his team mate and leader of the standings by two points Nicky Hayden. Hayden, despite loosing some points over his highest rivals in the fight for the title, keeps the leadership in the overall standings with an advantage of 22 points over Pedrosa, second, and 26 over Rossi, with 100 points yet at stake.
Average performance of the Repsol Honda Team 250cc riders in the quarter-of-a-litre class. Martín Cárdenas, made a good start from the second row and was initially third, but gradually lost positions and finally had to quit after a crash in the second lap, fortunately without physical consequences for the rider. Team mate Shuhei Aoyama, made again a bad start and finished sixth after lapping most of the race alone. The lack of practice time after what had happened yesterday - this had been his first time ever in Sepang - had a considerable influence on the performance of the Repsol rider. Victory for Jorge Lorenzo in this class.
The 125cc race had an eventful start. At the end of the first lap, Italian rider Pasini crashed in the corner before the main straight and his bike ended up in the middle of the track. Iannone was not able to avoid crashing against Pasini's bike and had a spectacular accident forcing the Race Direction to take out the red flag and stop the race. At the moment of the incident, Joán Olivé who had made an average start was lapping on fifth position. But the second start of Repsol rider Joan Olivé when the race was restarted was worse, dropping down to eleventh after the first lap. From that moment Olivé started to recover positions until finally crossing the finish line in fifth position. The race was won by World Championship leader Alvaro Bautista.
Standings:MotoGP:1. V.Rossi (Yamaha) 43'07.829
2. L.Capirossi (Ducati) + 0.849
3. D. Pedrosa (Honda) + 3.863
4. N.Hayden (Honda) + 5.780
5. S.Gibernau (Ducati) + 9.30
250cc: 1. J.Lorenzo (Aprilia) 43'15.499
2. A.Dovizioso (Honda) 5.428
3. A.de Angelis (Aprilia) + 10.225
4. Y.Takahashi (Honda) + 25.669
5. R.Locatelli (Aprilia) + 31.152
6. S.Aoyama (Honda) + 39.936
125cc:1. A.Bautista (Aprilia) 26'52.154
2. M.Kallio (KTM) + 3.577
3. H.Faubel (Aprilia) + 9.904
4. J.Simón (KTM) + 9.974
5. J.Olivé (Aprilia) + 11.551
World Championship MotoGP:1. N,Hayden, 214 points.
2. D.Pedrosa, 192
3. V.Rossi, 188
4. L.Capirossi, 171
5. M.Melandri, 168
World Championship 250: 1. J.Lorenzo, 224 points.
2. A.Dovizioso, 212
3. A.de Angelis, 147
4. Y.Takahashi, 146
5. R.Locatelli, 138
10. S.Aoyama, 68
14. M.Cárdenas, 37
World Championship 125:1. A.Bautista, 255 points.
2. M.Kallio, 181
3. M.Pasini, 156
4. S.Gadea, 143
5. H.Faubel, 139
21. B.Smith, 8
Tyre´s Choice:Dani Pedrosa: Front: Medium. Rear:Medium
Nicky Hayden: Front: Medium. Rear: Medium
Nicky Hayden: "It was quite a frustrating day because we didn't have enough speed today. We got a little bit behind on Friday and yesterday's qualifying session was washed out which didn't help, but the bottom line is the guys in front of me were faster today. I felt like I rode my hardest and for that I'm proud, but at this level sometimes that isn't good enough. I've got no excuses - the bike, the set-up and the tyres were pretty good, yet we couldn't quite go at their speed. It didn't feel great just being off the back that little bit. We'll keep fighting though - there's four races to go and some tracks I really like coming up. We're still in it, and we'll keep working hard."
Dani Pedrosa: "The result is very good. The big decision today was whether or not I would race, and until the last moment I was still in doubt about it. We chose to race and they gave me one injection to take away the pain. Although I felt the stitches pressing under my leathers, the pain on my knee was gone. In the race my left foot hurt, and so did my left knee but in the right knee I felt no pain. I got a good start but I was expecting the leaders to pull away and I also expecting the lap times to be a little faster than they were. At the end I was very tired - my bike had just the basic set-up because I lost time in practice so I was riding on the limit in the race. In the end I got the result - that's the important thing. Also I was lucky that the qualifying practice was cancelled - to start from fifth on the grid was really, really important for me today. I have to say thank you to all the guys in the Clinica Mobile because they worked very hard for me and made me believe I could race. They took so much care of me - it was a very special job. Also to my team because they helped me to race. Thank you to everybody and I will not forget this day."
Shuhei Aoyama:"I made a very bad start and then everything became complicated. At the beginning of the race I had trouble overtaking the riders in front of me and once I had managed to pass them, the front group had already opened a gap. For some laps I tried to catch up with them but then I saw that today I had to stay in the second group. It's been a really difficult weekend. We would have needed more time to get everything ready, but the rain yesterday made it all complicated."
Martín Cárdenas:"I'm very disappointed because it's been a bad race due to the crash. I made a good start and some riders passed me during the first lap, but I didn't want to push too hard. In the second lap, in a downward corner I lost the front end and that was the end of the race. Fortunately I'm physically OK."
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