Dani Pedrosa snatches victory from Jorge Lorenzo at Estoril – MotoGP Update
Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa snatched victory from Jorge Lorenzo in the third round of the MotoGP 2011 season, bwin Grande Premio de Portugal held May 1.
The event commenced after a three week long break between events.
The race was welcomed by dry weather and bright sun shines which helped the Honda stay on track. In the dry conditions, the Ducati team was not helped as their power plant was not sufficient enough to compete with the other top squads.
Pedrosa rode on the tail of his compatriot, Jorge Lorenzo from the start of the race. There was little fluctuation of the gap between them, never exceeding more than a fraction of a second. This was test for Pedrosa and his shoulder to keep the pace with
the race leader who already had an in-line triple victory from pole-positions at the Estoril circuit.
Honda’s dominancy was proved again with a gap of just one race, when the Spanish rider passed ahead of the Yamaha Factory rider Jorge Lorenzo with three laps of the race left and never returned the favour to his fellow country man. Pedrosa’s clean trick
ended Lorenzo’s consecutive fourth victory from his fourth pole start.
The last card by Pedrosa was played by over taking at the straight stretch and gaining the gap from the first corner to the chequered line. At the finish line of the bwin Grande Premio de Portugal, Pedrosa had opened the gap to three seconds from Lorenzo,
who came second on the podium. Now Lorenzo, the defending World Champion is just four points ahead on the 2011 season’s points table.
Repsol Honda’s team rider, and Pedrosa’s team-mate Casey Stoner was the lone runner in the Portuguese race, with a prominent gap from the top two runners. Stoner was ahead of Ducati’s team rider Valentino Rossi at fourth place, despite the Italian starting
from ninth place on the grid. He instantly climbed up to fight for the last podium place with Stoner. The Aussie finished seven seconds off the pace from his race winner Spanish team-mate.
Stoner has not claimed any victory at the track, which is one of the five tracks where he has not been successful. The Portuguese track held its character for holding the speed to a low average.
The spectators were keenly watching the fight between Stoner in third, Rossi in fourth and Dovizioso in fifth. Rossi was leaning far behind the Australian rider, but the third rider from the Repsol Honda team Andrea Dovizioso rode close to Rossi and gave
a nice fight for fourth place.
Many riders were finding it hard to handle the dead speed corners and keep the traction while exiting the bends. Marco Simoncelli and Stoner faced a rear end tail out between the first and second turn, but Simoncelli was not lucky to continue the race and
had a fall in the following bend.
Simoncelli, Hector Barbera and Ben Spies were the riders who did not cross the finish line and retired in the early laps.
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