Jorge Lorenzo still leads World Championship after fourth place finish at Le Mans - MotoGP News
The fourth round of the 2011 MotoGP season, Monster Energy Grand Prix de France was filled with racing action and incomplete goals for a couple of riders. In front of a jam packed grand stand, the race got better as the laps went down.
Spaniard, Jorge Lorenzo, finished at fourth place behind two factory Hondas and a Ducati, but he still leads the points table after a disappointing non-podium finish. With 78 points, he is 12 points clear from the second placed rider, Casey Stoner who has
66 points.
Defending world champion, Lorenzo tumbled in the morning’s warm-up session facing a violent front failure while entering a corner and expecting a good traction. Unfortunately, the temperatures were low in the morning and it lacked grip on the tarmac. Lorenzo
was not severely hurt and sustained a minor injury on his finger, but his prime M1 burnt immediately.
From start of the race, Lorenzo was in a tight clash with Andrea Dovizioso. With 14 laps left in the race, the Spaniard put up a scintillating turn and overtook Dovizioso to lead at the fourth place. In the run, he managed to close-up on the second and third
riders, but with a minor mistake, he went wide on a bend and lost the battle again from Italian, Dovizioso. After the intense encounter, Lorenzo managed to finish the race at fourth place.
Lorenzo, the Yamaha Factory Racing rider said, “I think the race has been good in general for us and the results and points are good for the Championship. Obviously I would like to fight with Casey and the other best riders for victory but at this moment
it’s really hard.” Jorge explained that his effort is always to finish the race in the best possible way and extract maximum out of his M1.
American rider, Ben Spies completed the French GP putting an end to his double ‘Did Not Finish’ status in previous events. He maintained his grid place from the start of the race but lost some time from the front squad after a couple of mistakes.
Yamaha Factory Racing rider, Ben Spies said, “It was a pretty exciting race. I made two mistakes on the first two laps and lost touch with Colin and Valentino. I tried to ride as hard as I could and was reeling in Colin until unfortunately he crashed.”
The Texan was able to avoid an accident with his compatriot by running wide off the line, which gave benefit to Nicky Hayden (Ducati team) who closed up on Spies. After some laps, Spies was able to make way to pass over his compatriot, Hayden.
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