MOTOGP ROUND 14, ARAGON, SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 19

Arai’s Dani Pedrosa claims second place and Cal Crutchlow breaks into top 10!

DANI PEDROSA, REPSOL HONDA
Race Position: 2nd           Championship Position: 4th 

“I HAD SOME FUN!”
Dani Pedrosa finished eight seconds behind his Repsol Honda team-mate Casey Stoner to claim yet another second place at the Grand Prix of Aragon. Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo took the last podium position, but could not match the dominance of the Honda riders.

Dani Pedrosa

“We already saw in practice that Casey was very fast here and it was also like this in the race. I was losing some tenths in the first sector and I was unable to reduce the gap in the other parts of the lap. The second half of the race I was sliding all the time and I had some fun, but it was a shame not to be closer to Casey; I had many problems with the rear tyre for the whole race. My priority was to control the gap to Spies and Jorge in the final laps and get another podium. We've been second in the last three races, which is not so bad, but we want to keep improving in the coming races”

CAL CRUTCHLOW, MONSTER YAMAHA TECH 3
Race Position: 9th              Championship Position: 13th

“I GAINED A LOT OF EXPERIENCE TODAY RIDING WITH VALENTINO…”
Cal Crutchlow quickly found his pace from the start after losing time in the braking zone at the first corner and his charge into the top 10 kicked off when he claimed 11th place from Colin Edwards on the fourth lap. He then launched an immediate attack on Hiroshi Aoyama and Toni Elias, passing both with masterful overtakes to claim ninth on lap six. Valentino Rossi then dropped the British rider back into 10th on lap seven. From that stage of the race until its conclusion 16 laps later, Crutchlow was involved in the most exciting battle on track in front of a windswept crowd of over 63,000 fans. He passed Rossi and Aoyama on lap 18 and despite coming under intense pressure from the more experienced duo, he managed to keep them at bay to claim his best result since the Catalunya race in early June. The seven valuable points collected move Crutchlow two places up the World Championship rankings into 13th position.

“I’m really pleased with how the race went because I was back inside the top 10 and having a really good and enjoyable fight with two of the best riders on the grid, who have had a lot of success in Grand Prix racing. It is a shame that I lost a couple of places at the first corner because I’m sure with a better start I could have been battling with Bautista and Hayden. But to hold off Valentino and Hiroshi at the end took a massive effort. I think if they’d started the final lap in front of me on the straight it would have been hard for me to slipstream. I gained a lot of experience today riding with Valentino and that has given me a lot of confidence for the next few races.”
COLIN EDWARDS, MONSTER YAMAHA TECH 3
Race Position: 13th              Championship Position: 9th

“WE WERE PRETTY MUCH CHASING OUR TAILS ALL WEEKEND.”
The race proved to be a difficult affair for Colin Edwards, who struggled to find the right set-up to give him the rear grip he needed to push with his normal confidence. He made more weight distribution modifications to his Yamaha YZR-M1 ahead of the race, but the tweaks didn’t have the desired effect and he finished in 13th.

“That certainly wasn’t a great way to celebrate my 150th race in MotoGP. We tried to get the bike right all weekend but we were pretty much chasing our tails the whole time. We were trying to improve the rear grip to compensate for the speed we lose on the straight and for the race; we altered the weight distribution again. We put a lot of weight on the rear but it never really worked. After about five laps, the grip just went down and I wasn’t expecting it to drop off that quickly. Once that happened, I couldn’t stay in that group I was in and I just went backwards. If somebody gave me 10 million Euros to do a 1.51 right now, there is no way I could do it. The last two races have been pretty tough...”

NICKY HAYDEN, MARLBORO DUCATI
Race Position: 7th          Championship Position: 7th

“WE HOPED THAT WE COULD PUT UP A BETTER FIGHT.”
Nicky Hayden started very well from the third row and finished in seventh place after a great battle with Hector Barbera, that lasted right until the final corner.

“I had a good start and was decent at the very beginning. We knew tyre wear was going to be an issue, and we had a drop in performance after the first couple of laps. It lost grip, and I also wasn’t able to load the bike well for turning. I was okay in parts of the track, but compared to the fast guys, I was losing time in the last corner. I hoped to hang onto the second group for a while, but it just wasn’t possible. I’d like to have fought with Bautista on the last lap because he was on our pace, but Barbera and I were going back and forth, which hurt both of us and let him escape. It’s unfortunate, because coming here we hoped that we could put up a better fight. Still, this is the first race I’ve finished normally with the GP11.1, since at Indy I re-entered just to get points. Hopefully that will help us to get some data and be better off in the future.”

Hiroshi Aoyama piloted his San Carlo Honda Gresini to 11th place, and remains 10th in the Championship. Karel Abraham DNF’d his Cardion AB Motoracing Ducati and drops back to 13th overall in the standings.

Round 15 of MotoGP is at Motegi, Sunday October 2.

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