Lorenzo wins again in the Catalunya GP

It was surely going to be another Honda versus Yamaha season in the 2012 MotoGP World Championship, with two wins each for Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo after four races, and with only Stoner’s Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa looking like a potential challenger so far. Lorenzo and Pedrosa would be racing at home in Spain for round five.

The Grand Prix of Catalunya takes place on a mostly fast track just outside Barcelona, and is one of four visits to Spain on the racing calendar. Several of the current MotoGP riders have won Grands Prix on this track in the past, with two each for Stoner and Lorenzo, and three for Pedrosa. Randy de Puniet and Álvaro Bautistá are also each on two, with four others on one win and with Valentino Rossi the man with nine previous victories.

Qualifying saw Stoner (Repsol Honda) and Lorenzo (Factory Yamaha) up front again, with the Australian taking pole position. Pedrosa had run off track during the session, and it cost him as he ended up fifth. Cal Crutchlow on the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha now had the upgraded brakes to match his team-mate and he put in the third best performance for another front row start. Andrea Dovizioso was sixth on the other machine. Ben Spies was fourth on the second works Yamaha.

Row three saw the two factory Ducati machines, and for the third time this year Nicky Hayden was ahead of Rossi. They were seventh and ninth respectively, split by the LCR Honda of Stefan Bradl, which was a best-yet for the German. Bautistá (San Carlo Gresini) had put the fourth RCV in tenth, ahead of the customer Ducatis of Héctor Barberá (Pramac Racing) and Karel Abraham (Cardion AB Motoracing).

The CRT motorcycles followed on row five, led by de Puniet on the Aspar ART. Back from injury was fourteenth man Colin Edwards, on the Forward Racing Suter-BMW, and then it was Aleix Espargaró (Aspar), Michele Pirro (Gresini FTR-Honda), James Ellison (Bird Motorsport ART), Mattia Pasini (Speed Master ART), Yonny Hernández (Avintia BQR/FTR-Kawasaki), Danilo Petrucci (Ioda-Aprilia) and Iván Silva (also Avintia).

There were mixed conditions on race day, with the warm-up session taking place on a damp and slippery track. Crutchlow was fastest at that point, but the likes of Pedrosa, Barberá and Ellison did not get through the session without avoiding incident. However, as the start approached it was dry but the air was humid and the possibility of rain loomed. In the end this didn’t arrive, but the choice of both Stoner and Pedrosa for the off was to use the harder compound tyres from Bridgestone.

Not unusually, Pedrosa got a good start and was into the right-handed Elf corner in first position. The second corner is an immediate left at Abolafio, and then there is the long right Curvone Renault, where second man Spies looked to attack the leader. These two headed Lorenzo, Stoner, Dovizioso, Crutchlow and Hayden, with the Ducati man due to lose his place to Bradl on the inside for the braking zone at Revolt la Caixa, a left at the end of the back straight. Rossi, Bautistá, Barberá, Abraham, Espargaró, Pirro and de Puniet followed.

Dovizioso was quick to move past former team-mate Stoner for fourth, and Rossi took up his position as Ducati team leader by passing Hayden on the inside for Elf. Pedrosa still led Spies, Lorenzo and Dovizioso, and now Stoner lost another place as he went wide at la Caixa, letting Crutchlow through. Bradl, Rossi and Hayden followed. Yamaha riders were looking racy at this stage, with Crutchlow setting a new fastest lap, and Spies going for the lead. His move came at turn four, a looping right called Revolt Repsol. He went to the inside of Pedrosa but then ran wide and out to the gravel trap, where he went down. He could only rejoin the race at the back of the field.

Bautistá had gone past Hayden and now went to the inside of Rossi at Elf to move up another position. The Spaniard soon pulled a similar move on Bradl and then he led the pursuit, but a group of five was breaking away up front, with Pedrosa heading Lorenzo, Dovizioso, Crutchlow and Stoner. Jorge made an attack on Dani on the inside for Elf, which the Honda man tried to defend against. He was pushed a bit deep into the braking zone and the Yamaha rider was able to move through.

This stage of the race saw a gap start to open up between Dovizioso in third and the pursuing Crutchlow and Stoner. Casey responded by taking his Honda through into fourth, but still the gap ahead of them continued to grow beyond 2.0s. Meanwhile, Andrea was also starting to lose ground, dropping to nearly one second back on the first two. Pedrosa resumed in front before half-distance when he used the slipstream effect on the main straight to go through into Elf. Dovizioso then gained back some ground from Lorenzo when the works rider ran deep and wide later on, also at Elf.

However, Lorenzo was able to close in again on Pedrosa, with Dovizioso unable to match that pace and finding Stoner and Crutchlow circulating not far behind him. Four men had run in a reasonably close group some way behind the Englishman, with Bautistá heading Bradl, Rossi and then Hayden. Valentino made up one more place at Elf, with Stefan and Nicky soon beginning to drop back. Later on, Bautistá and Rossi started to edge closer to Dovizioso, Stoner and Crutchlow ahead.

The battle for victory was between the two Spaniards and, with eight laps left to run, Lorenzo had got Pedrosa’s lead down to just 0.6s. The tight downhill left-hander at Revolt Seat, or turn five, saw him right on the Honda’s tail, and he was soon in place to challenge for position. With six laps to go, Jorge tried to make his pass exiting the Abolafio corner, but he got it done at la Caixa, where Dani managed to run a bit wide on the way in. From there he just pulled away, going into the last lap with a 2.2s advantage and duly taking the win.

Stoner had closed in on Dovizioso in the latter stages of the race, but the finish saw the Italian rider still marginally ahead, to take his first podium since moving from a works Honda to a satellite Yamaha. Most of the following riders had become quite spaced out by the end, with Crutchlow retaining fifth, from Bautistá, Rossi, Bradl and Hayden. Spies had had much to do after his early indiscretion, and he’d raced through the CRT ranks and ultimately also passed the Ducati satellite riders Abraham (who finished a lonely twelfth, for his first points of the season) and Barberá (eleventh), ending up in P10.

The first few CRT machines had changed positions a number of times through the race, with Espargaró emerging as the leader of the class, taking thirteenth position, from Pirro, de Puniet, Ellison, Pasini, Hernández, Petrucci and Silva. Edwards had run fifth in the class until late on, when he dropped to the back of the field and had to retire to the pits with bike problems.

The new Honda with Casey Stoner on board had started the season looking like the combination to beat, and yet in round five the Australian could manage only fourth place. Jorge Lorenzo’s Yamaha had proved quicker than the best of the Hondas, which on the day meant Dani Pedrosa, and this gave the champion from 2010 an increased overall lead of twenty points. Lorenzo took his 20th win in the MotoGP class, taking his tally of points scored with Yamaha’s four-stroke machines beyond 1200. On the same day, Valentino Rossi took his own MotoGP points tally beyond the 3500 mark. Will Stoner and Honda come back at Lorenzo next time out?

Standings after five races: Lorenzo 115; Stoner 95; Pedrosa 85; Dovizioso 60; Crutchlow 56; Rossi 51; Bautistá 45; Bradl 43; Hayden 40; Barberá 31 ·· CRT leader: Espargaró.
Yamaha 115; Honda 106; Ducati 56; ART 19; FTR-Honda 6; Suter-BMW, Ioda-Aprilia and FTR-Kawasaki 4