Jorge Lorenzo wins again at Silverstone

Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo was holding the advantage in the 2012 MotoGP World Championship after five races, with three wins to the two of Repsol Honda’s Casey Stoner. For the sixth round the teams and riders headed to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, where both men had won races in the recent past.

Silverstone is one of those British circuits based round a former airfield, and it had hosted the British GP for a decade until the switch to Donington Park in 1987. It has been returned to the Grand Prix calendar more recently, following upgrades to the track and the facilities, with the MotoGP wins going to Lorenzo in 2010 and Stoner in 2011; with each man on the way to the title in these respective years.

Qualifying for the latest race was affected by wet-and-dry weather conditions, and timing was all important for a rider reeling off his best lap. Two men got it right in particular and achieved front row starting positions for the first time this season, including Ben Spies, who was second fastest on his factory Yamaha. Álvaro Bautistá went one better, for his first MotoGP pole position on Fausto Gresini’s San Carlo-backed Honda RC213V. The 27-year-old Spaniard had started as high as fourth in his stint with Suzuki, with sixth his best grid position so far on the Honda this year, but of course he had been on pole plenty of times with Aprilia machinery in his 125cc and 250cc GP career.

The usual suspects were not too far off the pace under the circumstances, with factory team leader Lorenzo fourth on the Yamaha, and with the Repsol Honda riders either side of him - Stoner in third and Dani Pedrosa fifth. The best of the Ducati men was satellite team rider Héctor Barberá, sixth for the Pramac Racing Team. He was one place in front of the red machine of works rider Nicky Hayden, with Valentino Rossi only tenth.

The satellite Yamaha riders were not so well off as usual, with the Monster Tech 3 team missing out on the top seven positions (for both riders) for the first time in 2012. Andrea Dovizioso would start eighth, but there was particular disappointment for Cal Crutchlow at his home event. The 26-year-old had won both the World Superbike races at Silverstone in 2010, but this year suffered injury to his left ankle in a practice crash. After hospital treatment, which kept him away from the circuit during qualifying, he was passed fit enough to race and he would start at the back in 20th.

Stefan Bradl was another former Silverstone winner, the ex-Moto2 racer qualifying ninth for LCR Honda. With Karel Abraham sitting out the weekend, after injuring his left hand in testing with the Ducati at the Aragón circuit, tenth man Rossi was followed by the CRT runners. Aleix Espargaró and Randy de Puniet led the way (both for Aspar ART), from Yonny Hernández (Avintia BQR/FTR-Kawasaki), Michele Pirro (Gresini FTR-Honda), Colin Edwards (Forward Suter-BMW), Mattia Pasini (Speed Master ART), James Ellison (Bird Motorsport ART), Danilo Petrucci (Ioda-Aprilia), Iván Silva (Avintia) and Crutchlow.

Conditions were fully dry for the race, and this time Spies got away from the grid in the lead, heading Stoner, Bautistá and Hayden. For a change, Pedrosa wasn’t able to emerge near the front off the line, and after the opening series of corners he was pushed back from fifth to sixth at Brooklands bend, where there is heavy braking at the end of the Wellington straight for the left-hander. Lorenzo passed Dani at that point, with Dovizioso, Barberá, Rossi and Bradl initially completing the top ten.

Pedrosa was relegated another position at Copse, the right-hander that used to be the first corner before the circuit redevelopment, with former team-mate Dovizioso passing on the inside. A bit of a gap had opened behind the first four to begin with, but a couple of fastest laps from Lorenzo helped him close that down again, with Andrea and Dani being brought along too. Meanwhile, the lead would soon change hands when Spies ran wide for the left-then-right at Vale, where Stoner went through.

Stoner led Spies, with Bautistá already having fought off the efforts of Hayden, and therefore holding onto third, at the newer corners of The Loop and Aintree. Nicky’s next action came when he went wide at Brooklands and couldn’t avoid giving Lorenzo the space to overtake. When the Ducati man then did the same thing at the same place it let both Dovizioso and Pedrosa through. Barberá was already out of touch with the leaders, and Rossi had been overtaken by Bradl.

Stoner began to put some distance between himself and Spies, and that was the cue for Lorenzo to move forward. Getting a better run out of the left-hander at Aintree, he passed Bautistá on the Wellington straight, and he got through on his team-mate in the fast left kink at Becketts. Bautistá would soon follow this lead as he went on to pass Spies on the brakes for the Stowe right-hander, at the end of the Hangar Straight, taking the inside line. Ben then came under attack from Dovizioso and Pedrosa, with Hayden still in touch.

With Lorenzo through to second, Stoner’s lead began to be reduced, and it wasn’t long before the Yamaha was onto the tail of the Honda. It led to some dramatic action as Jorge made his move to get ahead, with the contest between the two going on with close riding through a series of five consecutive corners. Vale leads into the long right at Club, then it’s the start-finish straight, the fast right at Abbey, the left curve at Farm and the tight right at Village. Casey fought back every time when it looked like his rival was ahead - until Jorge finally completed the pass at Village.

From there, Lorenzo showed superior pace to put daylight between himself and Stoner, going on to win by three-seconds. The race for third had seen Bautistá heading Dovizioso and Pedrosa, after Spies had been dealt with, but then Andrea hit problems - with an apparent brake lever issue, he slowed dramatically and from there circulated at the back of the field. After that, Dani overtook Álvaro and began to close in on team-mate Stoner. He got close enough to set up for a pass at Vale at the finish, but it didn’t come off and they reached the line in unchanged order.

Bautistá’s best ride on the Honda RCV saw him still well clear of fifth man Spies at the flag, improving on the fifth-placed results he’d recorded with the Suzuki in MotoGP. Ben’s slightly disappointing result was nevertheless the best of his 2012 season so far. Meanwhile, Crutchlow had been one of the stars of the race, after pretty much getting through all the CRT runners on the first lap and thereafter chasing down the MotoGP prototype group. The first man he caught was Rossi, and he went on to pass Valentino then Barberá and Bradl. He was right with Hayden for the last lap, getting through at Becketts for a remarkable sixth.

Bradl took eighth, a long way clear of the Ducati duo, with Rossi triumphant over Barberá by the finish. The Aspar team-mates had disputed the lead in the CRT class, with Espargaró coming out on top over de Puniet. Behind them was Pirro, with Ellison getting the better of Hernández, from Edwards (a Silverstone winner in Superbikes on the previous version of the GP circuit), Petrucci, Silva and finally Dovizioso. Pasini was the only non-finisher, having run in front of the last four until he had to call it a day at the pits.

Jorge Lorenzo made it three wins in a row, showing that his Yamaha was more than a match for the latest Honda, which had certainly threatened, with Casey Stoner, to be the pace-setting machine just as it had in 2011. The Spaniard’s points advantage extended to 25, but meanwhile Cal Crutchlow’s impressive performance against the odds was enough to put him back in front of unlucky Andrea Dovizioso, and it seemed that, if Cal had been fit and starting from somewhere near the front, he would have been virtually guaranteed a first podium finish. Maybe next time?

Standings after six races: Lorenzo 140; Stoner 115; Pedrosa 101; Crutchlow 66; Dovizioso 60; Rossi and Bautistá 58; Bradl 51; Hayden 49; Barberá 37 ·· CRT leader: Espargaró.
Yamaha 140; Honda 126; Ducati 65; ART 24; FTR-Honda 9; FTR-Kawasaki 5; Suter-BMW and Ioda-Aprilia 4