Jorge Lorenzo dominant in Mugello

Three Spaniards were in control of the 2013 MotoGP World Championship season after four rounds, and it would have been a shock if they hadn’t been prominent at the fifth event, the Italian Grand Prix in Mugello; a track where crowd favourite Valentino Rossi had won so often.

In all, Rossi has scored nine GP wins at Mugello over the years, but the Yamaha man wasn’t quite looking like a winner in 2013 so far. The men to watch would surely be his factory team-mate Jorge Lorenzo (with three wins here), and the Repsol Honda pairing of Dani Pedrosa and class rookie Marc Márquez (two each). These men had been the race victors to date in the current championship. Other former winners at this venue were Iannone, Bautistá and Smith.

The Italian practice and qualifying sessions had seen a few riders crash, including the English duo competing for Tech 3 Yamaha, Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith - with the latter injuring a finger which, in fact, happened during the pre-race warm-up session. His 27-year-old partner was also affected with allergies across the weekend. However, the main crash victim was Márquez, who went down more than once and, as a result, would set only the sixth best time for the final grid.

The other two championship contenders had no such issues, and it was Pedrosa who secured his first pole position of the season, with Lorenzo close behind in second. Ducati team leader Andrea Dovizioso was once again on the front row in third position, with partner Nicky Hayden eighth. Crutchlow was fourth despite his crash, and Rossi was seventh. In amongst the leaders as usual was fifth man Stefan Bradl on the customer Honda for the LCR team. The Gresini team’s Álvaro Bautistá placed the final Honda in ninth.

Smith would start from P11, one place behind the factory Ducati wildcard rider Michele Pirro, having an outing on their latest development bike. Andrea Iannone was in P13 for Pramac Ducati, with team-mate Ben Spies, as it turned out, still not quite fit enough to race - and the Italian was behind CRT leader Aleix Espargaró (Power Electronics Aspar ART), who was 12th. Team-mate Randy de Puniet was in P14. The French rider had lately been doing some test riding ahead of a potential return by Suzuki for 2014.

The remaining CRT pilots completed the grid, starting with Héctor Barberá (Avintia Blusens FTR-Kawasaki), in P15; then it was Danilo Petrucci (on the Ioda Suter-BMW for Came IodaRacing Project), Colin Edwards and Claudio Corti (both NGM Mobile Forward Racing FTR-Kawasaki), Michael Laverty (Paul Bird Motorsport PBM-ART), Karel Abraham (Cardion AB Motoracing ART), Yonny Hernández (Bird ART), Bryan Staring (GO&FUN Honda Gresini FTR-Honda), Hiroshi Aoyama (also Avintia) and Lukáš Pešek (also IodaRacing).

Conditions were dry and bright for the race, such that all riders chose the soft rear compound Bridgestone rear tyre. The start at Mugello sees quite a long run down to the first right-hander, San Donato, where Lorenzo took over in the lead from initial leader Pedrosa, braking on the inside line. The same corner also saw Márquez move into third, going around the outside of Dovizioso. The youngster also briefly headed team-mate Pedrosa, but with Dani quick to get the place back.

Crutchlow headed the pursuit of the leaders, but very quickly the next pack was diminished by two. After the San Donato loop there is a left at Luco, leading into a right-hander called Poggiosecco. This section of track was the scene of a first lap incident that took out Rossi and Bautistá when they came together, and there would be no homecoming glory for Valentino this year. So sixth was held by Hayden, from Bradl, Iannone, Espargaró, Pirro, Smith, Barberá, de Puniet, Petrucci, Laverty, Hernández, Edwards, Corti, Aoyama, Staring and Abraham.

The three main contenders were at the front, with Lorenzo heading Pedrosa and Márquez; they were already starting to get away from the rest. At the back end of the circuit is the section with the two Arrabbiata right-handers, and Crutchlow went to the inside of Dovizioso for the first of these, making the pass to take over in fourth. Hayden and Bradl remained close, with a gap back to the rest. Iannone began to lose ground, firstly to Espargaró.

The race was going to be between the leading trio, as the remainder got left behind, with Crutchlow also starting to distance himself from those following. The three Spaniards stayed close, with third man Márquez setting fastest lap and second man Pedrosa often very close to Lorenzo on arrival at San Donato. However, at half-distance, Lorenzo began to extend his lead. It quickly went from 0.7s to over a second, and was heading out to an advantage of almost five-seconds in the latter stages.

Pedrosa appeared to be struggling with tyre grip issues, which he would confirm later. His Honda had been set up to take account of these expected difficulties, meaning that he could not counter the pace of his Yamaha-mounted adversary. This left Dani to deal with the close attentions of newcomer Márquez, who was in combative mood and seemingly being held up. With five laps remaining, Pedrosa was unable to hold off the youngster any longer, and Marc dived through on the inside at the sweeping Savelli left-hander.

Crutchlow had been well clear of the battle behind, and Pedrosa’s pace had allowed the Tech 3 rider to start closing the gap to the pair of Hondas. Ultimately the Englishman would benefit on the penultimate lap, when misfortune struck Márquez. The 20-year-old had been putting some distance between himself and Pedrosa’s machine. Then, at the Casanova-Savelli sweepers, Marc crashed as the front of the RCV folded under. Lorenzo was on his way to victory, Pedrosa now had 1.8s in hand, and Crutchlow inherited a place on the podium.

Bradl had already got ahead of the two works Ducatis, with Dovizioso fighting back against Hayden to run as the lead man for the Italian manufacturer. In the end, fourth place resolved into a contest between Stefan and Andrea, with the German home first after recovering against a last minute move from ‘Dovi’. Bradl therefore took a best result for the season, and meanwhile Pirro had passed both Iannone and Espargaró to give Ducati three consecutive positions at the flag, with a useful seventh going to the test rider.

Espargaró as usual was the CRT class winner, with his fifth such success from five races in 2013, and his 14th in total. Eighth place matched his best MotoGP result, which saw him a place ahead of the injured Smith on a full prototype machine, as well as the troubled Iannone. Tenth went to Barberá, from de Puniet, Petrucci and Iannone, with Edwards and Abraham having moved through for the final points positions, ahead of the Bird Motorsport pair and the remaining finishers. Aoyama had stopped in the pits, joining the three crash victims as a non-finisher.

The first four races had seen premier class rookie Marc Márquez on the podium every time, with a win second time out. On this occasion he’d had the better of double winner Dani Pedrosa, and was closing right in on the championship lead again, with second place in the bag. But then he crashed, and it was a mistake that left him trailing, as Pedrosa picked up a few extra points and ended up with an extended margin of twelve points over race winner Jorge Lorenzo. The consistent Cal Crutchlow, with his fourth GP podium result, found himself right on the tail of Márquez as he continued to out-perform all the second tier riders. The next race sees the three leading Spaniards performing in front of their home crowd for the second time.

Standings after five races: Pedrosa 103; Lorenzo 91; Márquez 77; Crutchlow 71; Dovizioso 50; Rossi 47; Hayden 45; Bautistá 38; Bradl 30; Espargaró 28 ·· CRT leader: Espargaró.
Honda 111; Yamaha 102; Ducati 51; ART 28; FTR-Kawasaki 13; Ioda Suter-BMW 8; PBM-ART 3.