continued.......
Being hit by a MotoGP bike is a terrifying thought so even the remaining
marshal bailed out leaving Casey all on his own with nothing but adrenaline and
anger-filled profanities to fill the air.
Could the undamaged Honda have been started by marshals running like Michael
Johnson?
We'll never know as the omnipresent slipper clutch that stops the rear wheels
of MotoGP bikes locking into corners would not transfer all of the speed and
force of the marshal through the clutch to the crank in order to get it going
again.
Casey Stoner at Jerez |
Honda normally gets around this by locking the clutch in the pits and
applying the slave engine to the rear wheel, but the speed at which that rear
wheel is spinning is a hell of a rate. Certainly far faster than I'd imagine a
running man could achieve, let alone one pushing a mass of more than 210kgs.
Stoner wasn't the only one arguing with marshals as Marco Simoncelli and Cal
Crutchlow had the same problems. "I ran back to the bike and grabbed the clutch
as it was still going but my other hand was just slipping on the wet smooth
paintwork around the tank area," said Crutchlow. "I can pick a bike up normally
not a problem, but I couldn't grip it at all.
"The marshals then got to me and just said it was over. No attempt to help me
at all. It bogged in the gravel and I lost 45 seconds. Abraham fell at the same
corner but he only lost 30 seconds."
But the man who kept his head while those around lost theirs was Jorge
Lorenzo. The world champion steamed to his third win in four races (Estoril and
Valencia last year), his second Jerez win on the trot and the lead of the 2011
world championship.
He's now 20 points ahead of Stoner and a full win's worth of points ahead of
Rossi after just two races of eighteen! While the others argued in the paddock,
Lorenzo went straight home laughing his head off.
If it's dry at Estoril, the others better watch out because he's won there
for the past three years, every time in fact he's been there on a MotoGP bike.
Only Stoner's current form might be able to stay the tide.
The best ride of the day however, came from Dani Pedrosa. He was the clever
one. He saw his first lap time was faster than those achieved during the warm up
and had the sense to let the others fly ahead, wear their tyres out, or crash.
That they did as he trundled around in ninth place on the first lap. He was
up to fifth at one third distance, second by halfway. Sure his strength ran out
when Spies caught him, but then Spies' own pace caught the American out –
robbing the Yamahas of a 1-2.
For all the bad luck that Pedrosa has had of late, he had an awful lot of
good luck with the wet weather providing an easier workload for his injured arm.
The others ahead of him knocked themselves off and with the Japanese GP
postponed, he now has a near four week gap in which he can have his shoulder
seen to.
Would it have been dry, Pedrosa would never have finished second. He was the
lucky one.
