ROUND 5/JUNE 2, 2013
MUGELLO CIRCUIT/MUGELLO, ITALY
MOTOGP
P74
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Stefan Bradl
returned to form
at Mugello, the
German holding
off the two factory
Ducatis to finish
fourth. Andrea
Dovizioso (04)
ended up fifth.
"I must have made a mistake,
but we checked the data and
everything was completely the
same as the lap before. I can often save a crash if I lose the front
but both wheels slipped at the
same time," Marquez said.
Lorenzo was left in solitary
splendor, and Yamaha had regained the initiative from Honda.
He repeated his mantra that "we
need to improve the bike," but
this time it had nothing to do with
power or acceleration. "In the
heat I was struggling with the
rear. We need to make the bike
turn better," he said.
There was plenty of drama
down the field.
Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Cal
Crutchlow had been balked off
the start when Andrea Dovizioso
cut across in front of him, and it
was the Italian chasing the leading three at the end of the first
lap. Next time they hit the rightleft Casanova Savelli, Crutchlow
managed to get ahead. But he
was now 1.5 seconds down, and
the gap would gradually grow
until the closing laps, when the
Briton got a second wind.
"In the last 10 laps I was closing on both of them. If I could
have caught Dani [Pedrosa], I'm
confident I could have made a
pass."
At the end he was just over a
second behind the Honda, for a
second podium in succession.
He has been in the top five at every race this year.
Almost 15 seconds behind by
the end came a long and stirring
battle for fourth.
Dovizioso had Marlboro Ducati
teammate Nicky Hayden on his
wheel almost from the start, and
by the end of lap two LCR Honda's Stefan Bradl had tagged
on and was pushing hard. The
former Moto2 World Champion
slotted between them next time
round, and by lap five was ahead
of Dovi also over the line.
But the matter was far from
settled. Hayden was going well
