Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 17, 2013 Marc Marquez (93) and Dani Pedrosa (26) fought over second, but the spot eventually went to championship leader Marquez. but true to form bounced straight back. None of this can detract from Lorenzo's performance. Now fully fit and strong again he has resumed his title defense in fine style, and with hard work and conviction. And with the asset at last of the long-awaited seamless-shift gearbox he has been demanding for so long. This, he admitted, had boosted his confidence, but it had been shaken again in qualifying, where his second-fastest time was an astonishing half-a-second slower than Marquez's sixth pole of the year. "I was a little upset," he admitted after the race. "The seamless was good, but the rest of the bike not so good." He was unable to brake as he wanted. That all changed in morning warm-up, with a number of changes that solved the issues (the only change he would admit to was "a stronger fork for the braking."). This time he was fastZulfahmi Khairuddin, Miguel Oliveira and Niccolo Antonelli. Salom's points lead shrank after victory at the last two rounds had stretched it out again. He has 246, Vinales 227 and Rins 225, then comes Marquez with 133 points. est and Marquez second, and the gap was even bigger - seven tenths. "That gave me the ambition and the confidence," he said; and he showed it in spades as they took off for the first of 18 laps of the 2.6-mile Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in the race. Much as at Silverstone two weeks before, Lorenzo made an amazing start. The tires introduced last year had allowed him to develop this technique, he said, and he just flew. After one lap he was almost 1.25 seconds clear, added another half second next time around, and the same over the next two laps. It was enough to make him unassailable. "I had to keep concentrated and not make any mistakes," he said. He did so. The pursuit was never again closer than two seconds, and with five laps to go it was up to better than four, and 3.3 at the end. An immaculate start-to-finish win. That pursuit was led this time by Pedrosa, who got off the second row strongly ahead of teamAlex Rins leads Maverick Vinales in their Moto3 battle. P43 Briefly... account of the electronic and mechanical changes. Riders have a choice of two compounds for each weekend, with the less powerful CRT bikes using the softer rear as the harder choice, with an extra-soft rear as their second option. Factory riders have often cast envious glances at this tire. The new rear is also aimed at better warm-up performance: a number of riders have crashed in cool morning conditions this year, often on their first or second laps, with several costly injuries as a result. The most notable victim was Dani Pedrosa, who broke his collarbone on Saturday morning at the Sachsenring. Aleix Espargaro is the next piece in the MotoGP jigsaw to find a place. The Spaniard, elder brother of Moto2 star Pol, is currently leading the CRT brigade by miles on his Aspar team Power Electronics ART. But in many ways he wishes he wasn't. If he wins the B-team title, a clause in his contract automatically renews it for next year but he is keen to take up an offer from NGM Forward to race the new Yamaha M1 production lease bike. Should he do so, he will need to buy his way out of the Aspar team for 600,000 Euros. Or find a way not to finish as top CRT bike. "We are going through difficult times," he said. "I am a professional rider, and will continue trying to finish first CRT in every race. It is a delicate situation." With Aprilia promising a major upgrade, many think he might be better off staying where he is rather continued on next page

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