Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 15, 2013 Lorenzo (99) pushed his way to the front and was chased by a gaggle of riders including Pedrosa (26) and Marquez (93). weekend." For this intense duel had another side effect. It allowed Pedrosa to escape. He had suffered most from the Aragon debacle, and been the only innocent party. It was only right, at such a feel-good Grand Prix, that the script should reward him with the win. Not that he was in any mood or at any pace to do otherwise. When Marquez did get through to second, he tried for two or three laps to close the gap, in a series of swooping two-wheel drifts. But he came no closer to Pedrosa, who was looking smooth and comfortable in front. His third win of the year was by almost three seconds. "It was a really good day," Pedrosa said. "I had good pace and I enjoyed a lot riding the front. In general I was riding very comfortably. It's just a shame, because I had similar pace at Aragon, and it could have been two in a row. But you can't look back." Pedrosa did everything right, but so too Marquez, whose reward for his new maturity was a reinforced championship position, and one hand on a recordbreaking youngest-ever maiden championship crown. Should he win at Phillip Island and Lorenzo finishes no better than third, he will have done enough with two races to spare. Rain showers had plagued both days of practice, but race day was (relatively) mild and overcast - and mercifully dry for all three classes. The 20-lap race started promptly, only minutes after a shortened and delayed Moto2 event had finished, after a huge first-lap crash brought out the red flags. P51 Briefly... Stefan Bradl had a nightmare start to the three-in-a-row flyaway races, crashing at the end of free practice four and fracturing his right ankle in a freak incident. Bradl lost the front going into turn one, and was sliding off the track feet first in an innocuous-appearing low-sider then his boot caught in the Astroturf lining the curb. The German had been going well, placed fourth in combined free practice times. He was immediately declared unfit to race, and his participation in the next two races is also in doubt, putting his sixth place overall under serious threat from fellow satellite Honda rider Alvaro Bautista. Normally, said Bradl, you would walk away from such a crash, but "something, the handlebar or my boot, lifted up the green carpet, and it broke my ankle." Opting for immediate surgery meant "a very small chance" of being fit for Australia next weekend, "but I definitely want to be back in Japan," he said. The freak incident reawakened the debate about using Astroturf, grass or the increasingly popular hard paving to mark the edge of the circuit. Asked for a preference, the top three qualifiers shared one opinion – that while asphalt saves accidents, it can be more dangerous. Marc Marquez pointed out that "if it is asphalt, then everyone goes there, like at Misano [he did so himself, after braking too late]." Instead of facing some penalty for running off track, riders can rejoin barely losing speed. "You have at some point to finish the track. If not, it becomes too fast," said Valentino Rossi, who also singled out Misano. Astroturf fulfilled the purpose because it had no grip for acceleration, continued on next page

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