een third but fell on lap
Thomas Luthi put his
Zarco's similar Came
r third place and a third
a largely processional
close trio from Xavier
on until he pulled off on
ction problems. Simon
ds down at the end, but
erol, who had caught
e Angelis. Aegerter
h; Takaaki Nakagami
Mattia Pasini completing
VOL. 50 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 29, 2013
Alvaro Bautista (19) fought with
Stefan Bradl (6) for fourth before
taking the spot, marking the first
Spanish sweep of the top four
places in the premier class.
"But it was one of the best, for
my concentration, and my pace
every lap, even at the end of the
race some even faster on the soft
tire."
It came after a gamble. While
almost all riders chose the harder rear tire option - described as
"soft" by Bridgestone - Lorenzo, Monster Yamaha's Bradley
Smith, Pramac Ducati's Andrea
Iannone and Yamaha tester-wild
card Katsuyuki Nakasaga went
for the so-called "super-soft."
It was a gamble because of
a severe lack of testing time. All
of Friday and then also Saturday
morning sessions were cancelled
because of the side-effects of Typhoon Francisco, with a disturbingly hefty (7.5 magnitude) earthquake in the middle of the night
as an unsettling bonus.
Qualifying was crammed into a
the top ten.
The fiercest fighting was for the final
points, where a gang of five crossed the line
within just over one second. Seasoned tough
guy Anthony West reasserted himself at the
front of it with two laps to go, from Marcel
Schrotter, Axel Pons, Gino Rea and Sandro
Cortese.
Espargaro is now unassailable on 265
points; Redding (an uncertain starter at
Valencia) is only 20 ahead of Rabat, 224-204.
Kallio is secure in fourth on 185. Fifth-placed
Aegerter and his 151 points is vulnerable to
Luthi (146) and Nakagami (145).
P43
Briefly...
riders have just one point, including
Andrea Dovizioso (for punching Hector Barbera) and Barbera (for getting
in his way).
single 75-minute session on Saturday afternoon, on a wet track.
The only possible set-up time
was in an extended 50-minute
morning warm-up (renamed "free
practice") on race morning.
"There was no time to test the
tire endurance, but we had a discussion and though the temperature of the asphalt changed and
knowing the weather was not so
hot I chose the softer one that
had a better feeling in the warmup," Lorenzo said.
It paid off.
"The rear tire didn't drop down
so much, and then later in the
race when I wanted to push harder, the tire let me," Lorenzo continued.
He set fastest lap on the 16th
of 24 laps of the 2.983-mile Twin-
As he should be, Pol Espargaro was ecstatic
after winning the Moto2 World Championship.
