VOL. 51 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 19, 2014 P67
"I was on the limit to catch him,
and maybe with one more lap I
could try to beat him … but it was
too late," Lorenzo said.
And then Rossi, on the rostrum
after "a difficult weekend" includ-
ing a heavy crash that left him
with a skinned, but fortunately
not fractured little finger on his
left hand. "In warm-up I tried to
ride without painkillers but it was
very difficult," Rossi said. "For
the race we found a better setting
for the finger and for the bike."
"It was difficult with the clutch
at the start," and he'd lost touch
with the leaders because he
was somewhat tentative. But he
picked up the pace and passed
Marquez for his seventh podium
finish of the year. "It was a great
pleasure finally to beat Marc," he
grinned.
The race, over 22 laps and
118.866 km, escaped the threat
of rain after a cool start to the day,
and had one other hero – Pramac
Ducati's Andrea Iannone - who fi-
Briefly...
maha also in qualifying, heading the
second row in fourth. But his results
have been tarnished by a series of
crashes, with a total of 12 this year,
five of them during the Sachsenring
weekend. A load had been lifted
from his shoulders, he said. Looking
forward to the pressure of his home
GP in two weeks, he said: "I'm not
sure that there's that much more
pressure to be put onto me than I've
had in the last three months."
When is a seamless shift not a
seamless shift? In Yamaha's case,
on the way down through the gear-
box. This hitherto unknown fact
emerged at Brno, and Rossi agreed
that it was possibly a contributing
factor to not being able to match the
Hondas on braking. Honda's version
arrived in 2012 and after much pres-
sure from riders, Yamaha caught up
in the middle of last season … but
only on upshifts. The system saves a
few milliseconds in every shift, add-
ing over the course of a lap or a race
to a valuable advantage. "Yamaha
is now almost as strong as Honda
in acceleration and top speed, and
Yamaha made a very good step with
the gearbox (last year)," said Rossi.
"It works very well in acceleration,
with fourth to seventh covered by just
over two seconds as they spread out
towards the end.
Rookie Franco Morbidelli on
the Italtrans Kalex injected a bit of
excitement as he came through to
take eighth ahead of a hard-pressing
Johann Zarco on the AirAsia Caterham
machine and Tech 3's Marcel Schrot-
ter.
Paginas Amarillas Kalex's Luis
Salom was among a number of fallers,
out of eleventh place,
and the most histrionic
as he beat the ground
where he landed in the
gravel trap.
His fifth win eased
Rabat away again in the
title battle, 208 points
to Kallio's 196. Vinales
stays third on 150,
followed by Aegerter's
123 and Corsi's 100.
Tito Rabat
celebrated
his dominant
Moto2 win at
Brno by giving a
fan in a check-
ered suit a lift,
earning him a
1000 Euro fine
for the effort.
Pedrosa (26) knocked down the
laps in the lead, but Lorenzo (99)
kept him honest and started to
close the gap towards the end.
continued on next page
