VOL. 51 ISSUE 35 SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 P41
with full-on contact.
"It is not for me to judge," Lo-
renzo said, though he did think
the attack had been a bit over-
strong. "It is for Race Direction.
But I don't think they will do any-
thing."
As for Marquez: "I remem-
bered last year, when Jorge beat
me on the last corner. There was
contact then also. But I think it is
normal in the last laps of a race."
It was the Repsol Honda rid-
er's 11th win in 12 rounds, after
one race off the rostrum in Brno.
And while he started from pole for
the 10th time this year, there was
never a moment when the result
was cut and dried. Not until the
last couple of laps anyway, after
that final skirmish had given the
Honda man a breathing space
of half a second, stretched by a
couple more tenths at the end.
For Marquez, it was not just re-
venge for last year, but also vindi-
Briefly...
grew worse as he was unable to find
any solution at his home GP, where
he publicly handed over the role of
"top British rider" to Bradley Smith -
somewhat waspishly, after Smith had
spoken about Crutchlow's "carnage"
at last year's race. Far worse for the
Honda-bound former pole qualifier
was not that he continued to fail to
find acceptable limits from his Des-
mosedici in the turns, but that "I can't
ride it like the Andreas, Dovi and Ian-
none." At each new circuit, he said,
he had first to forget what he knew
of it from his previous Yamaha years,
and only then start working out how
to get the Ducati to work on it. As
Dovizioso also explained: "You can-
not ride the bike as you want, but
you have to change your technique
and lines." A former World Super-
bike double winner at Silverstone,
Crutchlow's British GP experiences
have been painful and heroic, with a
series of crashes, injuries, and brave
comebacks. After qualifying, this
reporter pointed out that amidst the
sad song, at least he had got this far
in one piece. "There's always tomor-
row," he responded gloomily.
outpace rookie Franco Morbidelli, who
had fallen back into the clutches of
Sam Lowes, but managed to stay nar-
rowly ahead.
A long way back a big group was
at it for eighth, with Hafizh Syahrin
finally getting narrowly ahead of Mattia
Pasini, Axel Pons, Jordi Torres, Julian
Simon, Randy Krummenacher, Marcel
Schrotter and last points-scorer Taka
Nakagami. There were more in the
group, with eighth to 17th covered by
five seconds.
German GP winner Dominique Ae-
gerter was an early casualty, crashing
the carXpert Suter on the
first lap, after tagging Vina-
les in the crash. Simeon
and Baldassari also
crashed out; GP debutant
Dakota Mamola also fell,
remounted, and was in
and out of the pits, finish-
ing last, three laps down.
Rabat stretched his
lead back to 17 points
over Kallio, 233- 216; Vi-
nales has 166, then come
non-scorers Aegerter with
123 and Corsi with 100.
Teammates Tito Rabat (53) and Mika Kallio (36)
get a bit close during their Moto2 battle.
Like last year's British GP, the race
turned into a battle between Lorenzo
(99) and Marquez (93), but this time
the order was reversed.
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