Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 11, 2014 P47 quez pulled clear again, and won his 13th of the year by 3.5 sec- onds. A cautious Pedrosa was third, another ten seconds down. The Ducati pair battled to the end, Crutchlow briefly ahead a couple of times in the closing laps, but Dovi took fifth by less than a 10th. A long way back, Monster Ya- maha's Pol Espargaro finally got the better of his brother Aleix on the Forward Yamaha; LCR Hon- da's Stefan Bradl dropping away at the end in eighth. Monster Yamaha's Bradley Smith had moved clear of this group, only to slip off. He re- mounted for an eventual 14th, but stormed off to Race Control complaining that a marshal had pushed him off his bike as he tried to restart. Wild card Michele Pirro on the Ducati came past GO&FUN Honda's Scott Redding for ninth. Another six seconds away, a four-bike gang had been trading blows over the last laps. On the final one Avintia Ducati's Hector Barbera managed to outfox Octo Ioda ART's Danilo Petrucci, then Drive M7 Honda's Nicky Hayden and the flying and furious Smith. Hayden enjoyed the race. "There was plenty of back and forth–but unfortunately only for 13 th ," Hayden said. "The bike was working good, but in the sec- ond shower, when the tires had gone off, I lost a lot of time and got swallowed up by Barbera and Petrucci. The fast last corner was the only part of the track that was really wet. Even with a cold I could smell it was wet, but with a dark visor you couldn't really see how wet it was. It's not a lot of fun riding in the wet on slicks, but I guess it's exciting." Redding's teammate Alvaro Bautista had been left behind, and finally missed out on the last point on the final lap to Drive M7 Honda's Hiro Aoyama, riding the Briefly... in particular remained wary. "I'm not going near it," he joked on Friday. "I let Dovi [Andrea Dovizioso] be the guinea pig." His senior Ducati team- mate took the opposite view. "The asymmetric was really good in the morning. It had some vibration, but it was the same with the other tire, so maybe it is the bike's limit with the front," said Dovizioso. Rossi was one who preferred the symmetrical tire, though he said "It's not bad. My options are still open." Some riders were unsettled by the different grip levels from one side to the other, but Nicky Hayden was a fan. "I liked it from the start...I raced it in Australia." (And was one of the few to finish the race on it.) "The different grip levels are not nearly as big as with the rear, where you can really feel it." In the race, front tire choice was 14:10 in favor of the new asymmetric tire, but among the factory riders the balance was the other way, with nine using the soft (including the top five finish- ers), and only five the asymmetric. Team orders? The question was hot at Valencia, in the wake of the World Superbike controversy, where Baz had arguably cost Kawasaki team- mate Sykes the championship by failing to obey them, and on the eve of the Moto3 decider, where such tactics might easily decide the final outcome between Jack Miller and Alex Marquez. Both said they did not expect any such intervention, with Miller saying: "The only team or- ders in KTM are 'don't take him out';" adding that Moto3 was in any case such a free-for-all that they would be difficult to practice. Behind the scenes, however, things were indu- bitably different. Asked their opinion, continued on next page

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