BY MICHAEL SCOTT PHOTOGRAPHY
BY GOLD & GOOSE
W
hen Jorge Lorenzo
gets it right, he gets it
very right. And when
he did exactly that at Brno, start-
ing from pole and leading from
the first corner to the last, the
reward was the lead in the cham-
pionship. He's equal on points
with Movistar Yamaha teammate
Valentino Rossi, but this was
Lorenzo's fifth win of the year.
Rossi has just three.
The weather held clear for a
massive race day crowd of al-
most 140,000 at the fine sweep-
Briefly...
Top riders—Marc Marquez except-
ed—don't crash very often. So it was
something of a freak event when
Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi
went down within seconds of one an-
other, at the same spot on the first
day of practice. There was a freak
reason, too. One of Pedrosa's Öhlins
forks had busted a seal and leaked
oil. Rossi was behind, and actually
went down first, looking surprised
even as he was sliding through the
gravel at right-handed Turn 13. He
said later he had the feeling that he
was smelling oil on the run up the
hill, but didn't believe it, "…because
that hardly happens now." Out of the
corner of his eye, he might have no-
ticed that a few yards further on, just
as he switched direction to the final
right-hander that completes the lap,
Pedrosa was also flying through the
air. The leakage had now got to his
rear tire, and the ever-misfortunate
Spaniard suffered a painful left-foot
VOL. 52 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 18, 2015 P69
continued on next page
A
SLEDGEHAMMER
Jorge Lorenzo's win
was an important one
for the championship,
and he knew it.
was on another
racers and sees him
championship lead.
