VOL. 52 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 15, 2015 P73
option Honda rider managed to
fall off when the rains first came,
before finally timing his late run
on slicks to perfection, overtak-
ing the remarkable Loris Baz on
the Forward Racing Yamaha.
The French rookie rider was
top open rider, and fourth, easily
his best performance to date;
and from 16th place on the grid.
Even more than that, he
finished one place ahead of the
man the crowd had come to see
win, Movistar Yamaha's Valentino
Rossi.
After the full wet podium
juggling that put Octo Pramac
Ducati's Danilo Petrucci into the
Silverstone top three, he scored
a top six in Italy, once again
showing no fear of the wet or the
dry—or Rossi, who was less than
two seconds ahead of him.
He also beat both factory
Ducati riders, Andrea Iannone
and Andrea Dovizioso who were
just behind in seventh and eighth
places.
Briefly...
time. "The test we did here at Misano
was in the summertime, and it was
really good. The new circuit and grip
was really good, especially in the
morning, and the lap time was about
a second faster." Some other riders
thought the track was not as fast as
it had been in testing, quite dirty to
start and simply not as outright grip-
py in every part as they had been
told to expect. Bumps remained in
some places too. The proof of the
sticky tarmac pudding was in the
timing, and there were new pre-race
track bests in all three classes. Lo-
renzo took the new MotoGP best
to 1:32.146, Johan Zarco the new
Moto2 time to beat of 1:36.754 and
in Moto3 Danny Kent set the new cir-
cuit best of 1:42.209 in FP3.
After the bulk of the season has now
been completed Cal Crutchlow
is in a good position to understand
that the relative differences between
his factory option Honda and the of-
ficial factory ones is not much. He
believes it is more a case of greater
testing opportunities for the Repsol
duo, and the factory team's capabil-
ity to change items to suit a particu-
lar rider. "The Hondas are not too
top group, and then dropped back, but
came forward again as the constant
overtakes slowed the leading bunch.
Kent was pinged by race direction to
drop back a position and had to try
and get all the way forward again.
He was unable, but he fled the
chasing second group to a safe sixth
and 10 points.
Alexis Masbou on the SaxoPrint
RTG Honda and top Mahindra rider
Francesco Bagnaia on the Mapfre
Team Mahindra were seventh and
eighth at Bagnaia's home round.
With Bastianini winning this
race, Kent lost some ground in
the points standings, now 234 to
the Italian's 179. With five races
left, 55 points is still a healthy
margin, but Kent still has some
work to do if this is Bastianini just
getting into his winning stride.
Enea Bastianini scored his first
Moto3 win at his home track.
A very happy Bradley Smith (center)
celebrates a well-earned second
place with his crew and rider coach
Randy Mamola (left).
continued on next page
