VOL. 52 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 10, 2015 P45
Briefly...
course, the penalty would stand.
The news, originally expected on
Friday, came on Thursday, clearly
to the disappointment of the darling
of the crowds. It was the last throw
of the dice for the Italian to rescue
his situation. The suspension of the
penalty was far more important than
any future judgement—except in the
unlikely event of the CAS retrospec-
tively changing the ruling of race di-
rection and the FIM stewards.
The most astonishing response to
the controversy came in the number
of signatures to a poorly framed web
petition to race direction to remove
Rossi's penalty—signed (to no effect)
by almost three quarters of a million
fans. This was an extraordinary num-
ber for any such petition. In a week
when a suspected bomb brought
down a Russian passenger aircraft
over Egypt, and dead children were
being washed up on Mediterranean
beaches, this suggested some loss
of any sense of proportion. (The sil-
liest fault in the petition was to sug-
gest that, because there was no rule
against it, riders would not be pun-
ly, with his infectious cack-
ling laugh, had Dani been
able to catch up if Marquez
had not been running pro-
tectively at Lorenzo's pace?
Why not, comes the
concomitant question from
the other camp. With his late-season surge
of form, Pedrosa had done much more than
that when he won in Japan.
The final race of the year enjoyed hot
weather and even hotter passions in the
Spanish sunshine.
Lorenzo's incredible pole lap came by
almost half a second from Marquez and
Pedrosa. Rossi was 12th, but then he could
spend the session checking race setup,
because he was going to the back of the
grid anyway.
As at every one of his six other wins this
year, Lorenzo seized the lead into the first
corner, and held it to the end. Both Hondas
went with him, but while Marquez stayed
there, Pedrosa was falling back with front
grip issues and his familiar full-tank difficul-
ties. "It was bottoming under braking," he
said. At one-third distance, he was two
seconds away.
Lorenzo kept his head down. "It was one
Luis Salom was also in the mix, and
took over fifth for one lap shortly be-
fore half distance.
Next time round, however, Sam
Lowes was ahead, and he drew clear.
By the finish, he was barely a second
behind Baldassarri and Luthi.
Salom held to sixth, with Zarco just
three tenths behind over the line, hav-
ing finally got past Corsi.
The Italian had more trouble to
come as Axel Pons closed up and
pounced on the final lap for eighth.
Mika Kallio was a lone 10
th
, with
Takaaki Nakagami prevailing over
Alex Marquez, Sandro
Cortese and Jonas Folger
in a close battle for 11th.
First-race crasher Marcel
Schrotter took the final
point.
Zarco was of course in-
vulnerable on 352 points;
rookie Rins an impressive
second on 234. Both
will stay on next year to
continue their battle, but
Rabat (231) is off to MotoGP. Lowes
was fourth on 186. Then Luthi (179)
and Folger (163).
Tito Rabat (1) sealed one last
victory before he heads to
MotoGP next season.
Disconsolate.
Rossi crosses
the line in
fourth and
loses the World
Championship.
continued on page 49
