MotoGP took place at the legendary Indianapolis circuit this weekend and delivered a mix of fortunes for the grid.
In the bid for the 2012 MotoGP World Championship title, Dani Pedrosa started Indianapolis from pole position and comfortably control the rest of the race. An important win, Pedrosa now sits only 23 points behind championship leader Jorge Lorenzo.
Pedrosa said after the win, "I'm extremely happy with this win and I really want to congratulate the whole team for the great job they've done this weekend, the bike worked perfectly. It was difficult at the beginning of the race because the pace was very strong from the start. I got past Ben Spies, but I kept calm because I knew I had the pace today to fight for the victory.
"When I took the lead, I put in some very strong laps to build up a gap and then I made a mistake in turn 2 going into neutral and Jorge reduced the gap by 1 second. But I was able to get back on my pace and ride comfortably to the end, where I think Jorge struggled a little with the soft rear tyre. We managed to take our second win of the season and every point is important."
The weekend was considerably more disappointing for Pedrosa's factory Repsol Honda teammate Casey Stoner. A gnarly high speed crash during qualifying tore the ligaments in his right ankle and Stoner had to resort to crutches in order to get about that race weekend. Concerned about damage limitation, Stoner finished just out of the podium in fourth.
"I'm definitely disappointed with how the weekend went. We had a strong start on Friday morning and then had a few issues Friday afternoon in FP2. We showed that we certainly had the pace for pole position and fight for the win but unfortunately I had a huge crash in qualifying.
On the race, Stoner commented, "At the end of the race it was almost impossible to maintain the pace. The painkillers I took to dull the pain gradually wore off at around the half-way point and as I was compensating for my injury with the other side of my body, I simply had no energy left. It was frustrating to give up the podium position to Andrea but we did everything we could and at least I was able to ride and take some points."
Factory Yamaha rider Ben Spies suffered misfortune of a different sort. Optimistic for a chance of victory in front of his home fans, Ben launched a good start and had got the jump on Pedrosa early in the race. Unfortunately, only four laps into the race, Pedrosa would return the favor and regain the lead. Puzzled as to why the bike had started to slow down, his concern was soon answered with a violent engine blow.
"We got off to a good start and felt great and when Dani passed me I could see he was using the rear tyre more than I was so the plan was to let him get a maximum three seconds ahead and start reeling him back in at the end.
"As soon as he passed me the bike started to slow down, I wasn't sure what was happening then all of a sudden it blew up so I tried to get off the line as quickly as possible. I'm disappointed not just for me but for the team, I think we definitely had second place and possibly the win."
Spies' teammate Jorge Lorenzo is happy with his second place finish. "We thought that the soft tyre could finish the race well so we took a risk with it. At the beginning it wasn't so bad and I could follow Ben and Dani. Then Ben had his engine failure which was lucky for my position but I am so sorry for him.
"Dani was a little step forward today and had a tyre advantage in the end. Anyway, second was the best we could do which is very good for the Championship."
The next MotoGP Grand Prix moves on to August 26 at the Automotodrom Brno of the Czech Republic.
