by Tracy Hagen

The Misano MotoGP proved to be yet another turning point in the 2012 championship with Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo scoring an easy win after his main championship rival, Honda’s Dani Pedrosa, crashed out on the first lap and lost out on his bid to score his third win in a row. Lorenzo extended his points lead from 13 to 38 today with five rounds left.

Pedrosa’s near-perfect performance from the last two races carried into Misano with the diminutive Spaniard scoring pole position in qualifying. However, things fell apart on race day. First Pedrosa stalled his RCV213 at the start of the warm-up lap. The race start was eventually aborted after Karel Abraham raised his arms right before the lights were to change. The start grid saw an influx of team personnel to install tire warmers and keep fuel tanks shaded to prevent heat-induced overflow. When race direction gave the order to repeat the warm-up lap Pedrosa’s crew found the front wheel tire warmer jammed. They dragged the Honda over to the pit lane and freed the tire warmer. As Pedrosa joined the warm-up lap, some distance behind the rest of the field, he appeared anxious and suspicious about the Honda. Pedrosa failed to make it back to the grid in time and was ordered to start dead-last.

Lorenzo led the way at the start, but it was Valentino Rossi that vaulted himself from sixth on the grid to second place going into Turn 1. “I got one of the best starts of my career,” said the beleaguered Italian later in the press conference. Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha) followed Rossi’s Ducati into Turn 1 but was overtaken by Stefan Bradl (Honda) on the exit.

Through the first timing marker the order was Lorenzo, Rossi, Bradl, Crutchlow, Andrea Dovizioso (Yamaha), Ben Spies (Yamaha), Alvaro Bautista (Honda), Nicky Hayden (Ducati), Jonathan Rea (Honda), Randy De Puniet (Aprilia), Hector Barbera (Ducati), and Pedrosa, in twelfth.

Pedrosa passed Barbera and De Puniet in the long, left-ward back straight and closed up on Rea, the replacement rider for the Repsol Honda vacated by the injured Casey Stoner. While braking for the tight left-hand turn Pedrosa was hit from behind by Barbera. Both smoothly slid off the track and were escorted away by the marshals.

Barbera deserves blame for the accident. “I don’t know what he was thinking – but it wasn’t good,” said Pedrosa later. But Pedrosa’s team deserves blame in equal measure for having troubles with the bike that resulted in Pedrosa’s grid penalty.

Though Lorenzo had a 0.85 second lead at the end of the first lap, he did not see the team’s PEDROSA OUT pit board and the team did not display it again. “I knew something was wrong when I saw Valentino Rossi in second place,” deadpanned Lorenzo in parc ferme after the race when asked about Pedrosa’s crash.

Surprisingly, Rossi held second-place all the way to the end of the race today. Over the first third of the race Bradl stayed within a quarter-second of Rossi. Then the air started leaking out of the German’s front tire and the Honda slowed dramatically. Rossi was obviously elated with the result.

“I had a good feeling with the new chassis and swing arm in tests two weeks ago, but you never know. You have to wait until the race weekend and especially the race to understand if it is true or not.”

Rossi dedicated his second-place to his friend, the late Marco Simoncelli. “I have a lot of fans here, it is my home Grand Prix, and this second place is for him.”

Who would finish third was in doubt until the very end and resulted in a photo finish. As Bradl faded Alvaro Bautista threaded his way forward. Bautista was seventh over lap 1-4, sixth on lap 5, fifth on laps 6-15, fourth on laps 16-18, and third on laps 19 -26. On lap 27, the final lap, Bautisa had a 0.493 lead over Dovizioso. This shrunk to 0.366 at the first interval beacon, 0.102 at the second beacon, and 0.128 at the third beacon. Dovizioso dive-bombed Bautista in the final turn to take the lead. Divizioso ran wide and Bautista pulled even. The Yamaha and Honda stayed even all the way to the line. A review of the video gave third place to Bautista for his first MotoGP podium. The crowd wholeheartedly approved, as Bautista rides for the late Simoncelli’s team and in livery virtually identical to Simoncelli.

“This is a very emotional weekend for the team. I’m so happy.”

Dovizioso’s teammate, Cal Crutchlow, a podium finisher in the last race at Brno, crashed at the start of lap 5, unhurt.

Ben Spies finished fifth. The Texan was a tail-ender of the lead group, but over the second half of the race he closed right up on to Dovizioso and started to show some confidence again. “It feels good to just have a normal race again.”

Nicky Hayden finished seventh in his return to racing after smashing his hand in a crash at Indianapolis. “It wasn’t fun today. We salvaged the most we could. After warm-up the team tried to talk me out of racing. It was nice to finish and get my best finish at Misano.”

Jonathan Rea, a subplot and curiosity all weekend, finished a respectable eighth in his MotoGP debut. “I achieved my target today, to get a top 10. The position was okay, but the gap to the front was more than I wanted. I’m not pushing the bike to the limit. It’s just a matter of trust. I can count the hours on how much I’ve ridden the bike. Riding a race with only 60 minutes of dry track time was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Unless another reversal of fortune happens, the 2012 championship looks to be going back home with Lorenzo. But Rossi reminded everyone about the reality of racing. “In a long season, 18 races…s*** happens.”

Next race: Aragon, September 30.