Well the signs were there right from the outset that this was not going to be the eagerly anticipated return for Valentino Rossi that we all so desperately wanted to see at round 5 of the Moto GP championship in Mugello – which only happens to be Rossi’s home stomping-ground!
After a disappointing qualifying session that saw Rossi start the race from the third row of the grid in seventh place, a collision with Bautista on the very first corner saw Rossi’s home-coming party on the Yamaha well and truly over – not really the stuff of dreams is it!!
With Rossi therefore completely out of the equation the focus was soon on the three red-hot Spaniards – Lorenzo, Pedrosa and Marquez. After a nasty-looking high-speed crash for Marc Marquez during qualifying, he shot from his sixth place qualifying position to third place – right behind his Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa with Jorge Lorenzo out in front. Maruqez certainly does keep showing us that he really does have the speed needed to compete if not quite the finesse of the top-riders just yet.
And his inexperience was displayed once again with a crash just three laps to go leaving the door wide open for British rider Cal Crutchlow to rack up his second podium finish on the satellite Yamaha in consecutive meets. This solidifies Cal’s fourth place standings in the rider championship nicely with the top four stacking up as follows:
- Dani Pedrosa – 103 points
- Jorge Lorenzo – 91 points
- Marc Marquez – 77 points
- Cal Crutchlow – 71 points
I really cannot enthuse enough about Cal and if talk in the race paddock yesterday was anything to go by, a ride on a new Suzuki factory team bike for 2014 could possibly be on the cards which would be a fantastic move for Cal – if Suzuki can produce a bike to compete with the rest of the field that is.
Pedrosa’s second win of the season on the factory Yamaha was carried out with ease and sees him leap-frog Honda’s Marquez to stay well in contention with Pedrosa. And with a home race on the cards for the three Spanish riders in Barcelona next time round – I’m pretty certain all three will be challenging for the podium once again.
Cal’s teammate and fellow Britsh rider Bradley Smith also deserves a massive well done once again. After a couple of bad crashes during qualifying, Bradley went out pretty badly bruised and battered with a black-eye and a nastily messed up finger too. Seeing as he struggled to put his own helmet on before the race, God knows how he managed 23 laps of the Italian GP Circuit – but he did and a career-best ninth place finish and more points on the board were his just-rewards.
And finally a huge congrats to Scott Redding once again who managed to consolidate last times Moto 2 win in France with another first place podium finish in Mugello. With our Britsh riders really showing their talent we may be looking at a trio of British riders leading the pack in a few years time and wouldn’t that be something!
