Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Ben...
Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Ben Spies did his best to play down expectations after his impressive preseason testing times, but his strong fifth place finish at Qatar (after some problems caused him to qualify 11th) did little to quell the hype.
Not so for Spies. Having not used the softer Bridgestone rear during practice, the team was reluctant to fit one for qualifying. He did, but got nothing from it. "I never put in a clean lap," he lamented. "Did one in the end that was decent, but it wasn't anything I thought was going to be great. I just put in the best time I could to get up there." He was 11th fastest, though not disconsolate. "I think we've still got the top seven for race pace for sure, but we're going to have a hard time passing people down this long straight," he said. His YZR-M1 was the slowest in qualifying and 11 kph (6.84 mph) down on Stoner's Desmosedici GP10 on the .664-mile straight.
As for safety, those concerns had abated. "The humidity has dropped a lot so you get a lot more feedback from the track and the temperature is up a little bit. It's a lot easier to understand where the bike is," Stoner said after a new record pole position.
With so little local interest in the race, there's no traffic, so no one arrives early on race day. The temperatures haven't been excessive. Stoner pointed out that it's hotter and more humid during the day at Sepang in Malaysia than it is in Qatar. Still, Dorna CEO Ezpeleta has made it clear this will be the only night race.
Stoner bolts into the lead, only to lose the front on the sixth lap with more than two seconds in hand. He blames it on not pushing the front with a full tank. "Unfortunately that is what led to the crash because looking at the telemetry I didn't have enough load on the front, so I guess in hindsight I should have stuck to the way I'd been riding all weekend," he said. He gives away 25 points to Rossi.
With Stoner crashing out of...
With Stoner crashing out of the lead, Valentino Rossi wasted no time in accepting the 25-point gift, breaking away from Dovisioso and Hayden in the final few laps to take the victory.
Rossi takes the gift and runs with it. Hayden was second, then third, and riding brilliantly. He re-took second briefly on lap 18 and was on the same second as Rossi until the 19th of 22 laps, when Rossi lit it up; his 20th lap was his fastest. He won by a second. Hayden was passed by Lorenzo on the 21st lap and, after passing Dovizioso on the final lap, was repassed by the Honda rider on the final run down the straight to the finish. Still, he was only 1.8 seconds behind Rossi, the closest he'd been to the leader since winning the Red Bull U.S. GP at Laguna Seca in 2006. "I really enjoyed the race and it would have been nice to at least been on the podium, but I'll take it and try and build on it."
One spot behind came Spies in fifth, and within four seconds of the winner in his debut with the team. "Yeah, I mean I'm happy," he admitted as he sat next to longtime crew chief Tom Houseworth in the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 garage. The first race was out of the way and he'd acquitted himself well. Spies admitted that his confidence had taken a knock in the run-up to the race. "A couple sessions didn't go our way and it kinda starts getting to you and you get upset a little bit," he said. Spies was the fastest rider on the track for three laps in the second half of the race "and I was slowly making inroads" but "just knew I didn't quite have it.
"I could see the podium, but you don't want to get too greedy. Gotta take baby steps. From the start of the race to the end we were strong. We were quick in the middle and the end. It was good, two Americans in the top five. I think it was a good race."
By now it was past midnight, and the teams were busy packing their crates to be freighted to Japan for round two at Motegi (a week later the Japanese race would be canceled because of the Icelandic volcano eruption and the equipment would be shipped back to Jerez for the second round). There were about half a dozen stragglers in the press room when the sun came up around 5:45 a.m. Driving into Doha I couldn't help but think what a silly way this was to hold a motorcycle race.