After a strong start Valentino Rossi ended the GP in fifth. The Italian in particular seemed capable of fighting for third place in the first half of the race, but he was slightly penalised by a less-than ideal setup choice and had to settle for fifth place. He took some satisfaction from the fact that he reduced the gap to the front, and he gained some confidence that the development of the GP11 continues apace in the right direction.
"There are good and bad aspects to today's race," Rossi mused. "On the positive side, we reduced the gap to the front, and the others in front of me weren't so far ahead. On the other hand, I'm obviously not happy with fifth place, because our goal was to do better than that. To tell the truth, we really could have done a little better today but last night we thought of a change to try in the warm-up and the session turned out to be wet.
"The change worked quite well, so we found ourselves at a crossroads as to whether or not to blindly use it in the race. We tried it, and that may have been a mistake because the bike moved a lot on corner entry. It was sliding, and I didn't have enough grip, so I was stuck for the whole race, unable to attack Dovizioso and Spies. Otherwise, I think I could have had a slightly better pace and perhaps battled with them. Anyway, we're not too far off, and we're working well, which we need to continue doing. The championship is long and we're still fully focused on both the GP11 and 2012, and we have no intention of backing off."
On Saturday Marco Simoncelli scored the first pole position of his MotoGP career and much was expected of the lanky Italian in the race. But he got swamped by his rivals in the rush to the first corner and ended the first lap down in seventh. Simoncelli was able to overcome Nicky Hayden and get close to Rossi, but in the end he had to settle for a sixth-place finish.
"I don't know if I held the clutch too long at the start, but it slipped and a lot of riders passed me, costing me a lot of time," Simoncelli said.
"After that I was unable to get back into the rhythm I had during practice and I was struggling, even though the pace in general was slower. I had a gap of over a second to the guys in front of me and I got it back down to three tenths to Valentino, but after a few laps I was taking too many chances in certain areas where it was a little damp and decided to pull my oars in and bring the bike home. Overall the weekend has been positive because after the pole yesterday sixth place doesn't feel great but I have to think back to how I felt arriving here in Barcelona and be satisfied. I achieved the first of my three objectives from yesterday, which was to finish, so we will try for the other two in the next race.
Cal Crutchlow, Nicky Hayden and Loris Capirossi finished7th, 8th and 9th while Karel Abraham rounded out the top ten after a close battles with Capirossi and Hector Barbera
The GP troupe now move to Brtian for the Slivertsone GP next weekend.
Main Photo: Casey Stoner
Credit: HRC
Event results
1 Casey Stoner 43m19.779s AUS HONDA Repsol Honda Team
2 Jorge Lorenzo +2.403s SPA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
3 Ben Spies +4.291s USA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
4 Andrea Dovizioso +5.255s ITA HONDA Repsol Honda Team
5 Valentino Rossi +7.371s ITA DUCATI Ducati Team
6 Marco Simoncelli +11.831s ITA HONDA Honda Gresini
7 Cal Crutchlow +26.483s GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
8 Nicky Hayden +33.243s USA DUCATI Ducati Team
9 Loris Capirossi +43.092s ITA DUCATI Pramac Racing Team
10 Karel Abraham +43.113s CZE DUCATI Cardion AB Ducati
11 Hector Barbera +44.224s SPA DUCATI Aspar Ducati
12 Alvaro Bautista +45.239s SPA SUZUKI Suzuki MotoGP
13 Toni Elias +58.268s SPA HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP
14 Randy De Puniet DNF - 22 Laps FRA DUCATI Pramac Racing Team
15 Hiroshi Aoyama DNF - 22 Laps JPN HONDA Honda Gresini
Championship standings
1 Jorge Lorenzo 98 pts SPA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
2 Casey Stoner 91 pts AUS HONDA Repsol Honda Team
3 Andrea Dovizioso 63 pts ITA HONDA Repsol Honda Team
4 Dani Pedrosa 61 pts SPA HONDA Repsol Honda Team
5 Valentino Rossi 58 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Team
6 Nicky Hayden 47 pts USA DUCATI Ducati Team
7 Hiroshi Aoyama 36 pts JPN HONDA Honda Gresini
8 Ben Spies 36 pts USA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
9 Marco Simoncelli 32 pts ITA HONDA Honda Gresini
10 Cal Crutchlow 30 pts GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
11 Hector Barbera 26 pts SPA DUCATI Aspar Ducati
12 Karel Abraham 24 pts CZE DUCATI Cardion AB Ducati
13 Colin Edwards 21 pts USA YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
14 Toni Elias 20 pts SPA HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP
15 Loris Capirossi 16 pts ITA DUCATI Pramac Racing Team
16 Alvaro Bautista 11 pts SPA SUZUKI Suzuki MotoGP
17 Randy De Puniet 6 pts FRA DUCATI Pramac Racing Team
18 John Hopkins 6 pts USA SUZUKI Suzuki MotoGP
