MotoGP Deutschland

Guten Tag from the Sausagering, where the MotoGP boys will unleash a fleet of 800cc Panzers in hopes of victory in the Motherland. Last time out, at Catalunya, Jorge Lorenzo pretty much blew everyone's doors off enroute to his fifth win of the season and an even more biggerer championship points lead. Will Lorenzo's Blitzkreig continue, or will another rider step up and send Lorenzo to hide in his secret bunker?

In other news...Germany marks Valentino Rossi's return to action after using his broken leg as an excuse to take a 4-race holiday. Coming into Germany, Rossi sat about 100 points behind Lorenzo in the points. With 7 of the 18 rounds in the books, could Rossi overhaul Lorenzo for the title before heading off to Ducati in 2011? It wouldn't surprise me.

Qualifying came and went, and Lorenzo helped himself to his 4th pole position of the year...but not before conveniently exploding his motor along the front straight and coating the hard-braking zone into turn 1 with a glistening layer of Yamalube. Lorenzo's Oil Can Harry tactic had the closely-following Ben Spies on his ass and into the gravel followed by DePuniet.

As far as the rest of the starting grid...K.C. Stoner and Dani Pedrosa rounded out the front row. Rossi managed a decent 5th on the grid. Colin Edwards 12th, Spies 13th, and Nicky Hayden back in 15th...not exactly a star-spangled qualifying session.

Grid 'em up and roll 'em out...Pedro gets his usual holeshot into turn 1 followed by Lorenzo and some dude named Barbara on a private Duck. Dovi and Stoner dispatch Barbara to take over 3rd and 4th, while Lorenzo takes Pedro for the lead...all in the same 2 corners. Bitchin'. Hayden made a good start up to 8th from 15th on the grid.

Things pretty much held station until 24(of 30)laps to go, when Colin Edwards chucked his Yamaha into the gravel...he was expendable. Then, with 21 to go, a huge turd dropped in the punchbowl...DePuniet highsided his Honda into one of the tight left-handers, Espargaro motocrossed over DePuniet's leg, and Bautista pretty much motocrossed over everything/body. The race was red-flagged as DePuniet's flaming bike was extinguished while he was carted off to the hospital with a destroyed leg.

MotoGp Deutschland Part Deux...a new 21 lap race. The sausage dropped and, once again, Pedro hits the front. Kallio hit the deck as Hayden barged his way up to 5th. Pedro and Lorenzo went back and forth at the front with Pedro finally hitting the front and gapping Lorenzo for the win. Lorenzo played it cool and hauled home 20 valuable championship points in 2nd.

While this was going on, Rossi blew past Dovi on the brakes to take 4th. At the front, it was still Pedro, Lorenzo, and Stoner...with Rossi closing. By now, Rossi was on Stoner's ass and looking to crutch himself on to the podium. Rossi went past Stoner, on the brakes, to briefly take 3rd. On the following lap, Stoner put a rather stout block-pass move on Rossi to take back 3rd. Rossi got back into 3rd only to have Stoner stuff him on the last corner of the last lap to secure 3rd. Oi!

Result:
1 Dani Pedrosa/Repsol Honda
2 Jorge Lorenzo/Fiat Yamaha
3 Casey Stoner/Marlboro Ducati
4 Valentino Rossi/Fiat Yamaha
5 Andrea Dovizioso/Repsol Honda
6 Marco Simoncelli/San Carlo Gresini Honda
7 Nicky Hayden/Marlboro Ducati
8 Ben Spies/Tech 3 Yamaha
9 Hector Barbera/Aspar Ducati
10 Marco Melandri/San Carlo Gresini Honda
11 Loris Capirossi/Rizla Suzuki
12 Alex De Angelis/Interwetten Honda

Das Gravel Boot:
Aleix Espargaro/Pramac Ducati
Randy DePuniet/LCR Honda
Alvaro Bautista/Rizla Suzuki
Colin Edwards/Tech 3 Yamaha
Mika Kallio/Pramac Ducati

Top 10 Championship Points after Germany
1 Lorenzo/185
2 Pedrosa/138
3 Dovizioso/102
4 Stoner/83
5 Hayden/78
6 Rossi/74
7 DePuniet/69
8 Spies/67
9 Simoncelli/49
10 Melandri/45

Alright folks...crack open a Bud heavy, deep-fry a Twinkie, and shave your favorite 'driver's' number in your back hair as MotoGP heads stateside, this weekend, at Laguna Seca. Rossi's won here, but Lorenzo has not. Also...welcome Roger Lee Hayden back to the clubhouse as he fills in for the injured Randy DePuniet on the LCR Honda. 'The Rog' last rode a MotoGP bike in 2007 as a wildcard at Laguna Seca and finished a decent 10th (on a Kawasaki, no less) ahead of both Colin Edwards and big bro Nicky. Porkchop!

MotoGP Catalunya

Last time out, at Assen, Whore-hey Lorenzo took advantage of another Rossi-free race to completely gut the rest of the field, rack up his fifth win of the season, and extend his championship points lead to 47 points. Even though he backed his pace way down on the last lap, he still managed to cross the line roughly 6 seconds in front of 2nd place Pedrosa. Game over...flawless victory.

So then...here we are at Lorenzo's home race at Catalunya. With Rossi back home hibernating in a Hyperbaric chamber and Lorenzo on the tail-end of a 3-win streak, it's pretty fucking obvious what's going to happen at Catalunya...and it did. Lorenzo helped himself to pole position as well as being quickest in all practice sessions. Not satisfied with that, Lorenzo went on to win a Chorizo eating contest in the Fiat Yamaha hospitality area and planted a little Lorenzoland toothpick/flag in the leftovers.

Sunday, July 4th at 2 p.m CST (Central Spanish Time)...the little red lights go away and Little Dani gets the wholeshot, but forgot to brake and ran wide which let pretty much everyone and their mama past. This put 'guess who' in the lead followed by Stoner and Dovizioso. On the Yankee tip, Spies dropped back to 5th from an 8th place start and Hayden sat back in 10th just behind Pedro.

By the end of the 1st lap, DePuniet has done a reverse full retreat and tagged on to the back of the front three...a.k.a. 4th place. Two corners later, Dovi leg-dangled his way past Stoner to take 2nd. At the begininng of the next lap, Dovi went one better and took Lorenzo for the lead into turn 1.

While this was going on, Pedro got his shit together, and was making his way towards the front o' the pack. Meanwhile, back up front, King Lorenzo was getting tired rolling around in a lowly 2nd place, and put a ridiculous pass on Dovi through the left/right Wurth chicane to take over his God-gifted spot at the top of charts. With the front three tripping over each in the battle for the lead, Pedro made his way up to 4th and looked to be closing in on the fisticuffs up front. Things settled down up fron (i.e.; got boring) until Stoner out-broke his damn self, from 3rd, and ran way off track...this put Stoner back in 5th behind Pedro and Depuniet. Stoner quickly kicked DePuniet to the curb and closed up on Pedro for 3rd.

9 laps to go, and Dovi beaches his Honda R-series211V at turn 8. This gifts Lorenzo the win, but Pedro and Stoner are still back yonder scrapping over 2nd and 3rd. ans Stoner and Pedro beat the shit out of each other for 2nd place. Pedro, somehow, came out on top of this scrap to bring it home in 2nd followed by Stoner in...um...3rd

.

Once again, Lorenzo waltzed home for the win and extended his championship lead to 52 points over Pedrosa. Dovi remounted and finished somewhere between 13th and 15th. Word on the street is that Stoner is re-jumping ship back to Honda for 2011. The other word on the street is that Rossi will take Stoner's spot to partner Hayden (and make 15 million Euros...whatever that is) on next year's on the factory Ducati team. Bellisimo! With Rossi out in 2011 at Yamaha, that would make way for Spies to move up from the Yamaha Tech 3 team to partner Lorenzo on the 2nd Fiat Yamaha factory machine. Makes sense to me.

Result

1) Jorge Lorenzo/Fiat Yamaha
2) Dani Pedrosa/Repsol Honda
3) Casey Stoner/Marlboro Ducati
4) Randy DePuniet/LCR Honda
5) Alvaro Bautista/Rizla Suzuki
6) Ben Spies/Tech 3 Yamaha
7) Loris Capirossi/Rizla Suzuki
8) Nicky Hayden/Marlboro Ducati
9) Marco Melandri/San Carlo Gresini Honda
10) Hector Barbera/Paginas Amarillas Aspar Ducati
11) Colin Edwards/Tech 3 Yamaha
12) Mika Kallio/Pramac Racing Ducati
13) Kousuke Akiyoshi/Interwetten Honda
14) Andrea Dovizioso/Repsol Honda
15) Wataru Yoshikawa/Fiat Yamaha

Grupo de Crasho

Marco Simoncelli/San Carlo Gresini Honda
Aleix Espargaro/Pramac Racing Ducati

Championship points after round 7 of 18.

1)Lorenzo-165
2)Pedrosa-113
3)Dovizioso-91
4)Hayden-69
5)DePuniet-69
6)Stoner-67
7)Rossi-61
8)Spies-59
9)Melandri-39
10)Simoncelli-39

So that's that...the next time out, the boys will goose-step into the Motherland for the German MotoGP at der Sachsenring. Rossi is planning his post-leg snap return in Germany after a successful 24 lap shakedown of his gimp leg on a World Superbike spec R1 at Misano, earlier this week. Hopefully he doesn't do the Doohan.

T...out.

*Pics from superbikeplanet.com and motogp.com