MotoGP: Championship Heats Up at Indianapolis GP

The second running of the Indianapolis GP found much better weather than last year, with a bone dry track this time around. With a strong showing from Dani Pedrosa all week, the Americans on the second row, and a lot of contracts still up in the air, the 75,000 fans at The Brickyard were treated to a great showing of GP racing as the Championship takes another step to completion.

Dani Pedrosa fired off another famous rabbit start to kick off the Indy GP, and in hot pursuit were the other usual suspects: Valentino Rossi, and Jorge Lorenzo. After only a couple of laps, MotoGP separated the wheat from the chaff with the Pedrosa, Rossi, Lorenzo, trio creating a group at the front, followed by Colin Edwards and Alex de Angelis, forming a gruesome-twosome, who broke away from the rest of the pack as well.

Both Edwards and de Angelis have been showing strong laps, and de Angelis seems to have found the ideal setup for Indy, impressing everyone in the field.

What seemed to be another follow-the-leader race, was abruptly made interesting as Dani Pedrosa found too much lean-angle, and crashed out a third of the way through the race. Leaving the Fiat-Yamaha duo to battle amongst themselves, the 3rd step on the podium became a hotly contested item.

Nicky Hayden joined Edwards and de Angelis in their battle for third, and eventually made his way past the pair. Meanwhile, Rossi and Lorenzo pulled farther and farther away from the pack. Lorenzo put the pressure on Rossi, and eventually got by the Italian, but laps later, Rossi was in the gravel. This left Lorenzo alone at the head of the race, 10 seconds ahead of de Angelis who was now in second place. This also meant that Lorenzo, in one turn, had halved Rossi’s lead in the MotoGP Championship Standings.

As the race went on, Colin Edwards seemed to have an anchor attached to his bike, as he gave way to de Angelis, Hayden, and Andrea Dovizioso, who would lead Edwards by over 5 seconds towards the end of the race.

While Lorenzo and de Angelis (his best finish in MotoGP to date) easily found their way to the podium in the latter half of the race, Nicky Hayden had a nail-biter right down to the finish, with Dovizoso on the rear-wheel of Hayden’s Ducati all the way to the conclusion of the race. A “moment” in Turn 5 kept Dovi at bay though, giving Hayden enough breathing room to hold Dovi to the line.

Race Results from MotoGP at Indianapolis, USA: