For the second race running, the weather played a hugely important role in the MotoGP race – even if the race itself enjoyed a completely dry track and brilliant sunshine.
That hadn’t been the case a few hours earlier when the riders endured a sodden final warm-up practice session; and things had been even worse on Saturday, resulting in qualifying being cancelled and the running order being set by the single dry session thus far, a distant memory back on Friday afternoon. Added to that, the rain had washed the track clean and reset it to factory conditions, so to speak – no one had a clue how it would handle.
That meant the drivers had very little set-up data for the race day itself, and there was a lot of guesswork going on. The form book was well and truly out of the window on this one.
It all seemed to be playing into Valentino Rossi’s hands. Not only did he have pole position, but with his level of experience his guess work should be better than most. And if it wasn’t – well, his biggest skill is being able to change his riding style to suit the conditions, and never would that be tested more than this race.
Sure enough, Rossi got a strong start and headed off to a commanding lead. Behind him it was Dani Pedrosa who got a flyer, starting from the fourth row of the grid in 4th but somehow blasting through the pack to instantly battle Jorge Lorenzo for second place. Over the opening laps, the two arch-rival Spaniards had a thrilling battle for the position, trading places until finally Lorenzo managed to secure the second spot and put Pedrosa behind him; and once he did, he was quickly able to pull out a lead on the…

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