Jorge Lorenzo arrived at Le Mans determined to make amends for crashing out in Jerez and telling all and sundry that he absolutely had to win at Le Mans if he was to keep his title hopes alive. So that’s exactly what he went and did.
It didn’t seem like it was going to be Lorenzo’s day at the start, when Dani Pedrosa got his trademark flying start to go into the first turn in the lead. Casey Stoner had a sluggish getaway from the line but made up for it with phenomenal late braking, and that meant Lorenzo was in third ahead of team mate Valentino Rossi.
But it was soon clear that Pedrosa and Stoner were not comfortable in the damp conditions after morning rain that had afflicted both 125cc and 250cc races earlier in the day. It was no longer raining, and th track had largely dried out, but there were still damp patches and it was too wet to start on slicks: Pedrosa’s never liked wet races, while Stoner’s set-up simply seemed to be off the mark – hardly surprising as none of the teams had been given much chance to test wet set-ups this weekend in the ever-changing conditions.
But Lorenzo had both the innate confidence and the best set-up out there today, and as Pedrosa and Stoner fell away it was Gorgeous George who took the lead – and proceeded to blast away from Rossi in second.
Now the big question was, when would the track dry out enough to justify putting for a change to click tyres? Rossi found his wet weather tyres (there are no intermediates in MotoGP anymore) were going off as early as lap 5, and so to the amazement of many he was the first to come into the pit lane, dismount and…

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