MotoGP 2009: Rennen/Race GP von Catalunya (Barcelona): Rossi vs. Lorenzo

Was für ein unglaubliches Rennen war das eigentlich? Nachdem sich die Herren Valentino Rossi und Jorge Lorenzo bereits im Qualifying stets gegenseitig überboten (bzw. unterboten, was die Rundenzeiten angeht), versprach das Rennen ohnehin spannend zu werden: Jorge Lorenzo hatte seinem Yamaha-Teamkollegen Valentino ja bei dessen Heim-Grand-Prix in Mugello keinen weiteren Seriensieg gegönnt, Rossi war also in jedem Fall heiss, es dem spanischen Mitstreiter in “dessen Wohnzimmer” zu zeigen. Jorge Lorenzo sollte vor heimischem Publikum sicher auch motiviert bis in die Haarspitzen gewesen sein.

Hier das Wesentliche als Video – bewusst nicht von Youtube, da dort die schlauen Menschen von der Dorna ja jeden nicht autorisierten Videoschnippsel in kürzester Zeit entfernen lassen. Daher ist die Qualität leider nicht besonders gut:

Für eine wirkliche Race-Analyse komme ich mit diesem Blogpost allerdings zu spät, es sind ja schon ein paar Tage vergangen und die Nachricht hat sicher bereits jeden erreicht. Ich brauchte diese Tage allerdings, um nach dem Rennen meinen Kreislauf wieder auf Normalniveau zu bringen 😉

Daher heute mal ein anderer Ansatz: Presseschau bei RaceMoto.com… Ich stelle im folgenden einige Originalstimmen aus aktuellen Medienberichten und Blogs zusammen. Ich hatte sehr viel Spaß beim Lesen, ich hoffe meine Leser teilen dies.

MotoGPMatters.com schreibt in einer grossartigen Zusammenfassung unter dem Titel “Triumph of the will”:

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Last Chance

One bolt shot, and how many more in his quiver? Rossi kept just inches behind the Spaniard, but Lorenzo had learned more than just braking from his team mate. The memory of those block passes around La Caixa still burned within him, and as the Fiat Yamaha pairing lined up for La Caixa, it was Lorenzo’s turn to demonstrate the art of defense. Keeping inside, he allowed Rossi the outside line, then drifted wide, forcing Rossi off line and with nowhere to go.

With just three corners left and none of them good for passing, Lorenzo held the upper hand. It was now a matter of holding his nerve and pushing as hard as he dared, keeping the door closed through the final corners to cross the line for the win.

That was the theory. But a chasm yawns between theory and practice, and Rossi had a final card up his sleeve. Whether it was an ace or a joker even Rossi did not yet know, but as he closed on Lorenzo through the turns 11 and 12 he got ready to play it anyway.

Pushing hard through turn 12, almost clipping Lorenzo’s back wheel as the Spaniard sat up to brake for the final turn 13, Rossi dived inside and laid his cards on the table. Sliding, almost losing the front, he held the line, leaving a shocked Lorenzo with nowhere left to go. The Spaniard had to back off a fraction to avoid running into his team mate, losing the crucial momentum that might have seen him beat his team mate back across the line, but could also have forced both men into the dirt and out of the race. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, it was far too early in the championship to be ditching into the gravel in do-or-die maneuvers, for Lorenzo at least.

Valentino Rossi crossed the line ecstatic at victory, more elated than he has been for a very long time. His joy at victory – and perhaps also relief – was visible in the hyperactive release of emotion as he rounded the track on his cool down lap. Valentino Rossi had needed a victory at Catalunya, and in extremis, had taken one.

Jorge Lorenzo followed his team mate home to take 2nd, perplexed and dejected in equal measure. Halfway round the track, he picked up the Barcelona flag he had ready for his celebration, but his body language spoke volumes about his disappointment. Visor down, despite the heat, he trailed back to the pits a beaten man.

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Wie eingangs erwähnt: Der ganze Artikel ist sehr lohnenswert und packend geschrieben – absolute Empfehlung…

Weiter geht es mit fasterandfaster.net, wo das Fazit treffend auf den Punkt gebracht wird:

The Catalan Grand Prix was one of the best MotoGP races of this year, with Rossi and Lorenzo getting into a massive dogfight towards the end of the race (…)

Ähnlich kurz & knackig hat es auch Alex Hofmann per twitter formuliert:

Who is the man ? Rossi is the ONE ! G O A T !!!! If you missed it ! Watch last lap of Moto GP race-racing that becomes history!

Auch auf seiner Website setzt sich die Begeisterung fort:

16. June 2009: Rossi’s best-ever win… Moto GP’s greatest-ever last lap !

I still haven’t got my breath back, yet! Because that was the most amazing last lap in any form of motor-sport that I think I’ve ever seen. Some people have been questioning Valentino Rossi’s reputation as being the greatest motor-cycle rider of all-time over the past few weeks and months. But ‘The Doctor’s amazing victory at Sunday’s Catalan Grand Prix made his point spectacularly; he’s still the boss.

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, have a look on the internet today for Rossi’s incredible last-corner pass on his Yamaha team-mate, Jorge Lorenzo. Because, by all logical standards, it really shouldn’t have been possible. Rossi aimed his bike up the inside of Lorenzo on the dirty, non-racing-line part of a bumpy, uphill 130mph left-hand corner. And the reason why Lorenzo didn’t defend himself is that it ought to be impossible to pass there.
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Autosport.com findet diese Worte:

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But at the entry of the last corner the reigning world champion sneaked through and somehow managed to find the apex, preventing Lorenzo from getting back ahead.
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In einem anderen Beitrag dort geht es vor allem um die Einschätzung des siegreichen Valentino Rossi:

The reigning champion reckoned the dice out-ranked even his now-legendary dice with Casey Stoner at Laguna Seca last summer.

“What a great fight, it was awesome,” Rossi told Italia1. “Laguna Seca with Stoner was good, but it ended eight laps earlier.

“Lorenzo was extremely strong, this has been one of the hardest fights ever. It will be difficult to beat him in the future, we’ll need to always be 100 per cent, but we’ve beaten him today.”

He said he was particularly delighted to have clinched the win with a last-corner move, as the fast final right-hander at Barcelona is not usually regarded as an overtaking spot.

“I’ve been dreaming of this overtaking manoeuvre in that spot for years, because that’s one of the hardest spots to overtake,” said Rossi.

“It worked once for me with Stoner in 2007, but it wasn’t the last lap, and then he overtook me back and went on to win.

“Doing it on the last lap was incredible. Certainly now the riders ahead must know that when I’m behind them I can overtake them from all sides!

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“So it will be difficult in the future, but at moment I’m happy, it’s 99 wins for me, and anyone who wanted a last-lap battle in MotoGP got what he asked for today, I think.

“I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence, but when there are last-lap battles I’m always in them! Today I confirmed I’m tough in close battles, and this is important under many points of view.”

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“With 99 victories and a career as long as mine it’s always difficult to say which is the best one, but I think this is among the top three,” he said. “It certainly was very exciting.”

Jorge Lorenzo wird dort wie folgt zitiert und zeigt sich somit als guter Teamplayer und fairer Verlierer dieses packenden Rennens:

He’s been cleverer and better than me, and brave, because I didn’t expect him to make a move at the last turn, and I didn’t shut off the line.

Das MotoGP Blog schreibt auch mit großer Begeisterung:

It will probably be the lap of the season. It will be long remembered as a classic, clean contest between two riders at the top of their game.

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The lap is fast reaching it’s conclusion, with just turns 11, 12 and 13 remaining. Lorenzo holds his line in 11 and 12, and leads onto the minuscule straight joining 12 to 13. He maintains the racing line, brakes and tips it in. “Nobody passes here,” he must have said to himself “I have this won” only to have Rossi fly past on the inside in a crazy move that was, to all intents and purposes, win it or bin it. That Yamaha front end worked again well, for although Rossi’s corner speed was slower than Lorenzo, who almost collided with Rossi at the apex, he was baulked sufficiently to cause a momentary hesitation and win the race by less than a 1/100th of a second.

Fantastic racing, fantastic skill, and a fantastic spectacle. Rossi has a challenger in Lorenzo who will not be easily cowed and has comparable skill and machinery. A statistic bandied about before the race was that Rossi has been beaten by his team mate 12 times in the MotoGP class. Six of these have been by Lorenzo. True, for many of Rossi’s races his team mate was Edwards, who you could say was fairly unlikely to challenge Valentino in this way. With Lorenzo, Yamaha have a second, strong championship challenger who is not there to make Valentino look good. Ducati must be very jealous.

Die offizielle Verlautbarung von Yamaha-Racing.com liest sich so:

Zuerst aus Sicht von Valentino Rossi:

As we say in Italy, “Mamma Mia!” I think I can honestly say that this was one of the best and hardest wins of my career. Maybe Laguna last year was more important but this was a great, great victory because it went to the very last corner and it’s a long time since that has happened. I have dreamed about that move for the last two weeks and today it worked and I am so happy to have this 99th win. We did a perfect job all weekend and my M1 and Bridgestone tyres were brilliant, but we knew that Lorenzo was in the same situation and for sure he was very strong today. I had to be very brave and take it right to the limit in order to beat him. This victory today is more important than the 25 points and anyway now we all have the same, what a championship this is! As well as thanking my team, I especially want to dedicate this win to my Crew Chief Jeremy Burgess because his mother sadly died yesterday. I have to say thank you to her and to him because without him, for sure, I would never have arrived at 99 wins. Now I am going to go to sleep for quite a long time because I need to recover from this excitement!

Dann von Jorge Lorenzo:

This was an incredible battle today and a brilliant show for everyone, I am happy to have been a part of it. Of course I am sad to have lost because I put my heart on my bike and in my career I am more used to winning these last-lap fights, but today Valentino was maybe a little bit cleverer or a little bit braver than me at the very end and he was able to beat me. In fact during that last lap, after I passed him, I expected him to pass me back on the brakes much earlier but he didn’t come, and then I just didn’t close the line enough on the final corner and that was it. I am proud however because I am young and I still have a lot to learn in this class. My team have worked so well all weekend so thanks to them, if we can continue as strongly as this all season then who knows what can happen?

Und von Davide Brivio (Team Manager):

This race deserves one of the top places in the gallery of Valentino’s career. First of all, it was great day for Yamaha because we dominated a great race, with clean fighting and a great show. Everyone has been talking about the fact that there hasn’t been a last-lap overtake in 43 races but I think we answered that today! For Valentino it is a very important victory and a win like that is great motivation, but the best thing for us is that it confirms what a good job we have done on the set-up. On Friday morning we made some significant modifications to the bike so thanks to all the technicians, engineers and the team because they are the ones that have developed these solutions and this victory is the best reward. To win a great race like this you must have a rider like Valentino and a bike and team like ours. The other riders are young and they will soon learn how to do the same, but for the time being Valentino is the only one who can do it. Tomorrow we will do some testing. We were looking forward to it, but in fact a lot of the things that we would have tested we have already tried out this weekend! Anyway, we will be here again working hard to make our rider’s life even better for the remainder of the championship.

Ich denke, die Liste ergänze ich nochmal, die Recherche und das damit verbundene erneute Revue passieren lassen des MotoGP Rennens von Barcelona / Spanien / Catalunya haben einfach zu viel Spass gemacht 🙂