Matt Roberts’ MotoGP column
- Monday, June 29, 2009, 13:54
- MotoGP
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Following the Battle of Barcelona, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo’s reluctant ceasefire at Assen represented the calm after the storm.
But there was blood and thunder in the chasing group, which featured a bunch of the hardest riders you could throw together.
Guys like James Toseland, Alex de Angelis, Toni Elias, Loris Capirossi and Nicky Hayden are renowned hard chargers, all riding for contracts next year, and you could tell.
“I know we were only fighting for sixth place but it felt more like there was a title on the line out there!” said Hayden, who lost pace in the second half of the race because of a loose handlebar.
The blood came from Mika Kallio, who crashed on the final lap and trapped his left hand under his Ducati, burning away his glove and part of his finger.
Admirably, he was able to laugh it off: “It is so painful, an incredible pain on the same finger I already injured during my first MotoGP test at Valencia. Maybe it would be better to cut it off!”
To his enormous credit, it was Toseland who came out on top to clinch sixth, but nobody rode harder than Elias.
He came through from last place to seventh, only to run himself and Capirossi off track with a reckless attempt at one last pass in the final corner.
Despite apologising to Loris immediately after the race, the move earned him a 20-second penalty that relegated him to fifteenth place.
With the announcement over the weekend that Marco Simoncelli will be coming into the Gresini Team garage next season, you can sense the desperation of Elias and De Angelis, who accused his team-mate after the race of being “unsporting, both on the track and off it.”
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