Following a difficult opening practice on Friday in which the Spaniard struggled to get comfortable on his M1 he found a far better set-up in the second session on Saturday morning, which allowed him to battle with Dani Pedrosa for pole before eventually placing second.

“We have improved in every practice here and after the troubles of yesterday I’m happy about this session,” said Lorenzo, who ended up 0.308s off Pedrosa’s pole time. “I have a good pace now and I’m feeling confident about a good race.”

The only lingering issue for Lorenzo was the lack of time in which to gauge an impression of the rear tyre options, but overall he was happy with the performance of his machine.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t profit as much as we might have with the softer tyre at the end of the session and our bike isn’t the fastest here, but we have good corner speed so I hope we will be able to stay with the leaders. I am feeling excited and motivated for tomorrow’s race,” concluded Lorenzo, who is 68 points clear of Pedrosa at the top of the standings ahead of the race.

source: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2010/Lorenzo+happy+with+second+on+Misano+grid

Starting from the second row Pedrosa was on the pace early on and by lap two he was in second position, as he set his sights on pole holder Ben Spies. On the end of the seventh lap the Spaniard overtook the rookie on the start/finish straight and never relinquished the lead, eventually crossing the line 3.575s clear of Spies.

For the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rider second place marked his best result to date and a second podium in what has already been a fantastic debut season. Spies started from pole — the first of his MotoGP career — and his race result capped off a great weekend which also saw him confirmed as a factory Yamaha rider for 2011.

Completing the podium was Championship leader Lorenzo who had started from second on the grid but dropped to fifth at the start of the race. That failed to affect his concentration however and he battled his way past Andrea Dovizioso and into third just before the midway point of the race, finishing just over three seconds off Spies as his phenomenal record of having placed in the top two in every race this season was finally broken.

A complicated weekend for Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) ended with the reigning World Champion placing fourth in the race, as he won the battle of the Italians with Repsol Honda rider Dovizioso who took fifth. Nicky Hayden was sixth having started from the front row for the first time in his Ducati career.

Rookies Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini) and A’lvaro Bautista (Rizla Suzuki) impressed with seventh and eight places respectively, with Aleix Espargaro’ (Pramac Racing) and He’ctor Barbera’ (Pa’ginas Amarillas Aspar) completing the top ten. Loris Capirossi, Hiroshi Aoyama — on his return from injury — and Randy de Puniet were the final three riders to finish the race.

Suffering the disappointment of DNFs were Marco Melandri (lap two) on his 200th Grand Prix start, Casey Stoner who lost the front end of his Ducati Desmosedici GP10 (lap eight), Colin Edwards who was forced to retire with rear tyre issues (lap 17) and Mika Kallio who crashed in turn ten when he hit a bump on lap 18.

Lorenzo moves onto 251 points with Pedrosa now on 183 in second in the standings. Dovizioso is third on 126, with Stoner now seven points behind in fourth. Rossi remains in fifth while Spies moves up to sixth.

source:  http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2010/motogp+race+indianapolis

The racing is for classic motorcycles — although the Belgians have a rather relaxed view of what constitutes a classic. At one end, you can stand a few inches away from thundering Manx Norton and Matchless G50 GP thoroughbreds while at the other “gentleman” racers battle it out on 125cc Hondas converted from road bikes.

Absolutely everything is completely open to spectators. There is a world class beer tent and a de luxe “camionette des frites” selling irresistible Belgian chips, as well as a couple of autojumble stalls. This is racing several light years distant from what you’ll see from the Formula One boys who are competing at the nearby Spa-Francorchamps circuit the same weekend.

The Gedinne track, a shade over three miles long, is quite simply a country B-road which threads its way through the fields and woods surrounding the village. Spectators can take in the action almost anywhere but bear in mind that you are responsible for your own safety.

Gedinne is just over 200 miles from Calais, adjoining France and Luxembourg, in the heart of the Ardennes forest. Even better, a two-day spectator ticket costs 10 euros (?8.30).

source:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motorbikes/7950429/Classic-road-racing-festival-in-Belgium.html

Spies was 0.220s quicker than Championship leader and last year’s race winner Jorge Lorenzo who took his Fiat Yamaha M1 machine round in the second fastest time, and there was further joy for the American fans as Nicky Hayden took his first Ducati front-row place with third. Hayden was just a hundredth of a second behind Lorenzo on the timesheet in a typically action-packed and frantic hour-long session.

Andrea Dovizioso had held top spot briefly and his best time of 1’40.559 placed him fourth on the starting grid, with his Repsol Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa fifth at just under eight-hundredths further back. Casey Stoner, who had been fastest in both practice sessions, could only qualify in sixth as he lapped 0.559s off the pace of Spies on his Ducati Desmosedici GP10.

The third row will be headed up by Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha) and the Italian was left frustrated but uninjured when he fell at turn six with little over five minutes to go — his second fall of the day following an earlier one in practice. Marco Simoncelli (San Carlo Honda Gresini) also had a crash in the final stages of the session but managed to secure eighth place, equalling his best qualification so far this season, with Colin Edwards (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) and Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki) completing the top ten.

Hiroshi Aoyama (Interwetten Honda MotoGP Team) was 13th in his first QP since returning from injury, whilst Aleix Espargaro’ (Pramac Racing) had a fall at turn 13 and eventually qualified in 14th.

source: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2010/motogp+spies+pole+indy

With only time to do one flying lap, Hayden wasn’t able to improve his time. Still, he finished third to teammate Casey Stoner and Fiat Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo on the opening day of practice.

“It was rider error causing it to tip over,” he said. “Actually started out quite good. The bike felt good and I was going pretty decent with a hard tire on the rear. And put in a soft tire and felt quite a lot better immediately and started pushing the front a bit and made a little mistake and tipped over.

“And took forever to come back in. I mean, we went out, under a tunnel, back, under another tunnel, around the golf course, I think we were on the cart path. Came back in and by the time I got back in and got back out…my leathers had completely ground through, so they had to tape those up. But the bike felt OK. You know, obviously we need to be in the 40′s.”

Hayden finished with a fastest lap of 1:41.405 mins. to Stoner’s 1:40.884 mins. lap.

Teammate Stoner had been critical of the bumps in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway surface, but Hayden wasn’t assigning blame, other than to himself.

“You know, I got in a little bit hot and was just off line and it was Friday afternoon, so I thought don’t try to force it,” he said. “I kinda let it go a little bit thinking that I’d just run wide and just down I went. I was certainly, I mean it is bumpy in that corner and off line is not good. But I went pretty easy, but it’s not the first one of those I’ve had this year.”

Hayden said he had two worries when he crashed, his wrist and the engine. Hayden already lost one of his allotted six engines to a crash and didn’t want to lose another one.

“Well, as soon as I went down, I think that’s what I did, I tried to protect my wrist, so I dug my elbow in and did that, but I don’t think I did it any worse,” he said. “My arm got hot, just because it turned. But we got back to the box and the physio said ‘Was your wrist OK?’ I was like, ‘Well, it was hurting before I went out, so it still hurts. But it’s I don’t think worse or nothing. It wasn’t really a problem.”

Hayden said as soon as he got up he could hear the engine still running “and took off after it and had to shut it down, because obviously the engines, I’ve lost one engine,” he said. The bike he crashed was the one he planned to race. “And when I got over there the handlebar broke off and was up under it, so it wasn’t like I could just hit the button, had to look and the handlebar was all spun around. There’s about two or three switches on that bar that look the same when it’s turned around backwards, so I had to start hitting buttons, finally shut it down.”

Though the engine has heavy miles, he said “it looks OK. It was still running, but it had oil pressure. That’s the main thing. See if anything got sucked in the exhaust, which when I left the box they didn’t know yet.”

source: http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/road-racing/2010/08/27/hayden-crashes-still-third

Lorenzo won here at Indianapolis last year, complete with Captain America helmet, and despite his protestations few would bet against a repeat performance from the Fiat Yamaha rider this time around. Captain America has been retired, replaced by a new Iron Man helmet, but Lorenzo’s aim remains the same this weekend, to extend the 77-point advantage he holds over Dani Pedrosa in the Championship standings.

“I come here in very good shape, to a track I love and things have been going very well for us this year,” said Lorenzo. “Obviously I want to win, nobody in the world wants to lose, but I also have to be careful. Nobody knows what will happen in a crash; you could be okay or you could injure yourself so I need to be a little careful.”

Sixth in the Championship, Nicky Hayden is the highest placed American rider going into the Indianapolis weekend. The track, which is only a few hours from Hayden’s home in Kentucky, has been a happy hunting ground for the Ducati rider in the past. Hayden finished second at Indianapolis in 2008 and was third last year, but arrives for this year’s race with a wrist injury from a qualifying crash two weeks ago in Brno.

Hayden, whose younger brother Roger will make his Moto2 debut this weekend, is still looking for his first podium of the season, but is unsure at the moment just how much of a handicap the wrist injury will prove to be this weekend.

“It’s only ten days since I injured my wrist, but already it feels better than Brno,” explained Hayden. “I’ve done a little dirt bike riding with my dad the last week or so, with no problems, but braking on a MotoGP bike is a little different to riding up your drive, so we’ll have to see how the wrist feels. Actually, we don’t have time to be messing around with a sore wrist this weekend.”

Just nine points behind his compatriot in the Championship, Ben Spies could leapfrog Hayden to claim sixth place with a good result at Indianapolis, the track where he finished sixth as a wild card on a Suzuki back in 2008.

Spies claimed his first MotoGP podium at Silverstone back in May, but makes no secret of the fact that a repeat in front of his home crowd this weekend would quite likely be the highlight of his first full season in the premier class.

“You always want your best result to come in front of your home crowd,” stated Spies. “You hope everything goes well in practice, qualifying and the race, but I don’t think you try any harder really. No matter which country we’re in, we’re racing as hard as we can for 45 minutes and it will be the same here at Indianapolis this weekend.”

While his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 team-mate was been regularly running at the front, the first half of the season has not been so easy for Colin Edwards. The Texan has struggled to get to grips with the 2010 Yamaha M1 so far this year, leaving him down in a disappointing tenth place in the Championship standings. This weekend’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix marks Edwards’ 130th start in the premier class.

“Those 130 races have been special, some of the best times of my life,” declared Edwards. “This season has been difficult; after finishing fifth in the Championship last season we thought things would be cool this year, but we’ve suffered with this six-engine rule. We found something at Laguna, made the bike a bit quicker, and our best results of the season so far came there and at Brno. So, we’re getting there.”

Hiroshi Aoyama makes a welcome return to racing this weekend at Indianapolis, following a nine-week absence while recovering from a fractured vertebra sustained in his warm-up crash at Silverstone. The reigning 250cc World Champion tested the Interwetten Honda RC212V machine for the first time since the crash during the Brno test just two weeks ago and, as a result, has been passed fit to ride at Indianapolis this weekend.

“It’s been a difficult few months,” said Aoyama. “After the crash sometimes my legs were numb, which was pretty scary. It’s hard to be off the bike for so long, but the feeling was quite good at Brno. My back is still not 100% so I will race with a support this weekend. At Brno I had to lay on the floor after ten laps but now, two weeks later, it is much better. I am happy to be racing again this weekend.”

source: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2010/Indianapolis+preevent+press+conference

After his great performance in Brno, Spies must have a confidence boost to take him to a higher level. And because is hometown is not so for from Indianapolis where the next MotoGP will be, he must know the track like no other. With Rossi leaving Yamaha, Spies might start getting the “good parts” from the factory team.  Unlike Rossi, Spies was given a 2011 prototype M1 to practice on during testing after Brno.

So all together, Ben Spies has a good chance to win the Indianapolis MotoGP.

When  Stoner returned to MotoGP racing in late 2009 after a three race absence due to illness, his second race back was a rip-snorter, beating Valentino Rossi for this third consecutive win in his home race at Phillip Island.

Not only a great race, as Casey put any rumours of his continuing malaise to rest, but it was also a special race for the livery seen on his Ducati Desmosedici GP9; instead of the usual red, the dominant colour on both rider and bike was white.

Long story short – a  Ducati dealer has created a limited edition Ducati 1198S Casey Stoner replica motorcycle.

Though it’s almost a year late, and only available en France, the bike is a nice looking piece of kit. And with the Phillip Island GP approaching, and Stoner’s last year with Ducati before he heads to Honda, perhaps there will be more demand for replicas such as this one.

source:  www.bikepoint.com.au/news/2010/road-racers/ducati/ducati-casey-stoner-race-replica-21334

Spies swept by the Spaniard later on the first lap to engage in an exciting early battle with Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo. Despite launching a concerted effort to stay in contention at the front, Spies was unable to maintain his impressive early rhythm.

Battling a small front-end grip issue, the Texan tenaciously fought to keep Casey Stoner at bay until the Australian relegated Spies to fourth position on lap nine. Spies dug deep again to try and keep himself in contention for a second rostrum of the campaign but he was unable to keep close to Stoner, the reigning World Superbike champion settling for a comfortable fourth position that moved him to within 25 points of fourth place in the overall rankings. He was once again leading non-factory rider and second best Yamaha as Jorge Lorenzo triumphed in emphatic fashion again.

Colin Edwards also made a brilliant start from the third row and he was involved in one of the few battles unfolding in front of a bumper crowd of 148,120.

The experienced 36 year-old fought tirelessly to close in on compatriot Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi before he too encountered some small front-end grip issues.

He settled for a seventh place that moved him into the top ten in the overall rankings and today’s 22-point haul – the second best of the season for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 squad – further consolidated the team’s position in fourth place in the Team World Championship classification.

Ben Spies – 4th

“I got a good start and was staying right with Jorge and Dani for a few laps and had a comfortable pace. But after about lap seven I starting having problems with the front that I hadn’t experienced all weekend. It’s a shame because while I know I definitely didn’t have anything to fight Jorge with because he is riding so well, maybe I could have stayed close to Dani. I’m not saying I’d have beaten him but I’d have been closer to put up a challenge. I had one second on Casey when I started having the problems but I had to slow my pace quite a bit and that was a bit frustrating because it meant he caught me quite quickly. I couldn’t run his speed so when he passed me I didn’t worry about trying to run with him. I’m not upset though because without that small problem I could have easily battled for the podium. I’d have loved the podium to give me a big lift before going home to Indianapolis, but I’m really happy with my recent performances and once again I was the top satellite team rider and I can’t be unhappy with fourth place.”

Colin Edwards – 7th

“I gave it everything I had and I can’t be disappointed with the way I rode. I thought it was going to be a good race because I’d been strong all weekend and really happy with the new front-end geometry setting that had helped the bike turn much better. And when I got a good start I felt confident that I could challenge for my first top six of the season. But in the race I didn’t have the same feeling with the front tyre and I don’t think I was the only one that had a small issue. When I tried to push a bit harder I had a moment and I lost contact with Valentino and Nicky in front of me. I took some risks to keep close to them but there was nothing I could do. Seventh is not a great result but it’s better than where I have been finishing and hopefully we can make some more progress in Indianapolis and be closer to the front.”

source: http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2010/Tech+3+pleased+with+Brno+result