By Dan Moakes
May 21 2012

Casey Stoner had won rounds two and three for Repsol Honda, giving the Australian rider a single-point lead in the MotoGP world championship, ahead of Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo, the winner of round one. Stoner made headlines in a different way as the fourth meeting of the season got underway, as the riders prepared to tackle the French Grand Prix at Le Mans.

Casey had made his GP début in 2001, going on to win a couple of 125cc races and finishing fifth in that series in 2004. He won five times and ended up second overall in the 250cc title race in 2005, then moved up to MotoGP in 2006. Hired by the works Ducati team for 2007, he dominated the championship with ten race wins, and there were another thirteen victories as that partnership stretched to four seasons. Then he moved across to a factory Honda ride in 2011, with another ten race wins and his second title. Now at 26 years and seven months, Casey announced that he would be retiring from Grands Prix at the end of the season.

Stoner’s intention to stop at a relatively early age was not completely surprising to everyone, but most people rightly felt that he still had a few good years to go, and this particular timing was a bit of a shock. Casey talked about the technical direction of MotoGP and the fact that he wasn’t enjoying the racing as much as he used to. And of course he has a wife and also a young baby to think of now, which obviously comes into his thinking. A third world title is still highly achievable, but a key question raised by this decision concerns who might get the chance to take over his coveted seat at Honda in 2013.

In the short term there was a race to be won at Le Mans, a circuit where Stoner had taken victory for the first time only a year earlier. Among his rivals were three-time Le Mans winners Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) and Valentino Rossi (Ducati); and Andrea Dovizioso (Tech 3 Yamaha), once the winner here in 125s. Joining the party for this event was the 2007 winner of the MotoGP race at Le Mans, with Australian rider Chris Vermeulen returning to the series to deputise for the injured Colin Edwards on the Forward Racing Suter-BMW CRT bike. Vermeulen had been with Suzuki for four years, with three pole positions and seven podium results.

Practice sessions across the weekend were affected by the weather, although during qualifying there was some dry running until almost the finish of the session. Timing was reasonably critical, therefore, and some of the faster men found there was traffic to negotiate and felt they had been disadvantaged. Getting everything right and taking his first pole of the year was Pedrosa, also his twentieth in the premier class. He was joined on the front row of the grid by team-mate Stoner in second, as Honda made the running with the 1000cc RC213V.

The quartet of Yamaha M1 runners took up the next four places, but both the factory machines were on row two. Third went to one of the satellite machines, with Dovizioso on the front row for the first time since being dropped by Honda. His team-mate Cal Crutchlow was fifth, in between works men Lorenzo (fourth) and Ben Spies (sixth). In seventh was Rossi, which marked his best qualifying result with the GP12 version of the Ducati, and Valentino confirmed that he would be staying in MotoGP for two more years. He shared row three with Spaniards Álvaro Bautistá (Gresini Honda) and Héctor Barberá (Pramac Ducati).

The other two Ducatis followed on, with Karel Abraham tenth for the Cardion AB team, and then works rider Nicky Hayden next. A qualifying crash for LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl saw him back in P13, behind the leading CRT machine - the ART piloted by local man Randy de Puniet for the Aspar team. Then it was Michele Pirro (Gresini FTR-Honda), Yonny Hernández (Avintia Racing), James Ellison (Bird Motorsport ART), Aleix Espargaró (Aspar ART), Danilo Petrucci (Ioda-Aprilia), Iván Silva (Avintia), Mattia Pasini (Speed Master ART) and Vermeulen with the number 7 Suter.

The conditions on race day were wet, leading to a proliferation of incident in the supporting Moto3 and Moto2 races, and it was raining again at the start of the main race. Pedrosa got away first, followed by Stoner and Dovizioso. The first bend at Le Mans is a fast right called Courbe Dunlop, and this feeds into the left-right Chicane Dunlop. Lorenzo passed Dovizioso for third at the chicane, soon enough found a way past Stoner, and at the double-right Virage du Garage Vert, before the back straight, he passed Pedrosa for the lead. Initially fifth was Rossi, from Crutchlow, Bradl and Bautistá, whilst de Puniet had crashed trying to leave the line, so that he had to return to the pits for his second bike.

Lorenzo had the best early pace in the tricky conditions, and he began to stretch something of an advantage over the Honda pair. Rossi was quick to pass Dovizioso to run fourth behind Pedrosa and Stoner, with Crutchlow heading Bradl, Bautistá, Abraham, Pirro, Hayden, Barberá, Espargaró, Pasini, Petrucci, Ellison, Hernández, Spies - who had found his Yamaha sliding off the line at the start - and Vermeulen. Silva suffered an early crash but was able to continue. Up front, Pedrosa didn’t seem as comfortable as Lorenzo, and soon enough he lost out to Stoner at the left looping Courbe du Musée.

Even a change of pursuer wasn’t enough to stop Lorenzo extending his advantage to 2.9s after three laps, but Stoner had also pulled a small gap over the next man. By now that was Rossi, who had passed Pedrosa on the inside line going into Garage Vert. Dani also lost out to his ex-team-mate as Dovizioso went past on the inside through Courbe Dunlop, with Crutchlow not long in making his own move on the Honda rider. Bradl remained at the rear of the group on his customer RCV, with the similar machine of Bautistá next but not quite on the same pace.

Lorenzo recorded another new fastest lap as he took his lead to 4.5s after four laps, but Stoner’s response meant that they were 3.4s apart with ten laps gone. Fastest laps had been traded between a few different men, including both the Tech 3 Yamaha riders, but Casey improved this again at half-distance and was about 2.7s from Jorge not long after. But from there the Yamaha man asserted his authority, getting his lead out to over six seconds as Stoner seemed to accept that he wasn’t going to close the gap.

Stoner had edged away from those behind, leaving a battle for third between Rossi, Dovizioso and Crutchlow. The Englishman had taken over in fourth when he was able to almost force an opening on the inside for the right-hander at Chicane Dunlop, where he then looked threatening behind the red Ducati. Cal passed Valentino on the inside for the first part of the same chicane when he came off the brakes earlier, and then Andrea also went by ‘the Doctor’ on the inside for the next right, the Virage de la Chapelle hairpin. Soon after that the Yamaha pair swapped back again as Dovizioso passed Crutchlow for third.

However, Rossi wasn’t done yet, and clearly the conditions were giving him the chance to make the Ducati more competitive than is genuinely the case otherwise. The back straight leads to the left-right Virage du Chemin Aux Boeufs and an out-braking opportunity, and Valentino went to the inside there to re-pass Crutchlow. A few laps later Cal slid off the track at Chicane Dunlop, losing a possible podium but still getting back into the race in eighth position. Rossi soon passed Dovizioso at Garage Vert, at the second time of asking, and from there began to stretch away.

Dovizioso would have his own crash in the latter stages, although again he was able to get back on track in seventh. But meanwhile Rossi had begun to close in on Stoner in second. With seven laps left to run the difference was just under two seconds, and with four laps left to run he was right behind and on the attack. Next time round Rossi went for the inside at Chicane Dunlop and was through, but he ran in deep and better drive on the way out put Stoner back in front. Next time round he tried at the ‘S’ du Garage Bleu, but with a similar result.

So the race for second place between the two champions came down to the final lap. This time Rossi made no error with his move into Chicane Dunlop, and Stoner had no answer as the Italian eased away, taking Ducati’s best race result since he’d joined the team. The two championship leaders were split by Rossi, with Lorenzo first home and Stoner third. The separate falls for the Tech 3 pair worked in favour of Honda runners Pedrosa and Bradl, who were well spaced and made no mistakes to take fourth and fifth. Stefan’s best MotoGP finish was secured just in front of Hayden, with Dovizioso and then Crutchlow some way back.

Barberá got the better of Bautistá to take ninth, and more shuffling had gone on behind them. Petrucci had run in an impressive eleventh in only his fourth GP, heading the CRT men and fending off Pasini, but the Ioda was a late non-finisher. Abraham had been behind Petrucci until losing out to Pasini and then Ellison, but the Czech rider then stopped in the pits. Both Spies and Vermeulen had made pit visits, with Ben having gained a few places before opting for a new visor. Making better progress had been Ellison, who’d passed Espargaró, Pirro, Spies, Abraham and finally Pasini to take P11, and the best result so far for the ART.

Pasini was twelfth home, for his best finish so far as a MotoGP rookie, and he was ahead of Espargaró, Pirro (who had soon lost ground after a great start), Hernández, and the delayed Spies, Vermeulen and Silva. After his false start, and ending up well down on the main field on his second machine, de Puniet had ended up a non-finisher at home, along with just Abraham and Petrucci.

There were talking points surrounding Casey Stoner’s retirement and Valentino Rossi’s resurgence with the Ducati in the wet race, as he earned his 176th GP podium result; but Jorge Lorenzo’s faultless ride earned him the 25 points, a fourth win at Le Mans, and put him back ahead of Stoner in the championship. There was disappointment for those racing at home, which meant not just Randy de Puniet but also the Tech 3 team, for whom seventh and eighth could so easily have been two in the top four or five. The next stop is Barcelona.

Standings after four races: Lorenzo 90; Stoner 82; Pedrosa 65; Crutchlow 45; Dovizioso 44; Rossi 42; Bautistá and Bradl 35; Hayden 33; Barberá 26 ·· CRT leader: Espargaró.
Yamaha 90; Honda 86; Ducati 47; ART 16; Suter-BMW, Ioda-Aprilia, FTR-Kawasaki and FTR-Honda 4