France MotoGP 2011: Stoner romps to French glory

CASEY Stoner romped home to his second victory of the 2011 MotoGP season on Sunday.  However, his dominance was overshadowed by a contentious collision between his team-mate Dani Pedrosa and Marco Simoncelli, which has left the luckless Pedrosa with a broken collarbone.

    The controversial incident happened with 11 laps to go in Le Mans.  Simoncelli had caught up to second-placed Pedrosa and passed the Repsol Honda rider into the tight Garage Green bend.  Pedrosa got the run out of the corner and pulled alongside the Grissini Honda rider approaching the next tight chicane at the French Grand Prix.  Under-braking and it seemed that Pedrosa had the racing line.  However, Simoncelli, who has few friends in the paddock anyways, refused to budge and turned across Dani at a very late stage.  Consequently, contact was inevitable.  Simoncelli, subject to an official complaint about his riding style from Stoner and world champion Jorge Lorenzo before the race began, survived with a trip across the grass.  Unfortunately, Pedrosa wasn’t so lucky.  He crashed out of the race and walked away, wincing in pain.  He suffered a broken collarbone for the second time in seven months, having just fully recovered from a similar injury that finished his championship hopes during practice for last year’s Japanese Grand Prix.  His participation in next month’s Catalunya Grand Prix in Barcelona is now in severe jeopardy.

     Although the accident was more the fault of young Italian Simoncelli, many observers thought it was a racing incident.  Race stewards took matters into their own hands and handed Simoncelli a barbaric and ridiculous ride-through penalty with five laps to go.  Reviewing the incident after the race would have been far fairer, and when you consider that Valentino Rossi escaped scot-free from his move that took Stoner out of last month’s Spanish Grand Prix, it shows the deep inconsistency that is plaguing the world’s premier bike series when it comes to steward’s decisions.  It cost Simoncelli a shot at his first ever MotoGP podium finish.

WHEELIE: Stoner shows off after cruising to success in France

     Stoner was in formidable form all weekend.  The Australian was fastest in every single session and grabbed his third pole position from four races.  Although Pedrosa got the jump on him at the start, Stoner made his move on the third circuit and disappeared into the distance, winning by 15 seconds.  Andrea Dovizioso held off a late attack from Rossi to make it a Honda 1-2.  However, it was Rossi’s first podium for Ducati and will give the under pressure Italian team some fresh encouragement.  Lorenzo had a quiet ride to fourth, nursing a damaged hand from a practice crash earlier in the weekend, whilst Simoncelli battled back past Ben Spies on the last lap to claim fifth.  Britain’s Cal Crutchlow crashed out early on, as did french favourite Randy de Pruniet.  However, it will be ‘that’ move that will dominate the talking and the harsh words will no doubt roll into Barcelona.