MotoGP - Pedrosa & Crutchlow Take First & Second Le Mans

Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC213V) scored a masterful victory in treacherous conditions at Le Mans this afternoon to take the World Championship lead from team-mate Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda RC213V) who finished a brilliant third in his first wet-weather MotoGP race.

The fourth round of the 2013 campaign started on a soaking track, which slowly dried as the race went on to reveal narrow dry lines here and there, making the task of machine control on worn rain tyres extremely tricky. Pedrosa and Marquez were the masters of the conditions, Pedrosa dominating the race after a tussle with early leader Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati), while Marquez fought back brilliantly after completing the first lap in eighth place. The Spanish pair now hold first and second positions in the points chase.

Pedrosa started from the second row and was up to third at the end of the first lap. He was quickly up to speed, passing reigning World Champion Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) on lap three and then attacking Dovizioso for the lead two laps later at the Garage Vert right-hander. Pedrosa quickly built a 1.3 second advantage but ran very wide at the La Chapelle hairpin on lap eight, which put Dovizioso back in front. The Spaniard was ahead again four laps later, then the Italian took over once more at half-distance. Next time round Pedrosa grabbed the lead at the Musee left-hander and that was that.

The second half of the race was all his own, his advantage growing to seven seconds at one point. In the final laps he eased his pace to cross the finish line 4.8 seconds ahead of Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha) who had got the better of Dovizioso in the final laps. It was Pedrosa’s second successive win, following his similarly dominant performance at sunny Jerez two weeks ago. The result was also Pedrosa’s 24th premier-class victory, which puts him one win behind 1993 500 World Champion Kevin Schwantz.

Dani Pedrosa

Repsol Honda: race winner
“I’m very happy because I have earned an important victory. I’ve been trying to win at this circuit for many years in MotoGP and it has always been a tough track for me. Today, the moment finally arrived, when I least expected it, and it is immensely satisfying. Conditions here are usually against me, because it is cold and I don’t like riding in these temperatures, but today I got the best out of myself. The bike was also good, above all on the opening laps when the track was very wet. I made a few mistakes but I was able to recover from them, maintain the advantage and win the race. I’d like to thank all my team and also my supporters!”

Cal Crutchlow

Yamaha Tech3, 2nd
“I’m really happy to get my best ever result in MotoGP and the whole team did an incredible job and deserves this result. We showed our fast pace in the dry, we showed our pace in the wet and I think everybody is aware we are not here through luck. It’s even better and more important because this is the home race for Tech 3 and Monster Energy sponsors the event. So to be the best and only Yamaha on the podium feels really good. My start was not the best and it took me a bit of time to get temperature into the tyres. But once I managed that I felt really comfortable. When I saw Andrea and Dani opening a small gap to Valentino I had to make a move because I was afraid they would be too far ahead to try and catch later in the race. And when I saw Marquez recovering time on my pit board I had to pass Andrea otherwise he might have caught both of us during the last laps. I’m really happy with how things went, especially after the crash yesterday. The wet track obviously put less stress on my body but it was tough riding injured in such tough conditions. From now on I just hope we can be injury free and go to Mugello to put on the same show as we did here today.”