Honda scores much needed win

Repsol Honda rider Dani Pedrosa finally broke Honda's MotoGP win drought in Germany, blitzing the field in a very hot race that saw the track surface temperature of 50 degrees destroying the tyres of some fancied players. Pedrosa's effort, in front of a massive crowd of 101,000, was backed up by team-mate and reigning world champ Nicky Hayden, with Ducati-mounted Loris Capirossi splitting the pair with a determined charge through the field to second.

Though it disappointed when it came to providing close battle, the race had several bizarre aspects, not least of which was multi-time champ Valentino Rossi losing the front end on his Yamaha while passing Kawasaki rider Randy de Puniet.  Rossi got away to a poor start and was trying to make up places, and said he simply made a mistake. This left team-mate Colin Edwards to carry the Yamaha flag - he ended up in a solid fourth place.

The Italian's fall left the door open for Aussie Casey Stoner to walk away but it was not to be. The tyres on his Ducati deteriorated badly during the race, to the point where he was struggling to hold out for fifth place against Honda rider Maerco Melandri. However the Australian's championship lead remains intact, while his team-mate, Loris Capirossi - who seemed to do beter in the tyre-choice lottery - rode a mighty race to snatch second spot.

Australian Chris Vermeulen was pinged for jumping the start, which saw him end up at the back of the field after suffering a pit lane ride-through penalty. Countryman Anthony West rode a determined race to score a respectable eighth on his Kawasaki. He was trailing team-mate De Puniet, but the latter's machine expired with a mechanical problem in the closing laps.

This was also the round when we saw the inevitable 'musical chairs' game for seats in season 2008 start in earnest. The first confirmed move is that of Suzuki rider John Hopkins, who is moving to Kawasaki. In fact Suzuki may struggle for riders, as team-mate Vermeulen is also said to be on the shopping list for a number of rival teams.

Here is what the riders had to say about the race...

Dani Pedrosa -- first: "I'm very, very happy with the result today. This is a victory I'd like to dedicate to the Repsol Honda Team and to HRC because they have been working really hard for a long time without getting the results and I'm very happy they've kept motivation and put in maximum effort at every race. Now they have some reward. Also I'm pleased for the fans because they've given me great support even when I wasn't winning. The race went very well obviously. I made a good start, pushed hard from the beginning and was able to open up a gap and control things from the front. The tyres were really good today and Michelin did a very good job, especially as some riders were having difficulties. Towards the end of the race the gap was big so I could take it relatively easy, which I was grateful for because it was very hot out there. The result closes the gap slightly in the championship which is good, but the really important thing about today is that we are winning again. Hopefully we can move on from this result and continue getting stronger."

Loris Capirossi -- second: "It's been a long time, but I'm back! My team worked really hard here to find the best solution for the race. We changed the weight distribution, putting more weight on the front to give me more confidence going into the turns. The first half of the season was tough but I hope that we have now found a good way to go quick for the rest of the season. My thanks also to the Bridgestone guys, because we worked hard to choose the best race tyres, deciding to use a different rear from most of the other Bridgestone riders. At the start of the race I didn't push too hard, my tactic was to save the tyres, so I stayed behind Marco (Melandri) in fourth place. Later on I was able to continue my rhythm and move forward. I knew Nicky (Hayden) was coming during the last laps but I had enough to hold on."

Nicky Hayden -- third: "It's great to be on the podium after what started as a really tough weekend. The team did a great job overnight and made some big improvements to the machine. I came out in the warm-up and it was a lot quicker so even though I was starting from 14th I still had some confidence for the race. I made a decent start - not as good as the one at Assen - but I made up a few places into the first corner. Then I heard a strange noise from the bike and slowed for a couple of laps trying to figure out if it was a problem. It didn't seem to make any difference though so I just got my head down and started picking up places. The tyres worked really well today, so a big thanks to Michelin. It's a good result ahead of Laguna but I need to put the whole weekend together on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We lost almost all of Friday with problems and Saturday didn't go much better which cost us a lot. Dani rode really well to win the race and two riders on the podium is a really good result for the Repsol Honda Team. Now I'm just going to go home to the U.S. GP, enjoy the race and try to have some fun at Laguna."

Valentino Rossi: "Unfortunately I made a mistake today and I want to say sorry to everyone - my team, Yamaha and of course all my fans. I lost some places at the start and had to wait a lap before I could start to push, but everything was feeling very good. Getting past de Puniet was hard because in the part of the track where it's best to overtake he was very fast. Finally I made my move and I made a great pass but I made a mistake and lost the front. I'm so disappointed because today our package was working very well and we missed the chance to make up a lot of points on Stoner. We know from Pedrosa and Colin's performance that the Michelin tyres worked well until the end and I'm sad that we weren't there to fight. Luckily Stoner was only fifth so the points situation is not as bad as it could have been. I'm very glad we only have seven days until the next race because right now I'm feeling quite bad, but very determined for America!"

Casey Stoner: "At the start of the race I was pretty happy sitting behind Dani. He was able to find a little more traction than me in most parts and he had a bit more confidence in his bike through a lot of the turns, so I was just trying to stay there or thereabouts and see what happened at the end of the race. I didn't want to push too much harder, I was slowly pulling a gap on Melandri behind me and I thought I really want to save my tyres for the end. Then unfortunately we lost some rear grip and we weren't able to keep the same lap times, so we slowly started to drop through the pack, but we ended up fifth. Today was a damage limitation exercise. Dani [Pedrosa, the race winner] rode a great race, he was untouchable today. Towards the end Marco and John seemed to have a lot more grip than me in a few places, anyway, I fought them off and we were able to keep fifth position which is a few more points. I'm kind of disappointed, I felt we could have had a minimum of second today, reasonably easy, so we'll just have to come back at the next race and try to be stronger and iron out our weak points."

Results:
1 Pedrosa
2 Capirossi
3 Hayden
4 Edwards
5 Stoner
6 Melandri
7 Hopkins
8 West
9 Hofmann
10 Fabrizio

Points:
1 Stoner 196
2 Rossi 164
3 Pedrosa 144
4 Hokins 103
5 Melandri 97
6 Vermeulen 93
7 Edwards 88
8 Capirossi 77
9 Hayden 73
10 Barros 69