What a magnificent race! Dani Pedrosa was unfortunate to lose control and take out his Championship leading Teammate Nicky Hayden within the first couple of laps. After that, frankly I expected Valentino Rossi to waltz off to a commanding victory. Thankfully Kenny Roberts Jr. and Toni Elias had other ideas! Elias pulled off some amazing overtaking maneuvers, often with his bike going sideways.
Rossi, Roberts Jr. and Elias immense battle saw all three riders lead, and eventually Toni Elias got his maiden MotoGP victory, beating Rossi into second by a margin of 0.002 seconds. An interesting race with an amazing finish!
The Ilmor team made their MotoGP debut today. Ilmor are the people that build the Mercedes Engines for the McLaren F1 team, and their 15th place finish and 1 championship point may not seem that impressive on the face of it, but the Team made history by being the first team to run under next year’s regulations, which means that they were using an 800cc V4 engine against everyone else’s 990cc motors. They even managed to overtake one of the Ducati bikes during the race, and had to pit several times. This is a team that are rumoured to be trying to get Leon Haslam – runner up in this year’s British Superbike Championship for Ducati – to ride for them next season, presumably alongside Garry McCoy, who rode for the team today.
Compton Grand Prix 