Under the rain of Le Mans, Jorge Lorenzo returned to the top of the podium by completing a perfect race and taking his second win of the season. Our Spanish contender had no rivals and was perfectly supported, even in the rain, with his X-lite X-802 that allowed him to have complete concentration and not make any mistakes throughout the race. An excellent third place was achieved by Casey Stoner (Nolan X-802) who, after the surprising announcement of his retirement at the end of this year, stayed focused and battled to the end of the race despite an overheating problem with his tyres that forced him to be less competitive especially on the final lap.
With this result, Jorge Lorenzo now leads the championship with 8 points ahead of Casey Stoner.
Next race in Barcelona on June 3.
Jorge Lorenzo
"It was really difficult to hold concentration today, in the dry it’s complicated but in the wet it’s even more. The race feels much longer and you have to remember where the corners are slippery every lap. If you forget one you can crash very easily. I started the race determined to be in first position from the beginning and managed to keep my concentration even when Casey was catching me. It would have been easy to push a bit more and make a mistake at that moment but I waited for a few more laps to see what happened then opened the gap again to win this fantastic race. A big thank you to my team who worked very hard in difficult conditions to make a set up that worked for me."
Casey Stoner
"I was pretty happy to hold on for a podium today. In the early stages Cal, Valentino and Dovi were behind me putting on a lot of pressure, but we managed to pull a small gap on them as I was chasing Jorge. Then as soon as the rain stopped and the track was less wet, our tyre temperatures got too high, we started spinning and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I thought the three of them would catch up and perhaps overtake me but we managed to hold on for third. I enjoyed the battle with Valentino at the end, there was clean overtaking and we swapped positions a few times but in the end we knew that Valentino had better pace than us and after he passed there was no way I could stay with him. We did everything we could today and to come away with a podium is a good result".
