Under the heavy rain of Sepang our two riders where able to get a very important podium. Important for the championship for Lorenzo and for the moor, with the home GP coming next week, for Stoner. Praise also for their X-802 helmet which perfectly supported the riders under the rain. The race followed the script of last, with Lorenzo starting from the Pole and tried to make a gap over Pedrosa but did not succeed. Pedrosa then attacked and overtook Lorenzo, who without being able to replicate, was satisfied, under the hard rain, to keep the second position, until the race direction, wisely, decided to stop the race. Also Casey, third at the finish, still not completely recovered from his ankle injury.
Lorenzo is always first in the championship while Stoner is third.
Next race at Phillip Island on October 28th.
Here the riders declarations.
JORGE LORENZO X-lite X-802
"If we were riding at 20km per hour it is easy to stay on the bike but it is very difficult to find the limit in these conditions. They made the right decision to stop the race, for us it was great because we might otherwise have finished on the ground and crashed. We used the soft rear where Dani and Casey used the harder one. When the conditions were ok they used less of the centre of the tyre so when the conditions became worse they had more to play with."
CASEY STONER Nolan X-802
"At the start of the race, I would have been very happy for a podium. I was considering not taking part in the rain at all as the risks were very high – if I had come off the bike again and hit my ankle, it would have been game over for the rest of the season. As the race progressed I slowly got my confidence back and I was working on different things as I hadn’t ridden in the wet in quite some time. I slowly began to catch the front two, but unfortunately ran out of time as the red flagged the race. In a lot of ways I’m disappointed, but I’m happy with the points haul we took today and another podium."
