Round eight of the series would be the United States GP, at Laguna Seca, for the fifth visit in the MotoGP era. The circuit, with its infamous downhill dive at Corkscrew corner, seem to have something against the riders this time around, with a number of crashes occurring through practice and warm-up sessions. The field was already depleted, with Mika Kallio (Pramac Ducati) out with a finger injury from his Assen crash, and the Scot Honda team now only able to run one machine, which meant that well-sponsored Gábor Talmácsi had pushed out the only Japanese rider, Yuki Takahashi. 13 of his countrymen had appeared over the previous five years, but only Shin’ya Nakano and Makoto Tamada with full-time rides.

Lorenzo had managed to crash twice in qualifying, injuring a shoulder, but still managed to secure fastest time and therefore pole position, his fourth in six attempts. He was joined on the front row by Rossi (second) and Stoner, with the Australian apparently still afflicted by some kind of virus, which had also troubled him at Assen. These three therefore relegated the leading Honda men to the second row of the grid.

Having both crashed in the Dutch TT, the two Repsol Honda riders led the second rank, with Dani Pedrosa fourth and then Andrea Dovizioso. Customer RC212V man Toní Elías, with the San Carlo Gresini Team, was sixth. Tech 3 Yamaha rider Colin Edwards was the first of the US riders at home, in P7. The other ‘local’ was eighth man Nicky Hayden, in clearly his best performance of the year so far, on the track where he has won two GPs. For this race, Nicky’s Marlboro Ducati was in patriotic colours: red and white stripes, with the odd white star on blue.

Rizla Suzuki’s riders were ninth and tenth, with Chris Vermeulen, a bit of a Laguna specialist, ahead of Loris Capirossi. The undeveloped Kawasaki ZX-RR of the Hayate team’s Marco Melandri was in P11, then came Alex de Angelis (Gresini Honda). The final places were filled by Sete Gibernau (Hernando Ducati), Randy de Puniet (LCR Honda), James Toseland (Tech 3 Yamaha), Niccolò Canepa (Pramac Ducati) and Talmácsi.

Lorenzo made a bad start to the race, just the opposite of Pedrosa, who went straight into first position, from Stoner and Rossi. Dovizioso quickly took fourth from Elías, with Edwards and Hayden also ahead of Lorenzo, and then Vermeulen. The first lap shuffle saw Jorge move through, taking fifth, now from Elías, Hayden, Capirossi and Edwards, with Vermeulen losing out. The Corkscrew is a left-hander which follows a right-handed kink and then winds right as it descends. Rossi took second from Stoner here, at the braking zone on the way in.

To begin with, it looked like the first four might be moving into a race of their own, with Pedrosa heading Rossi, Stoner and Dovizioso, but Lorenzo managed to close in, with Elías in tow. Now Stoner retook second from Rossi crossing the left kink start-finish line, with the Australian fastest on lap two. Hayden was establishing himself in a clear seventh, then came Capirossi, Edwards, Melandri, de Puniet, Vermeulen and Gibernau. Next man Toseland would soon be handed a jump start penalty, with Talmácsi not benefiting as he crashed at the left-handed turn six.

Pedrosa was beginning to pull a margin over second man Stoner, with third man Rossi now improving the fastest lap time. Lorenzo became the next man in line when Dovizioso lost the front end and crashed at the left-handed turn five. Gibernau was also about to go out at turn eleven, the final acute right-hander, and Capirossi had already toured into the pits having apparently lost the front somewhere. Elías and Hayden were fifth and sixth, but Nicky would soon use his track knowledge to find a way to reverse the order.

Despite his tumbles at Mugello and Assen, Pedrosa had really found his form here. Two or three new fastest laps helped him to move into a lead of over two seconds, and the best of these would have been good enough to qualify on the front row. His advantage was around three seconds half way into the race. By that time, Rossi had overtaken Stoner for second on the inside for turn six, and the gap between them was starting to increase, with Lorenzo now closing in.

Third man Stoner soon had attention from Lorenzo, and the result was that the Spaniard found a way past going to the inside for turn eleven. He then began to catch up to his team-mate, and a few laps from the end was really pushing the Italian. Four laps from the finish Jorge went to pass Valentino at turn eleven, but on the brakes he almost lost control as the Yamaha twitched this way and that on him. He kept it together but went wide at that corner and lost ground.

Having held a margin of around 3.3s, the second half of the race saw Pedrosa’s advantage over Rossi start to diminish. It was only in the latter stages that it seemed he might be under threat, and especially on the last lap. Valentino was closing on the brakes at turn eleven, and almost had a try at overtaking, but he wasn’t quite close enough. Dani won it by 0.3s, and would admit that he’d relaxed just a bit too much on that lap, although was alert enough at the last moment. Lorenzo closed some of his lost margin to Rossi, and would hobble off the bike with third place despite the pain from his right collarbone.

By the finish, fourth man Stoner had dropped well behind the podium men and, like Pedrosa, the next two finishers recorded their best results of this season so far: Hayden fifth and Elías sixth. Edwards, a World Superbike winner here in 2002, had held the next spot since the demise of Capirossi and took seventh. He had also been second in the 2005 GP, so this was a disappointing Laguna result for the Texan.

Vermeulen got the better of de Puniet (finishing ninth) and Melandri (tenth), but compared to a pair of WSB wins at Laguna, two GP podiums and a pole position here, this was a bit of subdued showing from the Australian. But he fared better than Toseland, who failed to spot signals informing him of his pitlane penalty - he was soon black flagged and had to stop for good. This left de Angelis and Canepa as the last finishers, because of the four retirements.

Honda had not won a MotoGP race for over a year, with the last one having gone to Dani Pedrosa in the Catalan race on the 8th June 2008. From 1992 to 2006, Honda had won more often than the other marques in all bar four seasons, but things have changed for them more recently, not helped by riders not staying the course often enough. Pedrosa put things right decisively here, but would surely have to win all remaining races to challenge the likely Yamaha title run. With Dani therefore not a real contender, Valentino Rossi was happy enough with second place, in front of his real 2009 rivals. But will he win again next time?

Standings after eight races: Rossi 151; Lorenzo 142; Stoner 135; Pedrosa 92; Edwards 76; Dovizioso 69; Vermeulen 61; Melandri 60; de Puniet 58; Capirossi 55.
Yamaha 185; Ducati 135; Honda 123; Suzuki 79; Kawasaki 60.

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