MotoGP – The Malaysian Grand Prix 250 lap by lap –

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The Malaysian Grand Prix 250 lap by lap

MotoGP - The Malaysian Grand Prix 250 lap by lap -

Final straight for Marco Simoncelli: with a good result at Sepang, the protege of Valentino Rossi could be crowned world champion for the first time in his career! Will the n ° 58 manage to enter the legend? ? Round by round !

Comfortably installed at the head of the world championship, the driver Gilera Marco Simoncelli approaches this penultimate race in the same way as the other GPs of the 2008 season: full throttle! However, conceding provisional pole on Friday to the surprising Hiroshi Aoyama, the n ° 58 also has a lot to do with a very lively Bautista and a Kallio who precedes him at the finish….

Zoom on…

KTM’s withdrawal in 2009. After a complicated 125 season, the Austrian brand decided to reduce the number of entries in eighth of a liter and to abandon altogether the 250 from 2009: "We decided to focus on the 125 category with two drivers for the 2009 season ”, explained Harald Bartol, KTM Race Service Director. "Category 125 has a long-term future and the company has decided not to waste money on a category that is on the verge of extinction.". Brutal and regrettable for the show, this decision dictated by the decision of the Dorna to quickly impose 600 4-stroke, certainly also explains why Mike di Meglio could not get an orange handlebars in quarter liter.

The two KTM officials offer a real last-ditch to the Austrian brand, the latter having surprised the whole paddock by announcing its withdrawal from the category in 2009 (see box opposite). Ironically, Hiroshi Aoyama will take the first pole position of his career during the qualifying session the following day, where the tricky track conditions will not allow any driver to beat the time of 2’06.893 set the day before by the Japanese.

Marco Simoncelli is one of the few drivers to have managed to improve his time yesterday and the Italian will start from third position on the grid behind Aoyama and Bautista. Immediately after, the future Ducati-Pramac rider, Mika Kallio stands in ambush ready to prevent Simoncelli from pocketing the world title, a race before the end of the season. Ratthapark Wilairot is in second row for his home GP, ahead of Aleix Espargaro, Julian Simon and the second rider going up in MotoGP next year, Yuki Takahashi.

The race !

Departure : Aleix Espargaro springs from the second row as moved by a giant spring and Alex Debon’s teammate enters the first chicane of the circuit ahead of Mika Kallion Marco Simoncelli, Yuki Takahashi, Julian Simon, Hiroshi Aoyama, Alvaro Bautista and Lucas Pesek !

Superb weapon pass in the leading group at the end of the first short straight: Simoncelli swerves under braking and passes Mika Kallio, while Julian Simon performs the same maneuver a few meters further! Very quickly, Simon is threatening on Kallio and as in the previous Grand Prix, the KTM satellite will tax the official braking! Aoyama takes advantage of a gap from Takahashi to steal fifth position.

2nd round : Aleix Espargaro finishes this first lap in the lead without having been worried, while just behind Julian Simon continues to make the show by realizing an unstoppable interior on the leader of the world championship, Simoncelli! The two pilots precede Kallio, Aoyama, Takahashi, Bautista, Pasini, Pesek, Debon, Luthi and Hector Faubel.

Marco Simoncelli reacts and manages to temporarily regain the advantage over the incredible Julian Simon, but the latter does not abdicate and brakes like a damned at the entrance of a right, forcing Simoncelli to stay behind! Aoyama gets the better of his teammate Mika Kallio. Marco Simoncelli takes the suction in the first long straight line of the layout and shifts to pass the KTM under braking. But the Italian is too greedy, the stress exerted on his front tire too high and the pilot cannot complete his maneuver. !

3rd round : Aleix Espargaro is warned of the presence of Simon and Simoncelli by his team, but the Spaniard cannot counter the braking from beyond the grave of a very fit Julian Siimon! Marco Simoncelli does not miss a beat, while Aoyama and Kallio hang on. Alvaro Bautista is now in contact with the Finn, leading Takahashi in his wake. Quickly, the n ° 19 gets rid of Mika Kallio, before going to stick to the exhaust of Aoyama.

Julian Simon is the fastest on the track, but Espargaro and Simoncelli do not let him go! Aleix Espargaro manages to regain the ascendancy over Simon, but the latter responds to the following left by infiltrating under the fairing of n ° 41, immediately followed by Marco Simoncelli! But the Italian is badly placed to accelerate again and Espargaro easily returns to the change of angle! The Italian tries to switch to the braking of the first straight, the Spanish resists, then widens and Simoncelli passes inside !

4th round : Julian Simon goes up the pit straight with a slight lead, while Aoyama in his turn passes Espargaro in the first right of the chicane. But the Japanese entered this technical turn too quickly and his motorbike pulls towards the outside, opening the door wide to his pursuer who immediately recovers his property. !

Marco Simoncelli gradually returned to contact with Julian Simon thanks to the rapid succession of the layout, then shifts under braking to a right before turning at the head of the race: a good demonstration from the leader of the classification, while he could be content to ensure for the title! As Bautista attempts a desperate attack on Aoyama, the latter sneaks inside Espargaro in a super-fast turn !

The two men emerge from the fairing against fairing curve and the Spaniard will finally have to bow – and incidentally bend his knee and his elbow so as not to be crushed! – before the resentment of the Japanese !

5th round : Marco Simoncelli has a lot to do with Julian Simon who tries to pass the Italian in the first chicane! A little broad, the Spanish is forced to leave the leadership to Simoncelli, but the clashes are virile! Badly placed at the end of the straight line, Espargaro must bow to Bautista.

This one sees Aoyama in front of him rushing into a mouse hole to overtake an impressively styled Julian Simon! Surprised, Simon relaxes the attention for a fraction of a second: enough time for Bautista to overwhelm him from the inside in a long left downhill! The Spaniard immediately tries to overtake Aoyama, but his optimistic attack forces him to brake on the angle and let Simon overtake him from the inside !

6th and 7th rounds : Marco Simoncelli always contains Hiroshi Aoyama, while Simon and Bautista surrender! Espargaro appears slightly off the hook in front of Takahashi and Pasini who saw Kallio suddenly slow down: the Finn returns to the pits, betrayed by his mechanics.

Hiroshi Aoyama manages to pass Simoncelli under braking at the first chicane of the circuit, while Bautista gets carried away after overtaking Simon on the line and widens copiously in the right: Julian Simon immediately seizes his chance and resumes his third place !

From the first right of the series of quick rows, Bautista manages to tax Simon from the inside. The latter turns to the rear of his motorcycle, as if to check for an exhaust problem … Continuing the battle despite everything, Julian Simon closes the group in front of Takahashi who has just passed Espargaro when braking the 180 of the first row. right !

8th round : Hiroshi Aoyama completes this revolution in the lead, while Bautista is up to Simoncelli in the pit straight: under the pressure of the formidable Spaniard, the driver Gilera misses the braking of the right of the chicane and must let Bautista pass and Simon !

Eager to fight to the end for the world title, Bautista passes Aoyama at the entrance of the second chicane, but the n ° 19 has too much speed and does not manage to take the rope: his motorcycle swerves towards the outside at the exit of a curve, forcing his pilot to manhandle her to approach the next left! That won’t be enough to stop Aoyama from regaining the lead !

9th round : Alvaro Bautista tries to overtake Aoyama on braking from the pit straight, but once again the Spaniard gets carried away and pulls away slightly. Marco Simoncelli manages to pass Simon through the interior on the first straight and quickly appears in Bautista’s exhausts. The group of four drivers are now 1.3 seconds ahead of Takhashi pursued by Pasini and Espargaro.

As on the previous lap, Alvaro Bautista passed Aoyama at the entrance to the last chicane on the layout, but he pulled away and the Japanese passed around the next left !

10th round : Motivated by the stakes, Alvaro Bautista ends up getting rid of Aoyama in the pit straight! Unable to reply this time around, the Japanese quickly found himself struggling with Marco Simoncelli, who passed him a few turns further. !

The two championship strongmen and the KTM rider forged a slight lead over Julian Simon who lost the aspiration. Refusing to admit defeat, Hiroshi Aoyama dives under the wheels of Simoncelli in the 180 before the pit straight and manages to keep his position at the end of the curve !

Even if this situation would still allow him to be titled, Simoncelli quickly overran Aoyama from the inside in a quick right. The n ° 4 is then at the mercy of a Julian Simon who reunited the group thanks to the numerous overtaking. But the Spaniard does not have time to attack: Simoncelli puts too much pressure on his accelerator when exiting a right and his rear wheel violently loses grip, allowing Aoyama to pass again !

11th round : Alvaro Bautista passed the timing unit with a slight lead over Aoyama, Simoncelli and Simon. A short distance away, the future Honda-Scot rider in MotoGP, Yuki Takahashi precedes Aleix Espargaro, Mattia Pasini and Roberto Locatelli. The local of the event, Ratthapark Wilairot is in tenth position, a decent performance given the lack of competitiveness of his Honda on the long straight lines of the Malaysian track. !

Julian Simon had foreseen it a few laps before: while he was in fourth position, his KTM will not be able to take him to the finish line, victim of the same engine problem as Mika Kallio. The Austrian factory will not strike the big blow expected for this penultimate performance of the 250 KTM in GP…

12th, 13th and 14th laps : Bautista, Aoyama and Simoncelli are now alone in the lead for the final clash, followed more than three seconds by Takahashi, Esaprgaro, themselves 1.212 seconds behind the Italian Mattia Pasini !

The positions are frozen in the leading groups, like the faces in Alvaro Bautista’s team: certainly, the Mapfre driver is leading the race superbly, but Marco Simoncelli’s current third place is enough for him to be crowned. world champion ! However, except fall or breakage, the Italian is now guaranteed to climb on the final podium…

Far behind Yuki Takahashi is explained with Aleix Espargaro and it takes all the energy of the swift Honda rider to resist the superior power of his rival Aprilia! Roberto Locatelli is in ambush, like veteran Alex Debon. Wilairot gets rid of a Pasini suddenly insecure when entering a corner: the Italian will eventually return to the pits, also victim of a mechanical failure.

15th, 16th, 17th and 18th laps : Bautista may try to widen the gap: in the current circumstances, Simoncelli would leave Malaise with 28 points ahead of his runner-up and therefore with the world title before the last race in Valencia !

Watching the points for fourth place, Aleix Espargaro managed to pass Takahashi under braking on the 180 commanding the straight line, but the Japanese was much better placed to accelerate and he managed to tax Aprilia in the pit straight! Alex Debon finally got the better of Locatelli and here is the winner of the GP of France on the lookout behind his teammate !

Alvaro Bautista now has a slight advantage over Hiroshi Aoyama, himself sheltered from an attack by Marco Simoncelli: the Italian seems to have played his way while racing and his panelists made him understand to ensure his position and by there the title !

Bautista is 1.2 seconds behind Aoyama, the latter 3 seconds behind Marco Simoncelli who no longer takes any risks, while Takahashi, Espargaro and Debon point far behind.

Last round : Alvaro Bautista tackles this last loop in the lead and the Spaniard even sets the race lap record with his worn Dunlops, beating by three thousandths the time set by Dani Pedrosa in 2004! Pugnacious too, Alex Debon managed to get the best of his teammate Aleix Espargaro and here are the two black Aprilia wheel to wheel in the final bends.

Bautista passes under the checkered flag as a brilliant winner, even if he concedes the title to his rival Simoncelli. He finishes behind Hiroshi Aoyama and stops along the wall of his team to put on a t-shirt celebrating his title. Dying of heat, the Italian gets sprayed by his mechanics and chooses to leave for his lap of honor without putting on his helmet.

Badly taken: as uncompromising as a French periwinkle, the Dorna and the race management will fine a 1000 dollars for this "oversight" to the brand new 250cc world champion !

With 28 points ahead of Alvaro Bautista – the two men will also congratulate each other at length and sincerely thereafter – Marco Simoncelli pockets the last title still to be distributed in the Grand Prix. The Italian joins Mike di Meglio and Valentino Rossi as titular champions before the end of this disputed season.

Mika Kallio and Alex Debon are still in contention for the final podium, ahead of Takahashi, Barbera, Aoyama, Pasini, Simon, Luthi, Locatelli, Espargaro, Wilairot and Faubel.

They are explained:

Alavaro Bautista (1st) : "The conditions were difficult. I did not start well and lost places, but I did not let the others go ahead. It was difficult, there were two other fast riders with us, but they slowed down and I realized that I probably couldn’t win the championship anymore. I gave myself 100% to win in the race, but I couldn’t win the title. I am very happy with our work this season, and congratulations to Marco: he has had a good season and has been efficient and aggressive. !"

Hiroshi Aoyama (2nd) : "I think the race was quite difficult. Temperatures were over 50 degrees, and it was difficult to manage the performance of the tires and the engine. The start didn’t go badly, but I lost time because of those in front of me. I used up my front tire, and I was afraid I would lose my grip too quickly. I had a good race with Alvaro and Marco, and in the last five laps I pushed harder but lost my grip up front. I tried to catch up with him but it wasn’t enough"…

Marco Simoncelli (3rd) : "I haven’t really understood what happened yet. I am so tired ! I think over time I will achieve what I have accomplished this year, but so far it’s just an exceptional feeling, especially after two difficult years when no one saw me as a fast driver. I got a boost when I got the factory bike, but it was still so difficult to win the title. But it made the battle against the other pilots easier. Alvaro and I were very strong, and we were quick on every track. We also had some pretty exciting races together. In the end, I won, and I’m happy about it. Having the plaque with the number 1 for the centenary of Gilera will be a great satisfaction for all of us. !"

Alexandre BARDIN – Photos DR

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