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2008-05-18 Valentino Rossi gets top step of all-Yamaha podium at Le Mans
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 Valentino Rossi today took his second consecutive victory this season, which is also his 64th in MotoGP category and 90th in all categories, which was equal result to Angel Nieto. In another original celebration, Rossi took passenger seat on his YZR-M1 and let Nieto drive him to parc ferme. Jorge Lorenzo, who rode seriously injured and in great pain, managed to score fantastic second place, showing that he is one of few riders that will be future of the MotoGP. Colin Edwards finally managed to get result that is close to his pre-race form, completing all Yamaha podium at Le Mans.
Start of the race was not so great for Rossi, who lost few places before first corner, but he started immediately to gain them back, as he did not wanted to let leading duo of Stoner and Pedrosa to go away. Soon Rossi managed to get in front, and from that point, he never let it go. Somewhere around middle of the race, slight rain started, race was declared wet, but Rossi took this opportunity to make gap of 10 seconds to following group.
Early followers of Rossi were Stoner and Pedrosa, with Stoner looking slightly slower than Pedrosa, but tricky for overtaking. After many attempts, Pedrosa got second place at some point, but as we saw in next few laps, even he was unable to follow pace set by Rossi. Bad times for Pedrosa came when it started raining, as he lost his position from Stoner and ever present Edwards.
Careful ride of other riders and slight rain were in favor of fantastic Lorenzo, who was gaining places one by one, and from 5th which looked like realistic result for him, he ended race in fantastic 2nd. Edwards completed all-Yamaha podium, in front of Dani Pedrosa, who once again shown that he is not so good in wet track. Casey Stoner looked on almost certain way to podium when his Ducati had failure and he had to go into the pits and take spare Ducati on rain tires, which gave him no chances for points.
Chris Vermeulen earned his best result of the season by taking 5th place, in front of Andrea Dovizioso in 6th. Loris Capirossi was 7th today, edging Nicky Hayden for this position. Randy De Puniet this time ended race on his home circuit, doing it in 9th place. Shinya Nakano took last place in top 10.
After Le Mans, Rossi took championship lead with 97 points, just 3 more than his team-mate, Jorge Lorenzo, who has equal number of points as his bitter rival Dani Pedrosa. Reigning MotoGP champion looks quite far from defending his crown at this point, as he is currently 4th in championship, 41 points behind Rossi.
Race results - Le Mans
2008 MotoGP championship standings
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