Lorenzo has been working hard on his starts this season, and progress is slowly being made. Although Rossi took the holeshot and held it for nearly half the race, Lorenzo was always hot on his heels, waiting to make the pass. In the meantime, stoner who has been fighting front end problems all season, eventually threw it down in a disappointing crash. Stoner, after the race was clearly frustrated at the fact that he cant seem to replicate the problems he's been having. Hayden had a front row seat to the crash. Putting in a very strong performance this weekend, Hayden has made a vast improvement over last years pace. He put in a consistently strong performance through the entire race, eventually finishing fourth, after passing a struggling Pedrosa. Hayden noted after the race, that the two Repsol Hondas looked as if they could be 2 completely different bikes, comparing Dovizioso's to the struggling Pedrosa. It looked as though Rossi was just roasting his tires attempting to keep the lead, and couldnt keep up the pace long. Sure enough, Lorenzo made the pass and ran with it, relegating Rossi to over 5 seconds behind him, for the 2nd place finish. Rossi noted after the race, that his shoulder injury was not a problem, and that he simply could not get grip coming out of the corners. 

This race seemed like nearly a wasted weekend for the other American Riders. Ben Spies suffered a crash in the race, which seemed like icing on the cake of a spectacularly bad weekend. Crashing out a day before, and missing an entire practice session did not help the rookie become acclimated to the new machine. Unfortunately for him, as he was behind Capirossi in the beginning stages of the race, he witnessed Capirossi crash, and for one reason or the other, Spies went down as well.

Edwards, who usually does well at Le Mans, had a uncharacteristic bad weekend as well. As he noted in their team press release, he's having a problem with the bike that he just cant seem to figure out. While he didnt go into specific details, it seems as if it might be a problem with getting the bike turned in on the brakes. 

The MotoGP series now heads to Mugello, which will surely be an exciting weekend.