A solid race by Alvaro who finished in 8th position by a whisker.
He began the race again with a mediocre start, losing a couple positions in the first laps and having to work his way back up. But he soon caught up with the guys in front, going as fast as the riders up to 8th and 9th position. With crashes of Marco Melandri and Casey Stoner everyone moved up a few places and Bati soon found himself fighting with Mika Kallio for 8th place. He spent several laps behind the Finnish rider to catch up with Simoncelli in front of them who was already about two seconds ahead, but constantly going slower. Finally Bati passed Kallio and took on the final pursuit on his own, quickly reeling Simoncelli in and then sticking to his rear wheel with still half the race to go. Alvaro clearly had the better pace and was close enough to pass, but after the frustrating ends to the last three races he instead bided his time, probably looking to attack in the final lap. In the end he didn’t take any risks and rather brought the 8th place home safely, his second best finish this season after 5th place at Catalunya. Well done, Bati.

Pos. Rider Team Time/Gap
1 Dani PEDROSA Repsol Honda Team 47’31.615
2 Ben SPIES Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +3.575
3 Jorge LORENZO Fiat Yamaha Team +6.812
4 Valentino ROSSI Fiat Yamaha Team +12.633
5 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Repsol Honda Team +21.885
6 Nicky HAYDEN Ducati Team +35.138
7 Marco SIMONCELLI San Carlo Honda Gresini +36.740
8 Alvaro BAUTISTA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP +36.825
9 Aleix ESPARGARO Pramac Racing Team +44.905
10 Hector BARBERA Paginas Amarillas Aspar +51.368
11 Loris CAPIROSSI Rizla Suzuki MotoGP +55.386
12 Hiroshi AOYAMA Interwetten Honda MotoGP +57.903
13 Randy DE PUNIET LCR Honda MotoGP +1’04.139

Not Classified
Mika KALLIO Pramac Racing Team 10 Laps
Colin EDWARDS Monster Yamaha Tech 3 12 Laps
Casey STONER Ducati Team 21 Laps
Marco MELANDRI San Carlo Honda Gresini 26 Laps

The MotoGP race at the Sachsenring saw the darker sides of the MotoGP rule book today after a crash by Randy De Puniet with consequent crashes by Aleix Espargaro and Alvaro Bautista caused the race to be red flagged after only nine laps.
De Puniet’s crash also directly caused Espargaro to go down and shortly afterwards Alvaro couldn’t avoid De Puniet’s bike that was still lying on the track. De Puniet was already injured from yesterday’s big spill in qualifying when he hit Ben Spies’ bike in the gravel and he looked unlikely to get back out again to rejoin the shortened 21-lap race. Aleix Espargaro seemed to have hurt his right hand, but was determined to start the second race. As was Alvaro who only got banged up a little, but was unhurt. Unfortunately both riders then were forbidden to start in the second race, because their crashed bikes did not return to pitlane within 5 minutes.

The rule was introduced to keep riders who caused a crash from rejoining races after a red flag. However, it says nothing about riders who were completely innocent and could do nothing about getting involved (like being forced to run over a bike lying on track for example) and who are fit and able to get back out. It’s then in the hand of the track marshalls to get the bikes back as soon as possible it seems and they didn’t make it in time. So both Alvaro and Aleix were not allowed to join the race again which was completely unjustified, given the situation.

Paul Denning aptly commented that he’s completely pissed off about that and the same can definitely be said for the entirety of Batifans everywhere. It’s especially frustrating since Alvaro at that time was going laptimes quicker than the guys in front of him up to 10th position and he was absolutely ROBBED of a good result today. These are valuable championship points he lost today, looking at the targeted Rookie of the Year title and it will take a long time for us to forget the lunacy that took place today.

The race then re-started with only 13 riders (Edwards crashed out earlier) which is simply a joke.
Here’s hoping that the governing body of MotoGP takes today’s events as an impulse to have a look at the rule book again. It’s obviously in dire need for that.

Quite a disappointing end to the weekend for Alvaro. He had a bad start and went into the first lap at the back of the field with Barbera and Kallio behind him. On the start/finish straight the Ducati power from Barbera was obviously superior to the Suzuki engine and Barbera closed in on Alvaro. Just a second later both could be seen running off track, losing over 5 seconds on the field.
However, slowly but surely Alvaro managed to close that gap and after crashes of Stoner and Espargaro he caught up with Melandri to pass him for 12th position. With only a handful of laps remaining he was almost 5 seconds behind Simoncelli in 11th, but Alvaro was a lot faster than Simoncelli at that point and even managed to close that gap down until the last lap, being right on his tail by then, but unfortunately crashing in the very last corner.
Even though most of it could only be seen in the timing sheets, it was a tremendous effort from Alvaro to close the gaps after the initial visit outside the track and his race speed would have put him well within reach of a good top 10 position in Qatar, but unfortunately it didn’t end the way he’d deserved.

However, we’ve now seen what kind of speed he can go with the Suzuki and this is still encouraging. Better luck next time.

Pos. Rider Team Time/Gap
1 Valentino ROSSI Fiat Yamaha Team 42’50.099
2 Jorge LORENZO Fiat Yamaha Team +1.022
3 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Repsol Honda Team +1.865
4 Nicky HAYDEN Ducati Marlboro Team +1.876
5 Ben SPIES Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +3.903
6 Randy DE PUNIET LCR Honda MotoGP +9.322
7 Dani PEDROSA Repsol Honda Team +16.508
8 Colin EDWARDS Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +19.867
9 Loris CAPIROSSI Rizla Suzuki MotoGP +20.893
10 Hiroshi AOYAMA Interwetten Honda MotoGP +21.100
11 Marco SIMONCELLI San Carlo Honda Gresini +31.638
12 Hector BARBERA Paginas Amarillas Aspar +32.573
13 Marco MELANDRI San Carlo Honda Gresini +40.780

Not Classified
Alvaro BAUTISTA Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 1 Lap
Aleix ESPARGARO Pramac Racing Team 15 Laps
Casey STONER Ducati Marlboro Team 17 Laps
Mika KALLIO Pramac Racing Team 20 Laps