2015 Brno MotoGP Friday Round Up: Heat, Bumps, Tires, And A Star-Crossed Pedrosa

The weather put the cat among the pigeons at Brno on Friday. Hot weather, track temperatures of over 50°C and a bumpy track pushed the riders and their tires to the limit, and the afternoon session of MotoGP turned into a proper crashfest. Valentino Rossi was the first to go down, followed a second later by Dani Pedrosa, but what caused those two to crash had nothing to do with the weather conditions. A leaking fork seal dribbled oil onto Dani Pedrosa's brakes, causing a mist of oily smoke to trail behind Pedrosa, onto the rear wheel of his Honda RC213V and the front wheel of Valentino Rossi's Yamaha M1. Rossi lost the front and crashed at Turn 13, Pedrosa was highsided off his bike at Turn 14. Rossi walked away unhurt, Pedrosa slammed his left foot into the ground, aggravating an old injury suffered in Australia in 2003.Rossi was perplexed rather than anything else. "I feel some smoke from the bike of Dani already from the corner before. But I think it was just a feeling, because usually, don't happen," Rossi said. It could not have been a lot of oil, he added, as it was only him who crashed because of the incident, apart from Pedrosa himself. Fortunately he was not injured, Rossi said, though it had created a problem for the Italian. "I was in the wrong place at the wrong moment," Rossi said. "The important thing is no problem for me, but we lose the possibility to try the number 1 bike. So from that moment we have to try the other bike that was on another setting. But anyway is important to understand the way to follow." Rossi's pace on his second bike was good, but he believed the set up they had wanted to try on the bike he crashed on would have been even better.read more