Spanish Minibikers finally back with their own video version of last weekend’s Gran Premio bwin de España and you’ll get to see the highlights of the second rather exciting race of the MotoGP season under a whole new perspective.

Check it out, it’ll brighten up your day as it did ours. Enjoy.

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Paddock girls, umbrella girls, grid girls: whatever sort of name you use, there can be no denial that the hot ladies that can be spotted on the starting grid of a MotoGP race never fail to impress the audience, neither ‘in the flash’ nor on the telly. That was also the case of the latest Spain Gran Prix in Jerez, where the weather did not really encourage them to use miniskirts and the likes, but still they did. By the way, there’s also a pretty nice video picturing some other Spanish beauty that you can watch here.

View the full Paddock Girls - Jerez 2012 photo gallery

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During yesterday’s MotoGP race at Jerez, where everyone was still jockeying for positions in an action packed first couple of laps, Jorge Lorenzo pushed Andrea Dovizioso wide at the Dry Sac and then threw out his arm in what appeared to be an apology, however it turned out it wasn’t an apology, but a warning sign towards the Yamaha Tech3 rider aggressiveness.

Lorenzo in an video interview with Sportmediaset said, “It was a sign to warn him to wait until maybe halfway through the race or at the end before making a pass, especially on the first laps. In theory I’m racing for the championship title and he’s on the same manufacturerer’s bike … so he has to wait a little and not try to pass me at 100%, always at the limit, risking that we could both fall and get zero points. I think you should wait to do it at halfway in the race or at the end rather than risks at the beginning, in MotoGP you have to learn how to take calculated risks … that’s why I signalled Andrea not now. Experience has taught me this.”

Asked about Cal Crutchlow, the current points leader laughingly said, “He kind of scares me a little, I hope that if he’s intelligent and if he’s faster than me then he passes me, but at the beginning of the race in MotoGP you have to be more patient.”

What did Dovizioso have to say about Lorenzo’s early warning? “Let’s say we were both wrong, the blame is 50-50, He tried to pass me, but I had a little more margin and let the brakes go. He had room to turn. I think he did it on purpose to touch me and give me a warning, but it wasn’t anything special. “

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If there was one rider who impressed us this Jerez weekend - besides the usual aliens - that would have to be Cal Crutchlow. Not only did the Brit stick to Dani Pedrosa like glue, and thanks to his tire choice he also posted the fastest race lap in 1′40.019 and on the 1000s his aggressive riding style shines through and he took another fourth place making him the best satellite rider after two races.

Cal Crutchlow - 4th

“That was a seriously hard race but I really enjoyed it and I am really happy to have finished so close to the podium. One of the pleasing aspects is that I don’t really like Jerez that much. It’s a little bit twisty for my riding style and it is only the second time I have raced here, so to come away with a fourth and been within touching distance of my first MotoGP podium is fantastic. The Yamaha YZR-M1 was working incredibly well today and I can’t say enough about my Monster Yamaha Tech 3 crew. It has been a difficult weekend with the weather but they gave me a great bike today and our decision to run the hard front was definitely the right one. I was fourth in Qatar but today I could actually see the winner and there is no reason why I can’t be up there battling for the podium from now on. There will still be some races where I won’t be that close to the podium but now I know we can be there. I gave it everything I had to pass Dani but there was nothing I could do. He is phenomenal round this track, so I’m happy to have challenged him so closely. But he was the better rider today and it was really hard to stay with him. I set the fastest lap of the race though, so that proves the progress I’ve made since last season.”

Continue reading: More rider quotes following Jerez MotoGP race

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Nicky Hayden once again ended up being the best Ducati rider at Jerez and put in several hard fought and entertaining passes until you noticed that after a few laps that he was running and the slowly began to fade and ended up in 8th, behind MotoGP rookie Stefan Bradl who was suffering from arm issues, so even if the GP12 has “potential” Ducati still has several issues to work out.

“It was fun for a couple of laps. We know our bike is great at generating heat in the tyres, and for the first few laps, I was able do what I wanted. Then about the time it looked like the other guys’ tyres came up to temperature, mine had already started losing grip, especially in the front. I was pushing wide in places and guys started coming past me. We knew it would be tough in the dry. My setup was okay, but to really try to go with those guys wasn’t possible. I was able to close back down on Bradl at the end and have a bit of a race the last couple of laps, but he beat me. Eighth place is certainly not what our goal is. The bike’s got a lot of potential, but at the moment, the gap to the rest is still too far. Hopefully we can get a dry weekend in Estoril and try to be closer to the front on Sunday,” said Hayden.

Unfortunately Hayden has to play second fiddle when it comes to his team mate Valentino Rossi who still garners a massive amount of attention with the European media.

Rossi admitted that he finally used Nicky Hayden’s set-up data with some adjustments calling it more ‘Ducati style’ which gave him some positive signs, including harder braking and better corner entry, but he’ll have to modify his riding style a little more (we’ve heard that one before) and will start trying it at Estoril next Friday.

Continue reading: Nicky Hayden has fun for a couple of laps at Jerez, while Valentino Rossi follows 'Ducati style'

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Jorge Lorenzo despite his never-give-up attitude could do nothing to stop Casey Stoner at Jerez due to what he considers a wrong tire choice - even if the majority of the riders made the same choice - and despite his silky smooth and perfect riding style he wore out his front tire faster than he expected.

“Today I knew it would be a very important decision on the grid to choose the right front tyre. Finally we chose the soft one, unfortunately we were wrong and had a lot of problems during the race, I wasn’t as confident as in practice. Without good feelings to finish second is not so bad, we are still leading the Championship and have good motivation for Estoril,” said Lorenzo.

Ben Spies may have snapped at the journos who after just one race, suggested that Andrea Dovizioso may be taking his seat in the Yamaha factory team next season, but Spies will have to worry more about Cal Crutchlow taking his place after another disappointing and this time unexplainable performance in today’s race at Jerez. The Texas Terror faded to a lowly 11th and again was the last MotoGP prototype rider on the grid (not counting Karel Abraham who crashed and then rejoined) and not showing any of the form he had in pre-season.

“I don’t really know what happened, I got off to a pretty good start from the line but after that I didn’t have a good feeling with the bike, it was a pretty pathetic race really for me. I’ve apologized to the team and we’ve had a long meeting about what I was feeling with the bike. I just wasn’t comfortable, I rode as hard as I could but the speed just wasn’t there. We need to find something because we can see the Yamahas are working well but my feeling with the bike is not great. It was a bad day at the office today,” said Spies.

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Casey Stoner was finally able to put one of his last bogey tracks, behind him with his first ever victory at Jerez this afternoon. The Australian managed to stay out of trouble in the hectic first laps and away from the wet patches and timed his pull to the front to the pefection and keep a never-give-up Jorge Lorenzo at bay in the final laps, despite his ongoing arm pump issues, which at the moment he refuses to deal with surgically.

“We didn’t get a great start so I tried to stay out of trouble, there were people out braking each other, touching and it was important just to keep out of the way!” commented Casey Stoner. “Then I managed to gain a lot of positions in a short space of time and reached the front. I didn’t try to pull a gap, as I knew Jorge and Dani were very fast, but I just wanted to stay in front with them and pull away from the others. Then I saw that Jorge and I had slightly better pace and we could make a gap. I was focusing on where I wanted to go as there were a lot of wet patches and it was easy to make a mistake. We managed the race for the conditions of the circuit and as they improved I pushed a little more, the bike on a whole felt much better than in qualifying. I did get some arm pump again but thankfully not to the extent I had it in Qatar. Considering the weekend in general and how fast Dani and Jorge are at this track, to win here is something very special for me”.

Dani Pedrosa was highly tipped to win this Spanish GP after dominating the practice sessions and qualifying second, but running alone is easier than being chased after by a group of aggressive riders who threw caution to the wind at the start of the race. The Spaniard admits he was too cautious riding on the wet patches after seeing the numerous crashes in Moto3 and Moto2 and considering his bad luck and numerous injuries over the past seasons, playing it safe for once seems a good idea.

“It’s been a strange race for me. On the grid I thought it might not be a completely dry race so I was very cautions at the beginning also after we saw so many crashes in the first laps of Moto3 and Moto2,” said Pedrosa. “So I started well but I was passed and then I lost too much time with Dovizioso and Hayden. When I managed to overtake them and take the third position, Casey and Jorge were already too far in front, 4 seconds ahead. So I put my head down and started increasing my pace but at the same time it was difficult to keep the concentration because Crutchlow was on a hard front tyre and he was pushing me a lot, braking harder in the last laps. In general, I feel happy with my performance on a really tricky weekend. A second and a third position finish is not the best, but it’s a good start to the season”.

Stoner is now second in the standings (41 points) and Pedrosa is third (36 points) heading to Estoril next weekend.

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If someone was betting that today’s MotoGP race at Jerez would have been an affair between Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa they would have lost, as Casey Stoner claimed his first ever MotoGP win at this particular Spanish circuit in what turned out to be a thrilling race.

Sitting fifth on the grid Stoner had a bad start as Pedrosa, Lorenzo followed by Cal Crutchlow, Nicky Hayden, Ben Spies, Andrea Dovizioso and Alvaro Bautista slipped past him at the first turn boxing him in 7th, but by the end of the first lap he had already recovered a pair of postions as a furious and fairings bashing battle was taking place ahead of him.

Stoner didn’t waste any time as he recovered the lead from his team mate with Jorge Lorenzo following right behind him, as Pedrosa suddenly found himself sandwiched between very two aggressive Yamaha Tech 3 riders, Cal Crutchlow and Andrea Dovizioso.

The Australian tried to put some massive space between himself and Lorenzo, but the Yamaha rider dug in his heels and kept after him and with ten laps to go he started to close in as Stoner’s tires and arm pump issues decided to act up. Lorenzo was just a little more than two tenths from Repsol rider when he uncharacteristically ran wide as his front tire suddenly decided to quit on him. Stoner then flied across the finish line with almost a one second victory margin

Dani Pedrosa finished third after defending himself from highly effective Cal Crutchlow, the two who almost the same pace as the front runners even managed to close in on them in the closing laps.

Continue reading: Casey Stoner finally conquers Jerez duck

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MotoGPs warm-up practice at Jerez was done in the same half-and-half conditions that we’ve seen all weekend long, which forced the riders to go out with their rain tires.

Dani Pedrosa once again confirmed his competitiveness in these difficult conditions as posted his best time in 1’50″860 halfway through the session. Thanks to a last lap lunge of ’1’51″340 Nicky Hayden grabbed the second spot followed by Andrea Dovizioso and pole sitter Jorge Lorenzo who was more than a second off pace.

Valentino Rossi who posted a dismal 13th place in yesterday’s qualifying session, leaped to 5th and shortened the gap to the front to ‘only’ 1.2 seconds, while Karel Abraham pushed his GP12 sat Ducati up to sixth in the his last flying lap.

Ben Spies, Hector Barbera and Stefan Bradl followed in a tightly knit group while Aleix Espargaro took his Aprilia CRT machine to 10th.

Missing from the time sheet is Casey Stoner who decided to sit out the session and went out only to scrub in his rain tires as this afternoon’s race is expected to be wet - he was seen sitting in his garage rubbing his right forearm - so it looks like he’s still experiencing some twinges.

Continue reading: MotoGP Jerez: Dani Pedrosa confirms competitiveness in warm-up

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Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa gave MotoGP fans a thrilling qualifying session at Jerez swapping the top spot at least a half a dozen times, but track conditions were less than optimum with Lorenzo defining them as “dangerous”, but all the same he was able to shave off two tenths of second from Dani Pedrosa’s 2010 circuit record lap.

However, it wasn’t the two aliens impressive performance that had tongues wagging, but it was Nicky Hayden qualifying in third and his much more titled team mate Valentino Rossi who qualified in a massively disappointing 13th and 3.429s from Lorenzo.

Rossi was not only outpaced by his fellow Ducati factory rider but also by Karel Abraham and Hector Barbera on the less evoluted GP12, and even worse by Randy de Puniet on the Aprilia CRT bike. It may seem like we’re adding more wood to the bonfire that is already blazing under Rossi’s seat, but if every Ducati rider improved over the three sessions (however still very far from Honda and Yamaha) the bike can’t be such a bitch in corner entry that Rossi is describing, infact Hayden has pointed out more than once that the GP12 is “the best Ducati he’s ever ridden.”

So the million dollar question is what is wrong with Rossi, the rider? I think we are still going to be asking ourselves that same question every race weekend until Valencia, when Ducati and Phillip Morris will be writing off their millions of euros investment loss after two harrowing and agonizing seasons.

We posted this picture Jorge Lorenzo’s Nolan helmet, because we admire the fact that he is paying tribute to seriously injured World Superbike rider and fellow countryman Joan Lascorz.

Rider quotes after the jump.

Continue reading: MotoGP Jerez post qualifying quotes

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Today’s MotoGP qualifying session at Jerez went down to fierce battle for the pole position between two rival Spaniards, Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo and Repsol Honda’s Dani Pedrosa who were completely above the rest of the field for the entire session.

Despite the difficult conditions, with scattered wet patches along the circuit, Lorenzo was able to take his first pole position of the season (his 20th in MotoGP) on his last flying lap with a best time of 1′39.532 and 0.2sec under the race lap record that left Pedrosa in second and 0.135s adrift.

When we say that the two Spaniards were a cut above the rest of the field, you just have to look at an excellent Nicky Hayden, took third place on the grid, but he was a little more than one second adrift. If Hayden was the best Ducati rider. the worst was Valentino Rossi who qualified in a lowly 13th. It was a disastrous session for the Italian, who was a massive 3.4 seconds from the top of the timesheets, but even worse, he was 2.4 seconds from his team mate and was behind Ducati satellite riders Karel Abraham and Hector Barbera, but CRT also rider Randy de Puniet finished ahead of all three Ducati’s in 10th.

Opening the second row will be Tech 3 Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow. The Briton the fastest rider until the halfway mark, but a crash at the Expo 92 turn (that also caught out Colin Edwards and Michele Pirro) forced him out on second bike, but his lap time was good enough for a fourth spot. Reigning Champion Casey Stoner could only manage a fifth position on what he considers his bogey track. Ben Spies came out of his free practice slump with his 6th position, but he was more than 1.5 seconds from his team mate.

Continue reading: MotoGP Jerez: Jorge Lorenzo takes thrilling pole position

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It is still raining Jerez de la Frontera and the weather plus the wet tires continue to play an important part in today’s MotoGP final free practice.

Dani Pedrosa topped the timesheets once again, but lap times were slightly more tighter than yesterday for the first five riders and everyone improved their lap time, except for Valentino Rossi. The Repsol Honda rider posted a 1.50.121 lap, but title rivals Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner who struggled during FP2, this morning were just 0.111s and 0.334s adrift.

Ducati’s Nicky Hayden put his GP12 into fourth and was only 0.040s from his former team mate, while Cal Crutchlow on the satellite Yamaha was fifth and the last rider to be within a 1 second from Pedrosa.

After yesterday’s euforia, Valentino Rossi dropped to sixth and was back to his usual 1.4-1.5 second gap despite the rain, and he was as we mentioned before the only rider not to better his lap times. Rossi was followed by Andrea Dovizioso, Stefan Bradl and Karel Abraham. Randy de Puniet put his ART/CRT bike into the 10th spot, 0.272s faster than Yamaha factory rider Ben Spies (11th) and almost half a second quicker than Hector Barbera (12th) on the Ducati GP12. Yonny Hernandez was 13th and he was a mere 0.054s from the Pramac rider.

Alvaro Bautista crashed out at the first turn when even more rain started to fall towards the end of the session.

Continue reading: MotoGP Jerez: Dani Pedrosa tops FP3

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