Lorenzo claims Le Mans MotoGP victory on Bridgestone wets

Jorge Lorenzo dominated the field on his Yamaha Factory Racing M1 in a wet French MotoGP to claim his second win of the season, ten seconds ahead of Ducati’s Valentino Rossi, moving him to the top of the Championship standings ahead of third-placed Casey Stoner. All the riders chose to use Bridgestone’s soft wet tyres on front and rear on a cool, sodden track, increasing warm-up performance and initial grip. Bridgestone said the reduced standing water as the race went on resulted in very little degradation, since the majority of riders setting their personal best times in the latter stages of the race.

Masao Azuma – chief engineer at Bridgestone’s Motorsport Tyre Development Department – said: “Today’s wet and very cool conditions made this morning’s warm-up session very important for teams to find a good setup for the race. Almost every rider selected the soft compound wet tyres front and rear and this combination worked very well in a race where the level of water on the circuit changed substantially. For this race weekend, all our 2012 specification tyres performed very well at Le Mans and provided an effective option for riders in the variable weather conditions.”

Hiroshi Yamada, manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Department said: “Today we saw a thrilling race and I commend Jorge Lorenzo and Yamaha for their very strong performance today. The track for the race was very cold and wet and grip levels varied greatly from lap to lap and corner to corner creating very difficult conditions for all the riders, so I am pleased with how our wet tyres performed over the duration of the race as lap times were quite stable and improved towards the end of the race.”

Stoner announces retirement
 
After the conclusion of the French Grand Prix, Casey Stoner announced that he would retire from MotoGP at the end of the season. “We’ve enjoyed a long and successful working relationship with Casey,” Yamada said. The rider was the first to win the championship on Bridgestone tyres, and the company’s Motorsport manager took the opportunity “to thank him for all he has given to MotoGP and Bridgestone and I wish him all the best for the rest of the season and the next chapter in his life after racing.”