After mixed weather over the course of the weekend, the sun came out and track temperatures rose to 35 degrees in time for the start of the MotoGP™ race.
Andrea Dovizioso led the field into turn one, with Marquez happy to let the Ducati GP15 open up a 0.5s lead during the opening couple of laps. Marquez waited until the 5th lap to make his move and went on to open up a five-second lead, before relaxing towards the end of the race to take a commanding win.
Dovizioso
No one had an answer to the young Spaniards pace as he controlled the race expertly from the front: “I decided to keep calm in the early laps to try to understand the situation well, and when I started to find a feeling similar to practice, I decided to push the pace a bit. That was when I was able to open up a gap.”
A brilliant battle for second then ensued between the Italians Valentino Rossi and Dovizioso, with the riders almost colliding through turn 12. “The Doctor” had to use all of his skill and experience to hold off the charge of the Ducati as Dovizioso tried to make his power advantage count down the 1.2 km straight at CoTA.
He would eventually lose out to Dovizioso due to a tyre issue, although Rossi maintained his lead in the Championship standings as he finished 3rd: “I’m happy about the weekend, because getting onto the podium is a good objective when coming here. On paper this track is the worst for our bike. I am satisfied about the weekend as a whole because we were always in the top 4-5 and we also weren‘t so bad on the wet. For it to be perfect I would have had to beat Dovizioso, but unfortunately he was a bit faster. I didn‘t have a chance to try, also because after six or seven laps of pushing a lot, I had to ride very smooth. For some reason our bike destroyed the front tyre.”
Rossi went on to discuss that moment with Dovizioso at turn 12: “Dovi said to me that we risked a lot overtaking in turn 12. From the bike I didn‘t feel it and I thought we had some margin. We passed each other very closely, but there was enough space.”
Dovizioso takes second place at CoTA
Dovizioso made it two podiums in a row as he snatched 2nd from Rossi’s grasp, but was unable to challenge the dominance of Marquez: “It was really special to get the podium as it confirmed our pace at a completely different track. It was a really strange race, as you have to manage the tyres, the speed and the energy, and it was very difficult but I managed it in a perfect way, Marc was just on a different level.”
His verdict on the incident with Rossi: “I thought that we would both crash, as he cut the line too much and I couldn’t reduce speed quick enough, it was very close, but that’s racing.”
Rossi’s teammate Jorge Lorenzo left it late, overtaking the Ducati GP15 of Andrea Iannone with only 3 laps to go to snatch 4th place from the Italian: “We finished the race in the best way possible given the circumstances.” He also mentioned how he suffered against the Ducati’s straight line speed: “I wasn‘t fit and the bike also needed some extra performance on some areas of the track, especially on the straight I lost a lot.”
Petrucci & Iannone
Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Bradley Smith was the leading Satellite rider as he ended up in 6th after battling at the front during the early part of the race: “I began with a strong start and to jump from 10th up to 4th was pretty awesome. The risk I took to go around the outside of the pack at turn one paid off. I have been studying previous races and saw how other riders got pinched on the inside, so I decided to gamble and go around the outside. After that, I was running comfortably with the leaders for the first five laps, but when Marc went past Andrea I was just missing that extra bit of pace.”
CWM LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow recovered from a poor start that saw him down in 10th on the opening lap to finish in 7th, six-seconds behind his compatriot Smith: “In the race itself we had some problems, I got caught up in the crash on the first lap and lost nearly five seconds in one lap and from that point it was very difficult to catch up. The whole CWM LCR Honda team need to regroup now and come back to the next race stronger as we were too far behind the winner today.”
Aleix Espargaro was a further 2 seconds back in 8th, as he finished 19 seconds ahead of his rookie teammate Maverick Viñales on the second Team Suzuki Ecstar GSX-RR in 9th.
Pramac Racing’s Danilo Petrucci completed the top ten, ahead of the Repsol Honda of Hiroshi Aoyama and the leading Open class bike of Hector Barbera on the Avintia Ducati.
Nicky Hayden won the battle of the Open class Honda’s in front of his home crowd, claiming 13th place in his 200th MotoGP™ race after an exciting fight with the CWM LCR RC213V-RS of Jack Miller (14th), and Alvaro Bautista (15th) on the Factory Aprilia Racing Team Gresini.
Scott Redding earlier crashed on the very first lap after outbreaking himseld at turn 11 and taking out Pol Espargaro in the process, much to the chagrin of the Spanish rider, with Abraham, Melandri, Hernandez, Di Meglio and Bradl also failing to finish the race.
MOTO GP
21 laps = 115.773 km
1 M MARQUEZ SPA HON 43m47.150s
2 A DOVIZIOSO ITA DUC 2.354s
3 V ROSSI ITA YAM 3.120s
4 J LORENZO SPA YAM 6.682s
5 A IANNONE ITA DUC 7.584s
6 B SMITH GBR YAM 10.557s
7 C CRUTCHLOW GBR HON 16.967s
8 A ESPARGARO SPA SUZ 19.025s
9 M VIÑALES SPA SUZ 38.570s
10 D PETRUCCI ITA DUC 41.796s
11 H AOYAMA JPN HON 47.199s
12 H BARBERA SPA DUC 47.339s
13 N HAYDEN USA HON 56.484s
14 J MILLER AUS HON 56.731s
15 A BAUTISTA SPA APR 57.372s
16 E LAVERTY IRL HON 58.898s
17 L BAZ FRA YAM 1m08.787s
18 A DE ANGELIS RSM ART 1m22.236s
DNF
K ABRAHAM (CZE, HON), M MELANDRI (ITA, APR), Y HERNANDEZ (COL, DUC), M DI MEGLIO (FRA, DUC), S REDDING (GBR, HON), S BRADL (GER, YAM), P ESPARGARO (SPA, YAM)
POLE POSITION
M MARQUEZ 2m02.135s
FASTEST LAP
A IANNONE 2m04.251s
RIDER STANDING AFTER 2 OF 18 ROUNDS
1 V ROSSI 41, 2 A DOVIZIOSO 40, 3 M MARQUEZ 36, 4 A IANNONE 27, 5 J LORENZO 26, 6 B SMITH 18, 7 C CRUTCHLOW 18, 8 A ESPARGARO 13, 9 D PEDROSA 10, 10 D PETRUCCI 10
Moto2
19 laps = 104.747 km
1 S LOWES GBR SPE 41m45.565s
2 J ZARCO FRA KAL +1.999s
3 A RINS SPA KAL +4.622s
4 T RABAT SPA KAL +8.975s
5 F MORBIDELLI ITA KAL +12.976s
6 H SYAHRIN MAL KAL +14.168s
7 A WEST AUS SPE +17.271s
8 M KALLIO FIN KAL +17.513s
9 J SIMON SPA SPE +17.689s
10 T NAKAGAMI JPN KAL +17.764s
11 S CORSI ITA KAL +17.982s
12 T LUTHI SWI KAL +24.824s
13 M SCHROTTER GER TEC +26.016s
14 S CORTESE GER KAL +27.456s
15 A MARQUEZ SPA KAL +28.568s
16 J FOLGER GER KAL +29.889s
17 R CARDUS SPA TEC +36.405s
18 D AEGERTER SWI KAL +38.693s
19 A SHAH MAL KAL +40.581s
20 R MULHAUSER SWI KAL +41.504s
21 R KRUMMENACHE SWI KAL +50.471s
22 L ROSSI FRA TEC +1m08.825s
23 T WAROKORN THA KAL +1m10.990s
24 J RAFFIN SWI KAL +1m11.138s
25 F ALT GER SUT +1m19.442s
26 L BALDASSARRI ITA KAL +1m25.405s
27 L SALOM SPA KAL +1m32.876s
Sam Lowes Moto2
DNF
X SIMEON (BEL, KAL), Z ZAIDI (MAL, SUT)
POLE POSITION
X SIMEON 2m09.888s
FASTEST LAP
S LOWES 2m10.578s
RIDER STANDINGS AFTER 2 of 18 ROUNDS
1 A RINS 29, 2 J ZARCO 28, 3 J FOLGER 25, 4 S LOWES 25, 5 F MORBIDELLI 22, 6 X SIMEON 20, 7 T LUTHI 20, 8 M KALLIO 18, 9 H SYAHRIN 14, 10 T RABAT 13
Aussie Ant West takes a tumble but finished seven overall
MOTO 3
18 laps = 99.234 km
1 D KENT GBR HON 41m32.287s
2 F QUARTARARO FRA HON +8.532s
3 E VAZQUEZ SPA HON +8.652s
4 E BASTIANINI ITA HON +8.811s
5 B BINDER RSA KTM +9.556s
6 J MCPHEE GBR HOA +13.869s
7 A LOCATELLI ITA HON +20.442s
8 R FENATI ITA KTM +20.611s
9 I VIÑALES SPA HUS +20.863s
10 K HANIKA CZE KTM +20.913s
11 J KORNFEIL CZE KTM +21.249s
12 A MIGNO ITA KTM +23.725s
13 P OETTL GER KTM +32.218s
14 N AJO FIN KTM +36.702s
15 M FERRARI ITA MAH +37.283s
16 A MASBOU FRA HON +47.027s
17 M HERRERA SPA HUS +59.257s
18 R GARDNER AUS MAH +1’03.748s
19 G RODRIGO ARG KTM +1m04.611s
20 Z KHAIRUDDIN MAL KTM +1m16.968s
21 A TONUCCI ITA MAH +1m27.397s
22 A CARRASCO SPA KTM +1m40.409s
23 N ANTONELLI ITA HON +1m43.841s
24 S MANZI ITA MAH +1m46.105s
25 L LOI BEL HON +1 lap
Quatararo, Kent (who won by a whopping 8.5 seconds) & Varquez – Moto3
DNF
T SUZUKI (JPN, MAH), M OLIVEIRA (POR, KTM), F BAGNAIA (ITA, MAH), J NAVARRO (SPA, HONDA), J MARTIN (SPA, MAH), H ONO (JPN, HON), J DANILO (FRA, HON), D BINDER (RSA, MAH), J GUEVARA (SPA, MAH)
POLE POSITION
D KENT 2m15.344s
FASTEST LAP
M OLIVEIRA 2m17.559
RIDER STANDING AFTER 2 of 18 ROUNDS
1 D KENT 41, 2 E BASTIANINI 33, 3 F QUARTARARO 29, 4 E VAZQUEZ 29, 5 A MASBOU 25, 6 J MCPHEE 21, 7 B BINDER 17, 8 I VIÑALES 17, 9 A LOCATELLI 14, 10 K HANIKA 9
Miller with Moto3 mates, Hanika and Binder
