MotoGP Round 12 – Octo British Grand Prix Race Results

The MotoGP championship race remains tight after the Silverstone GP, with Valentino Rossi taking the lead over Yamaha factory teammate Jorge Lorenzo once again.

Although the subplot at Silverstone is always the question of how well the British riders will do at their home track, in the end it was three Italians atop the podium. Rossi won, and somewhat improbably, Danilo Pettruci (riding a Ducati for Pramac) was second. Andrea Dovizioso was third for the Ducati factory team.

It was the first MotoGP podium for Petrruci, who said that “In the last lap in the last corner I started laughing, as I couldn’t believe it!” It was the best result for a non-factory rider since Aleix Espargaro managed a second last year at Aragon aboard the NGM Yamaha.

Rossi was also very happy about his win, saying “I think that the last race on the wet that I won was ten years ago. This morning I woke up feeling good, but my team also did a great job and my bike was fantastic already from the first lap of the warm up. ”

Usual front-runners Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo saw their races derailed by rain; while the warm-up lap started dry, it ended with racers headed to the pits for rain tires, and Lorenzo struggled after that change, ending in fourth. Lorenzo said he didn’t race as well in the rain, but also said he’d had trouble with his helmet visor fogging, which would make it the second time this year he’s had an issue with the HJC lid that’s cost him points — at Qatar, the lining came loose and blocked his vision.

At first, Marquez fared better than Lorenzo, challenging Rossi, but ended up crashing out once again this year.

Marquez’s Honda factory teammate Dani Pedrosa ended in fifth. Pedrosa’s not having much of a season, and this result isn’t improving things. The top 10 was rounded out by Scott Redding in sixth (the highest-ranked Brit), Bradley Smith in seventh, Andrea Iannone in eighth, Aleix Espargaro in ninth and Alvaro Bautista in tenth.

Besides Marquez, who sees his chances of a three-peat championship disappear every race, the other rider likely most disappointed was Cal Crutchlow, who was taken out by teammate Jack Miller. Crutchlow hustled back to the pits to grab his other bike, which at that point had rain tires on it but was set up for a dry track; he ended up crashing out again on that bike. He was quite realistic about the collision with Miller afterwards, saying he’d made the same sort of mistake himself in the past, and didn’t seem to hold a grudge against his teammate.

Miller was assessed a penalty point for the incident, and afterwards made an apology to Crutchlow,

“I want to say a big sorry to Cal for taking him out, but we were both pushing hard,” Miller said. “I didn’t actually mean to overtake him, I was just trying to hold Espargaro off on the brakes and accidentally went too deep and touched him.”

As a result of the weekend’s racing, Valentino Rossi now leads Jorge Lorenzo 236 points to 224. Lorenzo’s caught up with Rossi before this season, and with six races left, he still has time to get back in the lead, but with Rossi’s consistent podium finishes, it will be tricky. But on a weekend with a dry track where everything goes his way (and his helmet doesn’t fall apart), Lorenzo is arguably the fastest man on track this year, so don’t rule out another change in the lead yet.