MOTORLAND ARAGON, Spain – Honda’s Marc Marquez looked pretty much unstoppable through the practice and qualifying sessions, and so it came out in the race. After an early scare when the Spaniard came so close to crashing with a front-end washout, he settled down, waited for his harder compound tire to really come in, passed the four riders ahead of him, and vanished into the distance, ending up with a nearly three-second gap at the finish.
Second and third were Yamaha team-mates Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, their bitter in-team rivalry falling in Lorenzo’s favour this time around. Rossi, second in the championship and losing more points to Marquez’s lead, was obviously disappointed but made light of it.
“I’m not fully happy,” he said, “because I wanted to arrive as the first of the Yamahas and in front of Lorenzo, but unfortunately in the second half of the race he (Lorenzo) was faster than me … I lost the four points to Jorge, but it’s another podium.” It appeared that although they had the same tire choice, Lorenzo’s rear was in better shape at the end, and it was telling that Rossi’s first move after parking his bike was to look at Lorenzo’s rear tire.
Next up was Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales – who’ll be Rossi’s team-mate at Yamaha in 2017 – who led some of the early laps. After being passed by the eventual top three, he hounded Lorenzo mercilessly for third until he ran wide under braking. The young Spaniard said, “When the grip was supporting me I could do a really good pace, and in fact I took the lead in the race. I felt really confident and the lap-times came quickly and easily. Then suddenly the rear tire lost performance … I couldn’t feel confident with hard-braking and also in acceleration, and trying to force the pace I made some mistakes that warned me to be more conservative in my riding.”
Then came Brit rider Cal Crutchlow, continuing his series of impressive results for the LCR Honda team as once again the first independent team finisher. Behind him came Marquez’s team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who said he had tire problems through the whole race. The top 10 was completed by Aleix Espargaro on the second Suzuki, his brother Pol on the Tech 3 Yamaha, and a great result in ninth and 10th for the Aprilia duo of Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl. These four are all swapping teams in 2017; Aleix heading for Aprilia, brother Pol to KTM’s new effort, Bautista to Pramac Ducati, and Bradl to partner American Nicky Hayden in the Ten Kate Honda World Superbike team.
It was a terrible weekend for the Ducati team – Andrea Iannone tried to ride but couldn’t deal with the pain from a recent back injury, Pramac team-mates Scott Redding and Danillo Petrucci collided on the first lap, putting Redding out and giving Petrucci a ride-through penalty, and Andrea Dovizioso suffered from tire problems and was only able to finish 11th, the top Ducati in the race. Dovi said, “I feel pretty bad about the result today because we worked well throughout the weekend … I was sure that we could have fought for the podium. Unfortunately, after four laps the front tire began to lose grip, creating a number of problems, and then I started to feel a strong vibration. ”
MOTO 2
The race results closed up the championship chase considerably, with long-time series leader Johann Zarco again having a bad race, allowing Alex Rins to close right up on him. Neither rider had a great race – Rins was suffering from a flu-like disease and Zarco just off the pace – with Brit Sam Lowes overcoming several bad recent events to lead from start to finish in a commanding performance. The results leave Zarco with a one-point advantage over Rins, with Lowes another 40 points back: a big gap, but not impossible with four races left. Things are still wide open in this class. All three of the top contenders, by the way, will be heading for Moto GP next season, leaving 2017 wide open for a new class of riders.
MOTO 3
Brad Binder could only manage second on the day after a last-lap pass by title rival Jorge Navarro following a typically crazy Moto 3 contest, but that was enough to cement the South African’s championship. Binder is the first South African to win a world title since Jon Ekerold took the 350 cc crown in 1980. He’ll be moving to the Moto 2 class in 2017 with the new KTM team, which will be run by his current team manager, Aki Ajo.
Moto GP Championship Standings after 14 of 18 races
- Marc Marquez, Spain, Repsol Honda, 248 points
- Valentino Rossi, Italy, Movistar Yamaha, 196
- Jorge Lorenzo, Spain, Movistar Yamaha, 182
- Dani Pedrosa, Spain, Repsol Honda, 155
- Maverick Vinales, Spain, Team Suzuki Ecstar, 149
- Cal Crutchlow, U.K., LCR Honda, 105
- Andrea Dovizioso, Italy, Ducati Team, 104
- Andrea Iannone, Italy, Ducati Team, 96
- Pol Espargaro, Spain, Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, 96
- Hector Barbera, Spain, Avintia Racing Ducati, 84
Next race October 16, Motegi, Japan
