Photo: Honda
Cal Crutchlow won his third GP of his career yesterday, but that wasn’t the biggest story. After the race, everyone is talking about Marc Marquez’s antics.
Marquez’s misdeeds began with the race’s mixed-up start. Everyone expected a wet race and went out with rain tires, but everyone ended up back in pit lane to switch to slicks, except for Jack Miller, who’d made the bold decision to go with slicks from the start, and was sitting alone on pole. He was given a huge head start as a result, although Marquez caught up once racing began.
Then things got weird. Because Marquez had stalled his bike on the start grid, bump started it, then performed an illegal maneuver to get back into position (he should have gone back to the pit lane), he was given a ride-through penalty that nuked his lead. Desperate to get back in front, he was then involved in collisions with Aleix Espargaro and Valentino Rossi, bumping Rossi into the weeds.
The accumulated penalties dropped Marquez out of the points, though he ended in fifth (Johann Zarco was second, Alex Rins third, and Miller ended in fourth). But the damage might not end for him there. Immediately after the race, Rossi’s Yamaha factory team sent representatives over to Race Direction to protest, and in a post-race interview, Rossi said Marquez is ruining the sport. Expect interesting times ahead, because if Race Direction doesn’t deal with Marquez, the other riders might start dealing out their own penalties.
Andrea Dovizioso, Tito Rabat, Andrea Iannone, Hafizh Syarhin, Danilo Petrucci and Pol Espargaro rounded out the top 10. Full results at MotoGP.com.
