Fine weather, a sun-soaked crowd of more than 75,000 and an all-Spanish MotoGP podium party made a fine climax to a record-breaking weekend of racing at Jerez.
It hadn’t always looked so rewarding, with a premier-class procession for the first third or so of the 25-lapper. But it came alive as the race wore on, as tyre wear, tactics and talent took control.
By that stage, the indomitable Marc Marquez has already gone. The Repsol Honda had led into the first corner, narrowly held of the early pursuit from surprise front-row companions, the satellite Yamaha riders Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli, then eased away masterfully even before they had run into their own problems. He was able to back off on the final lap to win by better than 1.5 seconds. Compatriots Alex Rins (Ecstar Suzuki) and Maverick Vinales (Monster Yamaha) completed the top three.
“It was more difficult mentally than physically,” said Marquez, who had crashed out of a strong lead at the previous round, and was anxious to prove a point to his rivals. “But I am confident in my ability and my bike … it was a big help to know why we crashed in Austin.”
The race was an affirmation for him, but a denial for his new team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, who had started out strongly on Friday, then gone backwards. A lowly 11th qualifying position was followed by a bad start, and he was left scrapping embarrassingly among the lower orders.
Qualifying was crucial for all on the hard-to-pass 4.432-km track; and Valentino Rossi (Monster Yamaha) had to start from 13th after being bumped out of a chance in the top-12 Q2 by his own protégé Pecco Bagnaia (Pramac Ducati); who then compounded the felony by crashing out. Rossi’s ride through to sixth was one of the highlights of the latter part of the race.
Petronas Yamaha’s Quartararo had claimed a surprise pole position at record speed, but it was second qualifier Morbidelli leading the pursuit, after Andrea Dovizioso (Mission Winnnow Ducati) made a good start off row two only to be pushed wide into the first corner by the Italian Yamaha rider.
Quartararo was third, then Monster Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales ahead of Dovi. Vinales said later he believed “we have found a method” to avoid the bad starts that had been costing him so much.
The field stayed close, nobody able to do much more than follow in the early stages.
Then on lap 11 a little slip into the far hairpin gave Quartararo the chance to slip past Morbidelli into second.
By now Marquez, pushing hard, was less than two seconds clear. “Everyone can be fast on new tyres,” he said later. “Only when they start to drop can I feel comfortable. I am not used to racing like this. I prefer to wait for the end … but this year it’s not like that.”
Quartararo wasn’t able to close the gap, but he was looking comfortable as Morbidelli gradually lost ground.
By this point, Alex Rins (Ecstar Suzuki) had displaced Vinales as his closest pursuer. Rins had finished lap one sixth after pushing past Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) then outbraking Danilo Petrucci’s factory Ducati at the final hairpin. It took him another five laps to do the same, even more daringly, to Dovizioso into the double rights of the stadium section.
Quartararo started lap 14 2.1 seconds behind Marquez but better than a second ahead of his team-mate. “I was feeling good, the bike was fine,” he said. Then as he tried to change up from third onto the back straight, it all went wrong. The gear-lever was somehow jammed, and his race was over. He toured back to the pits, in floods of tears. “It was something so small, that cost a lot,” he said later.
On the same lap, Rins got ahead of Morbidelli, who was now switching to “safety mode, after the tyre dropped a lot”.
Rins was safe in second but too far to think of attacking Marquez, again realising “I need to improve my qualifying. I lost a lot of time behind Dovi.”
In any case, Marquez broke the lap record for a second time on lap 15, to underline his advantage. “I needed to show my opponents that yes, I can make a mistake, but I am still confident.”
Vinales was still going strong, easily ahead of the fading Morbidelli on lap 16. Dovizioso followed him past, and Petrucci next time round.
There was still some drama, with Dovizioso closing right up to start the final lap 0.15 of a second behind Vinales, and looking for a way through. Vinales pulled out his best lap of the race to keep the Ducati at bay by better than three tenths. “I had only a little tyre left at the end. I don’t think I could have done another lap like my last,” he said, delighted to be back on the podium for the first time since winning in Australia. “It feels like a victory,” he said.
Morbidelli’s woes were not over, as he continued to lose places. Only when Crutchlow caught him did he manage to fight back, to save top independent rider’s position. By now, Rossi had tired of languishing in tenth looking at Jack Miller’s back wheel, had disposed of the Pramac Ducati, and now passed both Crutchlow and Morbidelli for sixth as they fought, the Englishman ahead for a couple of laps.
By the end Morbidelli was seventh and Crutchlow, also sliding badly, more than a second behind, busy fending off team-mate Takaaki Nakagami.
Miller had gone, slipping off after fading with sliding tyres and tangling with Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) at the final corner. That had let Honda test rider Stefan Bradl though for tenth, with the Aprilia 11th.
Lorenzo had managed to recover from the indignity of being passed by Pol Espargaro’s Red Bull KTM, with the latter’s struggling team-mate Johann Zarco seven seconds behind in 14th, and a distant Tito Rabat (Reale Avintia Ducati) taking the final point. Abraham, Smith and Oliveira straggled in. Joan Mir (Ecstar Suzuki) had slipped off out of eighth after passing Miller.
Thus Marquez regained a narrow championship lead, one point ahead of Rions, 70:69. Dovizioso has 67, Rossi 61, Petrucci 41.
Moto2 Race – 15 laps (shortened), 66.345 km
The first start descended into chaos when second-row starter Remy Gardner got up to third into the first corner then high-sided on the way out of it. Front-row starter Alex Marquez (EG-VDS Kalex) was unable to avoid the XOXONE Kalex, and he fell; a little further along Honda Team Asia rider Dimas Ekky Pratama also fell after hitting Gardner’s bike, and was run over by Marco Bezzecchi (Red Bull KTM), who fell at Turn 2.
The red flags came out: Gardner and Ekky Pratama were taken to the medical centre, although neither was seriously injured, Marquez pushed back down the hill to the pits and Bezzecchi remounted.
A titanic effort by his team managed to get Marquez out to start from pit lane in the nick of time, but his chances of a repeat win were ruined, and he finished 24th, his patched up Kalex off the pace.
Jorge Navarro (Speed Up) was on a first pole, with Marquez’s empty space alongside, then Augusto Fernandez (Flexbox HP40 Kalex). Gardner’s fourth spot was also empty, with Nicolo Bulega (SKY VR46 Kalex) and second HP40 rider Lorenzo Baldassarri completing row two.
Navarro fluffed his start, to finish the first lap fifth. It was returned injury victim Fernandez and Baldassarri who took advantage, surging away from Tom Luthi (Dynavolt Kalex) and Xavi Vierge (EG-VDS Kalex).
Fernandez led convincingly for the first six laps, but then Baldassarri closed up and pounced at the end of the back straight. Fernandez stayed close for a while, but Baldassarri was in control for his third win of the season – a relief after a difficult start to the weekend, and three crashes. “In the end this is for the team – but also for me. I did a great job,” he said later. He set a new record on lap three.
Navarro’s plan, he later explained, had been to set his bike up for the later part of the race. Losing eight of the planned 23 laps was a blow. He was up to fourth on lap three, took five more to catch and slice past Luthi, and now started to hunt down a gap of almost two seconds to the leaders.
He took second on the penultimate lap, and was just 0.35 behind the winner at the end. Had the race been a lap longer …
Luthi retained fourth; Red Bull KTM’s Brad Binder managed to defend fifth from Vierge. The KTM had passed the Kalex on lap seven, almost succumbed in a violent exchange three laps later, but was comfortably clear over the line.
More than two seconds adrift second XOXONE Kalex rider Tetsuta Nagashima narrowly defended seventh from Luca Marini (SKY VR46 Kalex), for a career-best seventh. He’d benefited from the delay, after starting the first aborted run from pit lane after bike trouble.
Marini had gained speed at the end to defeat not only team-mate Nicolo Bulega but also Iker Lecuona (American Racing KTM), who completed the top ten.
Enea Bastianini (Italtrans Kalex) had also been gaining places at the end for 11th; his last victim was second Speed Up rider Fabio Di Giannantonio. Not far behind, Dominique Aegerter took his second points for the new MV Agusta in 13th, ahead of Andrea Locatelli (Italtrans Kalex) and a severely off-form Marcel Schrotter (Dynavolt Kalex), his first finish outside the top six this year.
Bo Bendsneyder (RW Racing NTS) missed the points by two seconds; returned-from-injury team-mate Steven Odendaal was 18th. Simone Corsi, Mattia Pasini, Jorge Martin and Sam Lowes crashed out.
Baldassarri’s fourth win of the year handily extended his points lead, 75 to Luthi’s 58. Marcel Schrotter, a dismal 15th today, has 48, then Navarro 44 and Gardner 38.
Moto3 Race – 23 laps, 97.306 km
Niccolo Antonelli and Honda-mounted team-mate Tatsuki Suzuki took a sentimental one-two at the track where the team-owner’s son Marco Simoncelli won his first-ever race back in 2004.
The SIC58 team is named after the late Italian rider, and the result by far the team’s best ever – Antonelli’s first win since the start of 2016, and Suzuki’s first podium.
The result came by inches after a 22-lap brawl, with third-placed Celestino Vietti (SKY VR46 KTM) taking a second podium in only his eighth GP just six hundredths adrift.
There were wildly changing fortunes in a lead group that was more than 15-strong for much of the race, with the lead swapped back and forth sometimes several times a lap.
Inevitably there were several dramatic mishaps and collisions, with several riders lucky to escape without serious injury. Fancied runners Gabriel Rodrigo (Honda) crashed out at the end of lap one and Jaume Masia (KTM) at the start of lap two. Marcos Ramirez (Honda) survived a dramatic tumble after a collision at top speed while going for the lead; Romano Fenati (Honda) was pushed off and out after briefly leading; Raul Fernandez (KTM) and Sergio Garcia (Honda) also fell together from the front group.
And there were several penalties, with both Tony Arbolino (Honda) and Dennis Foggia (KTM) docked three seconds for exceeding track limits, and failing to perform the required long-lap extra loop – Foggia didn’t see the signal in the relentless action, and was dropped from 11th over the line to 16th and out of the points.
For the rest, finishing positions were a combination of tactics and luck, with the top five inside just over half a second past the flag, and the next five just six tenths away, and covered by an even smaller margin.
CotA winner Aron Canet (Sterilgarda KTM) secured fourth inches ahead of Albert Arenas (Sama KTM), in a strong return after missing two races injured. He came through from an erstwhile 15th.
Less than a second adrift Kaito Toba (Honda Team Asia) had an even more impressive run from 27th on the grid. Jakub Kornfeil (KTM), pole starter and occasional leader Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Honda) narrowly led Ai Ogura (Honda) and Andrea Migno (KTM) to complete a hectic top ten.
Five seconds away, Darryn Binder (KTM) led John McPhee (Honda), Kazuki Masaki (KTM), Alonso Lopez and Ayumu Sasaki (both Honda) for the final points.
Canet took over a narrow points lead, with 58 points to Antonelli’s 57; then Masia (45), Toba (41) and Dalla Porta (40).
SAVE OF THE WEEKEND
Back to business as usual for Marquez, using practice to probe the limits, his front tyre to paint stripes on the track, and his knees and elbows to save the day. But he did it once too often in qualifying, abusing the front too much in a three-stop strategy, and missed pole position as a result.
LOSER OF THE WEEKEND
Jorge Navarro qualified on a first Moto2 pole, and his Speed Up team had the tactics sorted, setting the bike up to be at its best in the latter part of the 23-lap race. Then a crash cut distance to 15 laps. He was faster than the leader as he closed up into second, but the race was just too short.
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE
Jack Miller – MotoGP, DNF
“I ran out of tyre about five laps from the end, but because of qualifying 15th I’d had to use three laps of tyre trying to pass people at the start. I had to use a qualifying map, and it worked, but then it didn’t work at the end. I’d killed my tyres. They liked to be warmed gradually, and I was a sitting duck. Aleix passed me than ran wide, so I tried to get back – I’m only human. And that didn’t work and I crashed. It doesn’t feel good to finish 23 laps, then not finish the race.
Remy Gardner – Moto2, DNS
“We missed the front row by the smallest margin but I felt really good and excited for the race. I made a decent start and after a bit of elbowing into turn one I slotted into third and then I high-sided and that was the end of what could have been another really good result. I still don’t fully understand why I went down and then they wouldn’t let me restart.”
by Michael Scott
PHOTOS GNG
