Motorland Aragon, Spain – Jorge Lorenzo judged both the weather and his opposition to perfection as the rain in Spain fell mainly on a chaotic Aragon Grand Prix.
Despite battling a recalcitrant Yamaha all weekend, he was the only top-five rider to finish without a fall, taking his first win of the season at a circuit where no Yamaha rider had yet won in the premier class.
South African teenager Brad Binder topped a difficult weekend with a good ride into eighth in the Moto3 race, but dropped back one place to 11th in the points standings.
MOTOGP
With a dry start to the race, Lorenzo was one of the few to opt for a soft front/medium rear tyre combination. Within the first few corners he moved up three places to fourth, then to third, and second behind Honda’s Marc Marquez when satellite Ducati rider Andrea Iannone crashed out of the lead.
Lorenzo tucked in behind Marquez; for the next four laps the two were never more than half a second apart, until Lorenzo made his move through the uphill section of the circuit for the lead. Three laps later Marquez went back to the front, under braking for Turn 1.
Then Lorenzo’s team-mate Valentino Rossi ran wide in the downhill section, running off the circuit and on to the slippery grass where he crashed heavily. He lost consciousness briefly after the crash but recovered quickly and was taken immediately to the medical centre for a check-up, then transferred to hospital in Alcaniz for a CT scan.
A lap it began to rain and the white flags came out, permitting riders to puit and swop to ‘wet’ bikes if they wanted to – but none of the leading three – Marquez, Lorenzo and Honda’s Dani Pedrosa, was willing to give away that much time.
At the start of lap 15 Lorenzo mirrored Marquez’ pass into Turn 1 to take the lead again but slowed as the rain became heavier, allowing both Hondas to get by in the in the uphill series of corners.
Finally, with only four laps to go, Lorenzo dived into the pits to change to his wet bike – but while he was in the pits Pedrosa went down on the main straight and when Lorenzo went out again he was in second.
Marquez opted not to pit and a lap later also fell, leaving Lorenzo with a clear run to the finish line and his first victory of the season, followed home by Forward Yamaha rider Aleix Espargaro and Ducati team’s Cal Crutchlow, who were only 17 thousands of a second apart at the line.
Stefan Bradl (Honda) was fourth after a steady ride, while Bradley Smith beat Yamaha Tech 3 team-mate Pol Espargaro to the line by 0.203sec for fifth. Honda privateers Alvaro Bautista, Hiroshi Aoyama, Nicky Hayden and Scott Redding made up the top 10, while Marquez and Pedrosa each remounted to finish 13th and 14th respectively.
After the race Lorenzo was still fourth in the 2014 standings but his win in Aragon brought him within striking range of Rossi in third and Pedrosa in second, with 15 points covering all three; Marquez, however still held a commanding lead of 75 points with only four races left on the calendar.
A later bulletin from Alcaniz reported that Rossi’s CT scan had ruled out any bleeding in the brain. He was kept in hospital overnight for observation but doctors said there was no cause for concern.
Kalex rider Maverick Viñales took an impressive win – his second since moving up to the intermediate class – after qualifying on pole for the first time in Moto2, beating championship leader Tito Rabat, also on a Kalex, by 1.285sec, with Johann Zarco (Caterham Suter) in close attendance for third.
Thomas Luthi (Suter) and Franco Morbidelli (Kalex) were fourth and fifth respectively, with Dominique Aegerter (Suter) sixth and Rabat’s team-mate and championship rival Mika Kallio seventh, after having led in the early stagesv – which extended Rabat’s title advantage to 33 points.
Jordi Torres (Suter), Sam Lowes (Speed Up) and Marcel Schrotter (Tech 3) ropunded out the top 10 while Jonas Folger (Kalex) had his second ride-through penalty in as many races after a jumped start and eventually finished 23rd.
MOTO3
Romano Fenati (KTM) judged the tricky conditions best to win by 0.057sec from Alex Marquez and 0.226sec from Danny Kent.
Marquez (Honda) and previous championship leader Jack Miller (KTM) were summoned by race direction after they collided early in the race, causing Miller to go down. He remounted, however, to finish 27th after a second fall.
The start of the race was delayed by mist and fog which disrupted the morning’s warm-up sessions and although a dry line formed for the race the conditions were difficult for the lightweight class competitors.
Fenati produced a superb ride from 13th on the grid to win an incident-packed race, a result that saw Marquez take over the championship lead by 11 points with four rounds to go.
A mistake by Maquez’ team-mate Alex Rins saw him drop to seventh after contesting the lead; he eventually finishing fourth, ahead of Jakub Kornfeil (KTM) who had also crashed while leading!
Enea Bastianini (KTM), Miguel Oliveira (Mahindra), Brad Binder (Mahindra), Niccolo Antonelli (KTM) and Alexis Masbou (Honda) completed the top 10.