Indianapolis, Indiana - Honda’s defending world champion Marc Marquez took his winning streak across the Atlantic for a hard-fought third consecutive win at the Brickyard, while Yamaha veteran Valentino Rossi held on to his championship by beating Marquez’ team-mate into third.
In the Moto3 race, Krugersdorp brothers Brad and Darryn Binder had mixed fortunes with Brad in the middle of a four-way battle for sixth and Darryn trailing home a disappointing 27th, a lap down.
MOTOGP
After the Moto3 and Moto2 races were declared wet earlier in the day, conditions improved by the time the MotoGP riders took to the grid and luckily, apart from a few spots of rain, it remained dry throughout the race.
Lorenzo led into the first corner from pole man Marquez, and the two soon broke away at the front of the field, opening up a one-second gap by the end of lap 8. The two Spaniards then delivered a master class in close racing as Marquez stalked Lorenzo, studying his strengths and weaknesses before finally making his move into Turn 1 with just three laps to go.
Lorenzo had no response and Marquez pulled away slightly to cross the line a little more than half a second ahead for Honda’s 700th GP victory, his ninth in a row on US soil and his first back-to-back wins this season.
Rossi started from eighth but after a sensational opening lap he was up to fourth and hunting down Pedrosa for the final podium spot. He could match the pace of Marquez and Lorenzo at the front, but could not close the gap to the leaders.
Rossi finally passed Pedrosa into Turn 1 on lap 18, but the Honda man was having none of it and recovered almost immediately, setting up a dramatic last-lap showdown. On the last lap Pedrosa overtook Rossi into Turn 1, but “The Doctor” fought back immediately and made it stick, holding on to cross the line 0.181s ahead of Pedrosa, six seconds down on the leaders.
Ducati Team’s Andrea Iannone finished 15 seconds further back in fifth after holding off a late charge from Bradley Smith on the Yamaha Tech 3. The British rider pulled another brilliant start from ninth on the grid and was running fifth after the first few corners, only to run wide in Turn 10 and have to fight his way back through the field.
Smith’s team-mate Pol Espargaro was another 8.627s back in seventh, ahead of Honda privateer Cal Crutchlow, who dropped down to 11th after almost clipping the back of Smith at the start of the race and had to fight his way back into the top 10 before eventually finishing eighth.
Ducati Team lead riderAndrea Dovizioso also ran wide on the first lap – in Turn 2 – and rejoined stone, but recovered brilliantly and fought back to finish ninth ahead of Ducati privateer Danilo Petrucci, who completed the top 10.
Alex Rins took his first Moto2 race win by less than half a second ahead of Johann Zarco and Franco Morbidelli, in one of the most exciting races of the season – and one where the top 12 finishers were all riding Kalex machines.
The race was declared wet but with the track drying, the majority of riders decided to start on slicks and it was a fascinating first few laps as they tried to adjust to the conditions.
Once things had settled down there was an incredible battle at the front between Rins, Tito Rabat, Zarco and Dominique Aegerter, each taking turns at the front in a spectacular display of aggressive overtaking.
Not until two laps from the end was Rins able to secure some breathing space at the front after Zarco ran wide, taking Aegerter with him. Rins eventually crossed the line almost half a second ahead of championship leader Zarco to take his ninth career GP victory and his first in Moto2 after eight wins in Moto3.
Morbidelli sealed a late charge by taking advantage of Aegerter running wide to steal third and secure his first Moto2 podium. Aegerter, fresh from his podium at the Suzuka 8 Hours endurance race, was battling for the lead for much of the race before missing out on the podium by 0.406s.
Rabat took a battling fifth after a duel with Morbidelli that must have brought back memories of their last-corner crash at the German GP last time out. Thomas Luthi with Axel Pons recovering from crash in the morning’s warm-up to take seventh, while Xavier Simeon, Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez completed the top ten.
MOTO3
Livio Loi (Honda) became the first Belgian to win in the lightweight class, finishing almost 40 seconds of John McPhee, also on a Honda, in a race disrupted by rain, with Phillip Oettl (KTM) claiming the final podium spot, a further 17 seconds back. Championship leader Danny Kent was caught out by the weather conditions and eventually crossed the line 21st.
The formbook was thrown out of the window before the race began as a heavy shower meant that it was declared wet. All the riders lined up on the grid on wet tyres before Livio Loi, Jules Danilo, Andrea Migno and McPhee decided to switch to slicks before the race, with Loi the only rider to make the decision in time to start from his original grid position while the others had to start from pit lane.
This proved a masterstroke as the rain stopped as the lights went out and the track dried rapidly, with riders pouring into the pits to change to slicks from the end of the very first lap. Loi took the lead on lap four and never looked back, managing his lead perfectly. McPhee and Oettl also rapidly made their way through the field and for most of the race they were the only two riders on the same lap as Loi.
The rain came back a few laps before the end but not heavily enough to make a difference to the result, and Loi went on to take his first career Moto3 victory by a huge margin – a victory made even sweeter by the memory of being forced to miss the Indianapolis race in 2014 after being fired from the Marc VDS team at the German GP.
McPhee’s second-place finish - after he qualified 18th - was first Moto3 podium; it was also Phillip Oettl’s first GP podium finish too, 19 years and 2 months after his father Peter Oettl’s last GP win at Mugello in 1996.
KTM rider Romano Fenati finished in fourth, 17 seconds adrift of Oettl, with Isaac Viñales, filling in for injured KTM privateer Ana Carrasco taking fifth. Enea Bastianini (Honda) closed the gap to championship leader Kent by 10 points to 56, finishing sixth after a superb dice with Niccolo Antonelli (Honda), Brad Binder (KTM) in eighth and Jorge Navarro (Honda) who finished in ninth.
Jorge Martin rounded out the top 10 in a race that saw his Mahindra team-mate Francesco Bagnaia given a ride through penalty for a jump start before crashing out at Turn 4 on lap 14.