Misano Adriatico, Italy – Honda’s defending champion Marc Marquez took his fourth win of the season in some of the most difficult conditions MotoGP has seen in recent years, after a perfectly timed bike change in a race that saw most riders pit twice.
Brad and Darryn Binder from Krugersdorp made up for their Silverstone disasters with a fighting fifth for Brad and a solid 18th for Darryn.
MOTOGP
Drops of rain started to fall as the rider formed up on grid but the race started on slicks. Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo set a scalding pace from the start with a trademark launch off the line as small battles emerged throughout the opening lap.
Then the white flags came out on lap two, declaring the race wet and allowing riders to come in and change bikes if conditions deteriorated. Lorenzo, however, forged ahead undeterred with Marquez close behind, breaking away from championship leader Valentino Rossi who struggled in the opening laps.
As the rain got heavier, some riders pushed even harder while many tiptoed around, waiting to follow their rivals into the pits. By lap six the pace had dropped by almost six seconds a lap and Dani Pedrosa on the second factory Honda found himself fending off the Ducati Team pair of Andrea Iannone and Andrea Doviziosoc – all of whom were visibly timid in the tricky conditions.
By this stage most of the riders had opted for a bike change, just the front three of Lorenzo, Rossi and Marquez staying out.
As is usual in racing, the top three all dived into the pits together - adopting the same strategy as your rival is often the safest option in such unusual circumstances – but there was more drama in pit lane as Marquez and Lorenzo almost collided, the Yamaha rider gesturing to Marquez to “stay calm” as the three went back out on the circuit together.
It was soon clear that Lorenzo and Marquez had a quicker pace than Rossi and the Doctor soon found himself 2.5 seconds behind Lorenzo. Lorenzo then got past Marquez at Turn 8 when the Honda rider ran wide on lap 10.
The new Misano surface is uniformly dark and all the riders found it difficult to tell where the track was wet from where it was dry – but as it dried out, Rossi began to fly, gaining more than a second a lap on the leaders despite his front wet tyre rapidly starting to deteriorate.
Worried mechanics worked hurriedly in pit lane, preparing the ‘dry’ bikes for a second change. Loris Baz (Yamaha) was one of the first to jump back onto slicks, the Open rider soon finding himself inside the top 10 as the rest of the field followed suit.
Again, it was the top three who stuck together and stayed out long after the others, Rossi and Lorenzo battling battling it out as Marquez played it safe, waiting behind the Yamaha pair and assessing their tyres.
On lap 18 he decided it was time to swap back to slicks, a move that would prove to be a masterstroke. Lorenzo joined Marquez on slicks a lap later while Rossi continued to push ahead.
But just as ‘The Doctor pitted, with seven laps to go, disaster struck as Lorenzo crashed out at Turn 15. The Mallorcan suffered a small bruise on his right hand and his Yamaha M1 took a beating, but it was his championship hopes that came off worst of all.
Marquez had chosen the perfect time to pit; he had built enough of an advantage to maintain a solid lead even with his second pit stop. Meanwhile, Bradley Smith’s gamble to stay out on slicks was paying off; after a multitude of laps spent tiptoeing around and dropping as low as 21st, the the Tech 3 satellite Yamaha rider was up to second, with Baz was promoted into third by Lorenzo’s fall.
He was demoted however, with four laps to go by Honda privateer Scott Redding, who had swapped to slicks earlier than most.
Marquez’ 23rd MotoGP win was his first at Misano; he was followed up to the podium by an elated, if somewhat surprised Bradley Smith and Scott Redding, in the latter’s first premier class podium finish. It was the first time since Barry Sheene and Tom Herron in the 1979 Venezuelan GP that two British riders had finished on the podium.
Rossi finished fifth, extending his lead over Lorenzo in the championship standings to 23 points.
MOTO2
Johann Zarco took advantage of an early crash between Dominique Aegerter and Alex Rins while they were battling for the lead to take his seventh career victory. It was his 12th consecutive podium of the season and meant he could clinch the title at Motegi.
Tito Rabat recovered from an awful start that saw him drop down to eighth by the end of the first lap to claim his seventh podium of the season. In a race where tyre choice was crucial, Rabat joined Zarco and a number of other riders by opting for the harder rear while the medium seemed to drop off dramatically in the latter stages. Rabat eventually crossed the line 3.850s behind his title rival Zarco in second.
Takaaki Nakagami went for the medium rear and was struggling dramatically for grip at the end of the race, but held on to claim his first podium since Misano in 2013 and the sixth of his GP career.
Simone Corsi came home fourth, ahead of Speed Up’s Julian Simon, the only rider in the top 14 not on a Kalex, while Jonas Folger, who’d also chosen the medium rear tyre, saw his podium challenge fade as the race went on. He eventually finished in sixth, 10.466s behind the leader.
Lorenzo Baldassari rode superbly with a dislocated right shoulder to finish in seventh, ahead of Sandro Cortese, Luis Salom and Thomas Luthi, who rounded out the top 10.
Rins and Aegerter both re-joined, but Rins was black flagged late in the race, while Aegerter recovered to finish 24th.
MOTO3
Enea Bastianini won a close fought battle to snatch his first win – at his home circuit – in only his 31st Grand Prix start. The Honda rider was involved in a five-man leading group that saw the lead swap hands on almost every lap.
Bastianini made the decisive move in Turn 11 on the last lap and held on to win by just 0.037s from KTM team leader Miguel Oliveira, who took his fourth podium of the season and best result since his race win at Assen, first time out on a new, updated works KTM chassis.
Honda privateer Niccolo Antonelli recovered from Saturday's crash to take his third podium of the season ahead of a hard charging Romano Fenati on an older, privateer KTM, while Oliveira’s team-mate Brad Binder made it three KTM’s in the top five as only 0.637s separated the leading group across the line.
Championship leader Danny Kent (Honda) was at the back of the leading group midway through the race but exceeded the track limits at Turn 6 so many times that he was handed a one-place penalty – which meant he had to drop back more than four seconds to let the next rider go by. That wrecked his chances of a podium finish and he came eventually came home sixth.
Alexis Masbou (Honda), Francesco Bagnaia (Mahindra), and KTM riders Isaac Vinales and Phillip Oettl completed the top 10.