Twin Ring Motegi, Japan – Dani Pedrosa got it absolutely right on the Repsol Honda, on a day when everybody else seemed to get it wrong on a tricky wet-and-dry circuit.
He came from sixth on the grid to take a commanding win, while Valentino Rossi extended his lead over Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo to 18 points in the world championship standings.
There was bitter disappointment for South Africa’s Brad Binder, who started ninth in the Moto3 race and carved his way through the top half of the field to third in just six laps, only to crash out three laps from the end.
He remounted in 20th and made up three places in two laps to finish 17th, while younger brother Darryn qualified 30th and splashed round as best he could in rough conditions to come home 27th.
MOTOGP
There were only really three riders in with a chance in tricky conditions at Motegi. The race started on time despite a two-hour delay in the morning’s warm-up session, but the circuit remained damp and all the riders went for wets.
Rossi got the hole shot into Turn 1 only for Lorenzo to take the lead through turns 3 and 4, breaking away at the front as usual and opening a two-second lead by the end of lap three.
Rossi appeared to have no answer to his team-mate’s pace and had to fight off the advances of the Ducati Team’s Andrea Dovizioso during the early stages of the race. In a sign of things to come though, Dovizioso started to experience front tyre issues as a dry line appeared on the circuit and began to drop back rapidly by lap 10.
By this point Pedrosa had made his way up into fourth and was by far the fastest man on the circuit. On lap 11 Dovizioso ran wide and Pedrosa nipped past and set off after Rossi, who had a 2.7s advantage.
At that point Pedrosa was lapping 1.5 seconds faster that the two Yamaha in front of him; he caught Rossi with 9 laps to go - and suddenly Lorenzo was struggling as his front tyre started to rip itself to pieces.
Rossi went with Pedrosa and they both began to hunt down Lorenzo, who had a 2.7c second advantage but seemed to be going backwards at this point. Pedrosa blasted past him on the straight as they completed lap 17 to take the lead, and never looked back
It then became a game of risk versus reward between the two Yamaha team-mates as Rossi closed in on his title rival, but both were tiptoeing around on shredded front tyres. ‘The Doctor’ appeared to have looked after his slightly better though and moved smoothly through into second when Lorenzo ran wide at Turn 3 with five 5 laps to go.
Pedrosa rode superbly in the final laps to continue his record of winning at least one race in every season he has competed in MotoGP. He came home more than 8.5 seconds ahead of Rossi, with Lorenzo completing the podium a further 3 seconds back.
Pedrosa’s factory Honda team-mate, defending champion Marc Marquez, nursing the broken bone in his left hand, crossed the line a lonely fourth nearly 30 seconds adrift, ahead of Dovizioso, who despite his tyre issues, held on for fifth.
Honda privateer Cal Crutchlow came out on top (by just 0.404s) of an excellent battle for sixth with Bradley Smith on the Yamaha Tech 3 to finish as the leading Satellite rider. Crutchlow passed Smith on the last lap to secure sixth, his best result since he also finished sixth at Assen.
Wild card Katsuyuki Nakasuga on a works Yamaha rode brilliantly to finish eighth ahead of Hector Barbera’s privateer Ducati. Scott Redding (Honda) completed the top 10 ahead of Aleix Espargaro (Suzuki), with second wild card Takumi Takahashi 12th on an HRC Honda.
MOTO2
Freshly-minted world champion Johann Zarco put on a masterful display to take his seventh win of the season, after the only man who could stop him lifting the title at Motegi, Tito Rabat, had to withdraw due to injury.
The Moto2 race was reduced to 15 laps after a two-hour delay in the morning’s warm up sessions due to track conditions, and Zarco rode brilliantly on a wet but drying circuit to take the win from Jonas Folger by 4.505, in a race where the top five slots – and nine of the first 12 - were filled by Kalex machines.
Zarco, starting from pole, found himself chasing down Folger in the early stages after the latter got the hole shot into Turn 1. The newly crowned champion made his move on Folger for the lead on lap seven and set off into the distance to take his eighth career GP victory.
Folger finished in a lonely second, while fellow German Sandro Cortese, starting from 9th, bided his time perfectly to move through the field and claim third from Azlan Shah (who posted his first top 10 Moto2 finish) by just 1.915s, passing him on the penultimate lap to record his first podium of the season.
Hafizh Syahrin claimed his best result of the season in fifth, ahead of Suter rider Ricky Cardus, who posted a career best in sixth. Simone Corsi, Sam Lowes (Speed Up), Marcel Schrotter (Tech 3) and Randy Krummenacher completed the top 10.
Alex Rins had been competing for the podium, but was one of the riders to suffer from excessive front tyre wear as the track dried and had to settle for 11th after running wide a number of times in the later stages of the race.
MOTO3
Niccolo Antonelli (Honda) put in a perfectly-judged ride in the wet to take his second career Moto3 win by little more than a second from KTM factory rider Miguel Oliveira, with Jorge Navarro completing the podium on another privateer Honda.
Championship leader Danny Kent (Honda) saw his chances of lifting the title at Motegi fade after a bad start, but recovered to finish sixth, ahead of main title rival Enea Bastianini, also on a Honda.
Antonelli shot off at the start and established a four-second lead at the front while Kent found himself down in 16th at the end of the first lap, 10 places down from rival Bastianini.
He wisely stayed where he was for four laps to get feel for the conditions, then set about carving his way through the field. Six laps later he was seventh and rapidly closing on Bastianini, while Oliveira gradually reduced Antonelli’s lead; with two laps to go it was down to 2.1s.
It all came down to the last lap of the shortened 13-lap sprint as Antonelli kept his cool and held Oliveira at bay while Kent passed Bastianini in Turn 7 to take sixth.
Oliviera claimed his sixth podium finish of the season in second and Jorge Navarro (Honda) made it back-to-back podiums as he came home third.
KTM privateer Isaac Viñales crashed on the penultimate lap at Turn 10 but incredibly remounted to finish fourth ahead of similarly mounted Zulfahmi Khairuddin, who posted his best result of the season in fifth. Kent’s last-lap move saw him finish half a second ahead of Bastianini, while works KTM rider Karel Hanika, and Honda privateers John McPhee and Efren Vazquez rounded out the top 10.