Silverstone, Northamptonshire – Valentino Rossi delivered a master class in racecraft to post his fourth win of the season at a wet and wild British motorcycle Grand Prix and re-take the lead in the MotoGP championship standings from Yamaha team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.
Brad and Darryn binder from Krugersdorp suffered through a day they would rather forget, each crashing out of the Moto3 race twice; Darryn actually got going again after his second fall but was not classified as a finisher.
MOTOGP
Thirty-six-year-old Rossi produced a fearless ride in the rain to claim his first ever victory at Silverstone, and open up a 12 point lead in the championship standings over Lorenzo.
There was drama even before the lights went out at Silverstone as it was originally declared a dry race, but rain on the grid prompted every rider to return to the pits on their warm-up lap to swap for wets. This led to a 30-minute delay to allow the teams and riders to safely reform back on the grid.
When the action finally started, Rossi got a solid start, moving up from fourth on the grid to take the lead on lap two – then passed team-mate and main title rival at Village corner, much to the delight of the 73 000 fans at Silverstone.
He then broke away with only reigning champion Marc Marquez on a works Honda able to stay with him; by lap nine they had pulled a seven-second lead on satellite Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci in third.
The Doctor was setting a blistering pace in the dreadful conditions, and it proved too much even for the supremely talented Marquez, who crashed out on lap 13 at Copse Corner, effectively putting an end to his title defence.
Without Marquez to push him, Rossi seemed to relax and at one point it seemed as if the chasing Ducatis of Petrucci and works rider Andrea Dovizioso would reel him in at the death. Petrucci had reduced the gap to just 1.6sec with two laps remaining, but Rossi got a signal from his pit board and upped the pace once more to take the win by three seconds.
Petrucci delivered an incredible ride to secure his first ever premier-class podium as the leading satellite rider. He started from 18th, and cut through the pack to get into a superb dice for second with Dovizioso on the Ducati Team GP15. Petrucci’s ex-works GP14 is known as a good bike to ride in the wet and took him to his best MotoGP result yet, to the delight of his team.
Dovizioso completed an all-Italian podium to equal his best result of the season so far at Assen. The former 125cc world champion started from 12th but rode superbly in the tricky conditions to record his 29th MotoGP podium.
Lorenzo had a frustrating race, leading into the first corner and then dropping back through the field at an alarming rate. At one point he was as low as sixth before he seemed to recover and fought back to cross the line in fourth, limiting the damage to his title chances.
Dani Pedrosa on the second works Honda battled hard throughout the race to finish fifth. He was in the mix for the podium but dropped back in the closing stages to cross the line more than five seconds behind Lorenzo.
Privateer Honda rider Scott Redding won the ‘Battle of the Brits’ as he pulled off the best result of his premier-class career in front of his home fans, coming home just one second ahead of compatriot Bradley Smith on the Tech 3 satellite Yamaha after Smith’s team-mate Pol Espargaro crashed out at Turn 3 on lap 14.
Ducati Team rider Andrea Iannone finished eighth ahead of the Team Suzuki GSX-RR of Espargaro’s brother Aleix and Alvaro Bautista on the Gresini Aprilia, who gave the cash-strapped team a welcome morale boost with it’s first top 10 finish on its return to the premier class.
MOTO2
Johann Zarco made it 11 podiums in a row and extended his lead in the standings with a commanding win, crossing the line 3.360sec ahead of Moto2 rookie Alex Rins, as Tito Rabat completed an all-Kalex podium.
Heavy rain during the morning’s warm-up session saw all the riders line up on the grid with wet tyres but it had stopped by the time the lights went out, leading to a tense drama-filled race as a dry racing line appeared.
Zarco, third on the grid, got into an excellent early battle with Rabat and Rins, the three riders swapping the lead a number of times. On lap two Zarco and Rabat almost touched, forcing Zarco to run wide and drop back to fifth.
It took him until lap seven to work his way back to the front and take the lead. He immediately set about creating a gap at the front as the others seemed to suffer from greater tyre degradation. By lap 13 between Zarco and second placed Rabat had reached eight seconds.
There was a scare for the championship leader as Rins put in a late charge but he responded to take his sixth career Grand Prix victory by a comfortable margin.
Rins came out on top of a close scrap for second with the similar Kalex machines of Rabat and Alex Marquez. Rins made his move with five laps to go to nail second, leapfrogging Rabat in the championship standings in the process.
Rabat had led into the first corner and looked liked he could match Zarco’s pace in the early stages, but after eight laps you could see the rubber flying off his tyres. The defending champion ran wide while debating third team-mate Marquez on the penultimate lap, but recovered to take third and secure his fifth podium of the season.
Marquez came from ninth on the gird to take his second consecutive fourth-placed finished, a couple of seconds ahead of Jonas Folger. Pole man and local hero, Speed Up rider Sam Lowes, had a terrible start and was down in eighth by the end of the first lap, but responded in front of his passionate home fans to fight his way back to sixth – the first non-Kalex rider home.
He was followed by wet race specialist Anthony West, also on a Speed Up, who battled through the field from 22nd on the grid to finish seventh, ahead of Kalex riders Sandro Cortese and Thomas Luthi, and Ricard Cardus on a Suter.
MOTO3
Honda rider Danny Kent delighted his drenched home fans by claiming his eighth Grand Prix career victory in dominant fashion. The junior-class race saw the worst weather of the day at Silverstone, but even this could not stop runaway Moto3 championship leader Kent.
Starting from third on the grid, he took the lead with 13 laps to go after Isaac Viñales crashed out and never looked back. He walked away to establish a 10 second lead, managing the gap perfectly to become the first British rider to win at Silverstone in the lightweight class despite a huge moment in the closing stages as the weather worsened.
With such a big lead, it became a test of concentration for Kent, but he passed with flying colours to cross the line 8.492sec ahead of KTM privateer Jakub Kornfeil, increasing his lead in the standing over Enea Bastianini to 70 points after the Italian was one of 16 riders to crash out.
Kornfeil posted his maiden Grand Prix podium as he battled through the pack from 13th on the grid to finish as the leading KTM, ahead of Niccolo Antonelli (Honda), who backed up his maiden win last time out in Brno with only his second career podium.
Almost 37 seconds further back was 16-year-old Fabio Quartararo in fourth, who struggled with his helmet visor steaming up during the race, but managed to cone out on top of an excellent battle with similarly Honda mounted Livio Loi and John McPhee.
Mahindra rider Juanfran Guevara pulled off his career best result as he finished in seventh while Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Husqvarna Factory) scored points for the first time in his career, finishing eighth in only his third race. Kent’s team-mate Efren Vazquez and Tatsuki Suzuki (Mahindra) completed the top 10
Pole man Jorge Navarro (Honda) crashed out of the lead on the very first lap, while Brad binder, who’d qualified 10th, was up to sixth when he fell on lap 3. He rejoined in 30th place and was lying 27th when he crashed out again on lap nine.
Younger brother Darryn qualified 25th, cut through the traffic move up six places on lap one and was challenging for eighth on lap seven when he crashed out. He rejoined in 23rd and made up two places before going down again on lap 15. By the time he got the bike back on the track, however, it was all over, and he was classified DNF.