Masterful Lorenzo claims stunning victory in Misano

Jorge Lorenzo claimed his second win on the bounce today with the Yamaha Factory Racing rider giving a masterclass at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli leading the race from start to finish to win the GP Aperol di San Marino e Riviera di Rimini while current championship leader Marc Marquez secured second place and another podium finish for the Repsol Honda rookie with his teammate Dani Pedrosa claiming third after a race long battle with his younger countryman.

Lorenzo got a dream start from the second row and leaped into the lead with Pedrosa and Marquez close behind in what would eventually become a race long battle. There was also drama at the start when Power Electronics Aspar rider Aleix Espargaro looked to get the start of the day when he passed Yamaha Factory Racing’s Valentino Rossi but the joy was short-lived for the Spaniard when he was given a rider-through penalty for jumping the start.

Rossi didn’t stay behind Espargaro for long and soon set out in pursuit of the Repsol Honda’s with Marquez not up to speed as quickly as his teammate but after a short number of laps where Rossi was ahead, Marquez overtook the seven time MotoGP Champion and looked intent on pushing to pass his teammate and catch Lorenzo who had quickly built up a healthy lead. The battle for 5th was being fought out between Monster Yamaha tech 3’s Cal Crutchlow and Stefan Bradl on the LCR Honda with Go&Fun Honda Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista on his own ahead of The Ducati Team machines of Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden.

There were early retirements for Ignite Pramac Racing’s Andrea Iannone who crashed out while Karel Abraham retired his Cardion AB Motoracing machine with his injured shoulder. The middle part of the race saw Marquez and Pedrosa locked together in battle with Marquez unable to shake his teammate and their battle let Lorenzo stretch his lead out even further with the Spaniard enjoying nearly a 5 second lead moving into the last ten laps of the 28 lap race. Following the ride through penalty Espargaro was back in 14th behind the NGM Mobile Forward Racing machine of Colin Edwards and Danilo Petrucci and the Came IodaRacing team.

Back at the front of the race Lorenzo continued to lead on his own while Marquez and Pedrosa were locked in battle but it was Marquez who was the stronger of the two and was able to fight back each time his teammate threatened to take the valuable 2nd place away. The final few laps of the race saw Lorenzo slowing the pace somewhat but the Spaniard could easily afford to do so and crossed the line to the delight of his team and fans while Marquez held on to second place while Pedrosa looked dejected with his third place finish. There was also drama right at the end with the battle for 5th being won on the last lap by Bradl who got the better of Crutchlow.

Speaking afterwards, Lorenzo revealed a change in set up this morning helped his fortunes saying, “Luckily we improved the bike a lot in warm up, especially in braking so we improved the lap time and the pace quite a bit. I was convinced to follow my strategy of the last couple of races, which was to try to break away and finally I could do it. The first two laps I had a big advantage so I had to keep pushing to maintain a distance because they never gave up and wanted to catch me. I’m happy, we recovered five points and we are closer to Marc. I need to be constant and try to win races and stay focused.”

Marquez was happy to build on his championship lead. He said, “We've taken another 20 World Championship points today and, considering how the race went, I think that is a good reward! At the start of the race I knew that I had to be careful, but I made two mistakes and lost a lot of time with the second of those. Maybe I was lacking a little experience; it's my rookie season and it is normal to make a few errors. I also didn't feel completely comfortable with a full fuel tank; from the midway point onwards I felt a lot better. To finish second is a great result, even though Lorenzo has gained five points on us, we are an extra four ahead of Dani. We are happy and have a lot of motivation to keep fighting hard at Aragon!”

Pedrosa’s look of dejection in parc fermé matched his mood in the post race interviews saying, “I gave my all in the race today. I rode as well as I can ride, putting everything into every lap and trying to take every corner perfectly. Overall, this hasn't been our weekend, generally speaking, because I had a lot of grip problems with the rear tire on every day of the GP. In the race today it was even more noticeable, so I couldn't have done things any better.”

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