Dani Pedrosa claims 20 points at Phillip Island behind Jorge Lorenzo. Pit lane entry timing mistake by team leaves Marc Marquez black flagged.
A bizarre Australian Grand Prix saw mixed fortunes for the Repsol Honda Team at Phillip Island. Whilst Dani Pedrosa would earn 20 points thanks to second place in the race, Marc Marquez was disqualified for a mistake with the timing of his mandatory pit stop. The bike change was made on lap eleven, contravening the established rule about riding more than ten laps with the first machine. Following the antepenultimate round of the season, Marquez continues to lead the MotoGP standings, with an 18 point advantage over Lorenzo and 34 over Pedrosa.
The worrying tyre wear at the resurfaced Australian track obliged Race Direction to make the decision to reduce the race distance to 19 laps, with an obligatory change of bikes. Lap 10 was the final opportunity for the switch to be made. A mistake from Marc Marquez’ crew saw him come in on lap 11 –leading to his disqualification.
The action on track was a battle between Lorenzo, Marquez and Pedrosa, with the two Repsol Honda riders trailing the Yamaha man. After the bike change, Lorenzo continued in the lead, with Pedrosa second. He remained in that spot until the chequered flag, coming in almost seven seconds behind Lorenzo.
The World Championship now heads to Japan, where in 7 days’ time Marquez will have another opportunity to clinch the MotoGP title.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
2nd at 6.936 sec.
“Today’s race was very stressful –above all before the start, as the rules were being changed every five minutes. Everything was turned on its head and it was very difficult to adapt first time, without making any mistakes. Marc [Marquez] made mistakes and I did too. Everything was going so fast and it was confusing for both the riders and the mechanics. We had to be clear about which lap to enter the pits, as it wasn’t obvious which was lap 9 and which was lap 10. The two bikes needed to be prepared and the tyres as well, the pit lane was much longer than normal… it was all so strange today. The exit line from the pits wasn’t clear, and neither could you see the entry line very well, so it was all a bit improvised. In my case I was able to rectify my mistake on the track and, although the second bike wasn’t the same for me as the first, I managed to take second in the race and be very competitive.”
Marc Marquez >> Audio
Disqualified
“Today was our first experience of a Flag-to-Flag race, and suffice to say it wasn’t a good one. My team and I had set out a strategy and we thought that we could come in after lap 10, but in reality this counts as an extra lap. We hadn’t had that in mind and this was a huge mistake. We had everything well planned and I followed the instructions on my pit board. You learn from these things though, so now we have to move on and focus on the race in Japan.”
