Marc Marquez picks up 20 points and goes into final round 13 ahead of Jorge Lorenzo. Dani Pedrosa places third at Japanese GP as Repsol Honda clinch Teams World Championship.
The Japanese Grand Prix has ended with Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa once again sharing the podium, second and third, respectively in a race won by Jorge Lorenzo. With this result, Marquez remains overall leader with a 13-point advantage over Lorenzo, with a fourth place finish at the final race of the year sufficient to give him the title in the event of a win by his rival.
After two days full of uncertainty due to adverse weather conditions, today the seventeenth race of the season took place under blazing sunshine. At the start, Jorge Lorenzo took the lead and his teammate, Valentino Rossi, watched his back, with Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa hot on his heels. A mistake by the Italian on the second lap allowed the Repsol Honda Team riders to get behind Lorenzo ‒already had more than 1 second ahead by then. Boasting an excellent pace, both closed the gap and stuck with the race leader, but were unable to get past. At the end of the race, Lorenzo re-opened the distance and took the win.
The title will be decided in a fortnight’s time in Valencia, at the final round of the season. Marquez holds a 13-point advantage and has a third chance to seal the World Championship in his rookie season. With second and third place for Marquez and Pedrosa today, Repsol Honda clinched the Teams World Championship.
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
3rd at 4.592 sec.
“It was a bit of a boring race for me, because I tried to give everything but I had a lot of problems exiting the corners; I was unable to get on the gas fully and I lost a lot of time to Marc [Marquez] and Jorge [Lorenzo]. I was third for the entire race, trying to hold onto them. However, at the midway point of the race my pace started to become slower than theirs. Now we have to focus on the next race, in Valencia, where we shall try to do as well as possible.”
Marc Marquez >> Audio
2nd at 3.188 sec.
“Second place today is a very good result. After my crash in warmup, I knew that it would be difficult to be consistent ‒because in the morning I hadn’t managed that either. This was my first time at this track with a MotoGP bike and in practice I was unable to get any references in the dry, leaving me with only the warm up and the race in which to find my way. I saw that Jorge [Lorenzo] was a little stronger than us here and I had a couple of scary moments, making me decide that twenty points and the gap being reduced by only five points would be a decent result. There is only one race remaining ‒the most important of the year‒ so we shall try to be more focused than ever at Valencia.”
