Repsol Honda team rider finishes third at Czech GP hit by rain. Dani Pedrosa places twelfth after a difficult weekend.
The Czech Republic Grand Prix provided another show in the MotoGP class, contest on a wet track that never quite dried out enough to require slick tyres. Marc Marquez managed to overcome the tricky conditions to achieve a valuable third place at Brno. The Repsol Honda Team rider thus scored 16 points in a tough race, and moves his points total up to 197. Still the series leader, he has a 53 point advantage over his nearest rival.
The Czech GP provided a difficult weekend for Dani Pedrosa, who was unable to improve his feeling on raceday and took the chequered flag twelfth.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
3rd at 9.587 sec.
“I’m happy with the end result because the most important thing is that today I extended my advantage over second in the overall standings, as I only dropped four points to Valentino [Rossi] while Jorge [Lorenzo] didn’t score points. We proved that we’re competitive both in dry and wet conditions. This year we’re working like ants, making gradual, steady improvements and having a very complete season without changing our mindset.
I made a mistake with the tyres choice, but it’s easier to judge things in hindsight. Perhaps the best tyre choice was the hard compound on both the front and rear, but I was expecting a flag-to-flag race since the track normally dries quickly, which wasn’t the case today. When I saw that there was less than 10 laps to go and the track was still wet, I started to manage my tyre wear. I saw that Crutchlow and Rossi had a faster pace, so I concentrated on my other rivals and I can say I won the battle with them.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
12th at 41.097 sec.
“It was a disappointing day. Actually I didn’t have the right feeling in the wet today, and normally I’m quite fast in the rain. Since the change they made to the front rain tyre after Assen, I’ve been struggling a lot to be fast, and today my main problem was that the wheel locked when I was braking. That meant I couldn’t use the front brake to stop the bike; I was forced to use engine braking a lot and obviously was very slow and had no chance. We never stop working hard and hopefully we’ll come up with a solution both for the dry and the wet.”
