Mugello, considered one of the most beautiful and difficult circuits in the World Championship was the scenario today of the first Motorcycling World Championship victory of Alzamora’s protégé, Marc Márquez. The race was not at all easy, as after starting from the second row – sixth best time yesterday -, he was seventh after the first lap, recovering from a bad start in the first lap.
However, nobody waits in the closest category in the World Championship and by the time Márquez had climbed to third, Nico Terol and Pol Espargaró were already two and a half seconds ahead. With Bradley Smith behind the Repsol rider, they both gradually closed the gap on the pair riding up front, until they reached them in the ninth lap. From then on, the four riders – Márquez, Espargaró, Terol and Smith – swapped the leading position among them, letting the laps pass by while they each prepared their strategy.
Despite several attempts to break away, one of them by the Repsol rider, everything was eventually going to be decided in the last lap of this difficult and demanding circuit. Márquez approached the straight to the finish line at the start of the first lap seeking a good slipstream and achieved his initial goal: reach the end of the straight first. From then on, a fast pace in the last lap, covering all of the gaps, allowed him to cross the finish line first with a minute advantage of 0.039 seconds over the rider who came in second, fellow Spaniard Nico Terol.
With this victory, the first in his sporting career in the Motorcycling World Championship, Marc Márquez scores 25 points, allowing him to climb to third in the overall standings, 28 points behind the leader – Terol – and 22 behind second place Espargaró.
Marc Márquez, 1st 39’53.153 sec. >> Audio
“I’m very happy with this win. It was important to get the goal of coming first in a race out of the way and the first objective has been accomplished. It’s done now and we have to enjoy the moment, but tomorrow will be another day and we’ll have to come back down to earth and starting thinking about Silverstone. It was a very tough race and at the beginning, it looked like Nico [Terol] and Pol [Espargaró] had broken away but I felt more confident and trusted in myself to push hard to try to catch them. Lap by lap I picked up a pace that we hadn’t been able to get all weekend. I finally caught them and the race completely changed. Strategy has been key today and we’ve started studying our rivals, watching how the machines went in the final straight. My team has done a fantastic job today and my machine was very fast, so we were able to ride up front. I decided to come out of the final lap first because I saw that I had a good top speed and it worked out. Luck was also on our side and I’m very grateful to everyone who has supported me all this time, to my family, my team, Emilio [Alzamora] and the sponsors Repsol and Red Bull, who have given me this opportunity that I’m not going to waste”.
