Difficult French GP for Spaniard, who just misses out on the podium. Pedrosa places sixteenth after coming back from a second lap crash.
Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa finished fourth and sixteenth, respectively, at the fifth round of the MotoGP World Championship at Le Mans. After two difficult days of practice, Marquez claimed a hard-fought fourth position and Dani Pedrosa, after falling on the second lap, got back onboard his bike to finish the race just one position outside the points.
The reigning MotoGP World Champion could not take advantage of having set the fastest time in practice and, after gradually losing ground in the early stages of the race, finally managed to recover two positions on the final laps by overtaking Iannone and Smith. On his return to competition, Dani Pedrosa started from eighth place. Despite gaining a position off the line, at the beginning of the second lap his race became tougher when he crashed. Nevertheless, he picked up his bike, going again in twenty-fourth position and completed the 28-lap Grand Prix in sixteenth.
The next round, the Italian Grand Prix, will be held in a fortnight at the Mugello circuit.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
4th, at 19.890 sec.
“Today the temperature rose sharply; we had not ridden in such conditions at any time this the weekend. On the fourth lap I started to notice that I had a lot of problems with the front end. I think all the Hondas had the same trouble; in fact a lot crashed after losing front grip because we were really suffering. We knew that with a rise in temperature, conditions change, but we expected it to be for the better and this time it was for the worse. We must learn from this race and especially from the data we have gathered.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
16th, at 1:20.097 min
“It was a shame to crash so early in the race; I don’t understand much about the crash, because I just lost the front end. I tried to restart the engine and get back in the race, even though the handlebars were bent, because I wanted to try completing an entire race. It was a positive test for me, although there is still room for improvement, but fitness-wise things are a little better. Hopefully we can improve even more over the coming weeks.”
