Third place for Dani Pedrosa at Misano. Marc Marquez crashes at midway point of the race when riding in second, remounting to salvage a point.
The San Marino Grand Prix ended with mixed fortunes for the Repsol Honda riders. Dani Pedrosa took a hard-fought podium at Misano, in a race in which his teammate, Marc Marquez, suffered a crash when following Valentino Rossi and pushing for victory. Marquez got back on his bike to claim a point from the contest, and still leads the overall standings from Pedrosa by 74 points.
Starting from the second row, Marquez and Pedrosa had varied starts. The reigning World Champion slotted into third behind Jorge Lorenzo and Rossi, whilst his teammate ceded two positions by the end of the opening lap to find himself seventh. On a series of intense opening laps, Rossi and Marquez got past Lorenzo and broke away, whilst Pedrosa moved into fourth with passes on Pol Espargaro, Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso. However, Pedrosa lost several seconds in the process.
At the front, it looked like Rossi and Marquez would be fighting it out for the win, but the World Championship leader made a mistake on Lap 10, handing the victory on a plate to the local hero. Marquez went down at Misano’s slow Turn 4, and would rejoin the race in twentieth position. He would claw his way back up to fifteenth, allowing him to score a single point. Dani Pedrosa finished third, finally emerging victorious from the duel with Dovizioso.
The MotoGP World Championship returns to Spain for the third time this season in two weeks, for the Aragon Grand Prix at the MotorLand circuit.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
15th, at 1:15.948 sec.
“I’m happy with how today went, despite the crash due to my first mistake of the season, because yesterday I did not think that I would be capable of sticking with the Valentino [Rossi] and Jorge [Lorenzo]. They had a little bit more pace, and today we were able to get fairly close to them. I saw the possibility of fighting with Valentino for the victory, but that was not possible in the end because of the mistake; I was riding over the inside of the rumble strip and that meant that I lost the front. Luckily I was able to rejoin the race, continue with a good pace and score a point that could always come in handy in the future.”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
3rd, at 4.276 sec.
“Today’s race was a very difficult one, and it was hard to do any more. Marc [Marquez] attempted to keep up with Valentino [Rossi] and Jorge [Lorenzo] but eventually he crashed trying –they were very strong here. This race also saw many problems for us with the front and rear, so there was little that we could do. From the opening laps I lost a lot of time in traffic, and that affected my entire race. I tried to do the best I could and still had difficulty sticking with Dovizioso, because he also lapped very quickly; eventually we were going as fast as the Valentino and Jorge. Now we have to take the positives from this weekend and hope that for the next race at Aragon, which is a track that I like, we have a better feeling and have a better race.”
