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• Marc Márquez arrives at Motegi with an 18 point lead and the chance to seal the title.
• Dani Pedrosa has won three times in Japan –twice consecutively.
• Alex Rins has won 6 races season and is 5 points behind in the Moto3 standings.
World Championship leader has second opportunity to clinch the title at Japanese GP, where Pedrosa has won for the past two years.
16 races on from the season opener in Qatar, Marc Marquez arrives at the penultimate round of the campaign with the chance to clinch the MotoGP title. The Japanese GP at Twin Ring Motegi, the home of Honda, is the event, won by Dani Pedrosa for the past two years.
A chaotic Sunday, involving changes in race distance and a swap of bikes midway through the race, put Marc Marquez’s chance to be crowned MotoGP World Champion on ice. However, the calendar offers him another opportunity within seven days. Marquez will need to take 8 points more than Jorge Lorenzo, and that Dani Pedrosa does not cut the gap between he and his teammate by 9 points. Pedrosa has won the last two Japanese GPs.
In the Moto3 class, the title battle has been heated up by a sixth win of the season for Alex Rins. The Repsol rider has taken 13 podium finishes this season and is just 5 points behind series leader Luis Salom. Alex Marquez will be after a return to the podium, which he just missed out on last weekend on the final lap.
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Dani Pedrosa
“It was a strange race in Australia, but I’m really pleased with my team who did a great job and we took a good second place. I always look forward to going to Motegi, it’s a big race for Honda and I enjoy the track. It’s the final race of three fly away races and we’re all tired, so it’s important to keep the concentration. The track has a lot of strong braking and accelerating and we must find a good set up for the braking stability and to get good traction out of the corners.”
Marc Márquez
“Obviously I’m disappointed after Phillip Island, but these things can happen. The important thing is that once again, we showed we were there for the fight and were competitive. Now we must put it behind us and concentrate on Motegi. Track conditions can vary quite a lot and we will work hard on the set up in terms of the hard acceleration and braking, which is an area we have improved now. We will work hard from the beginning, following our normal programme and push 100% to recover after Australia.”
Alex Rins
“Motegi is a very nice track and very different. We are closing in on the lead of the standings, but we won’t be getting out the calculator and will be focused on taking things race by race. It will be important once again to be fast right from the first practice session. At the last two races we have had problems finding our best setup, so we shall si if we can be comfortable from the start. Last year I didn’t go badly at Motegi, but we shall see how it goes this season. We had a different bike last year and it isn’t really a reference, because at some rounds we have had things easier or more difficult than then. We shall see.”
Alex Marquez
“We’re going to a ‘stop and go’ circuit, so we shall need a special setup to give us good stability on corner entry. Last season we didn’t have our best weekend in Japan, but neither did we in Australia and Malaysia, and this year we were a lot better at those tracks. We shall have to be very focused from the first practice onwards, trying to keep the good feeling that we have found again with the bike. This makes us highly motivated and I hope to have recovered a little more physically, to be able to have a good race.”
