Superb performance from Marc Màrquez, who achieves a well-deserved win at his home race against very aggressive rivals
In a thrilling Moto2 race, Marc Márquez obtained his seventh win —the third consecutive— of his debut season at the intermediate category and keeps reducing the distance with the leader, Stefan Bradl. The German finished eighth today and his advantage was reduced to only 6 points.
It was not easy for Márquez. His rivals, knowing the difference in pace of the Spaniard, did all they could every time he got to the first place to prevent him from escaping. They tried everything: very tight manoeuvres, some very late braking and slipstreaming. Anything to stop Márquez from getting some advantage in front. His rivals were more or less the usual: Redding, Iannone, Corsi, De Angelis and Bradl, though the German fell back due to technical failures and he could not keep the pace of the top group.
Iannone was today the most combative of all and in many occasions prevented Márquez from escaping. Knowing he had a better pace, the Repsol rider tried to go away for the first time 12 laps before the end, but a minor mistake —he had a small off in a fast corner— caused him to be caught again by the leading group.
The second and final attempt arrived 7 laps before the end. Iannone was second and braked too late in a corner, Márquez took advantage of this mistake to reduce his lap times —he set the fastest lap of the race and a new record of the circuit— and to put some ground between him and his rivals. The advantage was enough for Marc to have relatively peaceful last laps and reach the Finish line with an advantage of almost two seconds and a half.
With this victory, the third consecutive, Márquez is now 6 points behind the leader, Stefan Bradl. The Repsol rider scored in the last 7 races 170 of the 175 points up for grabs and now there are only 100 points available for the rest of the season —Japan, Australia, Malaysia and Valencia—.
Marc Márquez >> Audio
1st – 40:20.575
“I am very happy with the result I achieved in front of the Spanish fans. It was a difficult race, because the conditions changed since yesterday and today it was more windy and I could not be as much confident as yesterday with the bike. I decided to take it calmly to avoid mistakes and even let Bradl overtake so that it was him who had the physical and tyre wear of being in front. Later arrived Corsi and Iannone, who overtook me many times because he wanted to disturb my pace. I knew I had another tenth up my sleeve and when I had the opportunity I could do my best and put some ground between me and them. I did, when I took the lead I pushed to the max and tried to have some margin that gave me the victory. Now we will try to keep the same level in Japan, as in every Grand Prix: start from scratch on Friday and keep progressing”.
