Hard fought win for World Championship leader in Great Britain, returning to winning ways after leading every practice session this weekend. Pedrosa places fourth, 1 tenth of a second off the podium spots.
Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo picked up from where they left off last year at the British Grand Prix, engaging in a thrilling battle for victory at Silverstone on race day. This time it was the reigning World Champion who claimed the win, taking revenge for last season. The Repsol Honda Team rider thus completed an impeccable weekend: He headed every practice session, took pole yesterday, was the fastest in warm-up this morning and set the fastest lap of the race, en route to his eleventh victory in twelve races. In another tussle, for third position, Dani Pedrosa finished fourth and was just 0.175s off the podium.
When the lights went out it was Jorge Lorenzo who took the lead from the polesitter, and both riders broke away from a second group in which Rossi, Pedrosa and Dovizioso competed for third place. With seven laps remaining, Marquez led, but with a mistake two laps later he dropped back into second. He had push to the limit in order to regain the place three laps from the end, and to hold on until the chequered flag. Behind Marquez and Lorenzo, Pedrosa was in contention for the podium until the last lap, overtaking Dovizioso but ending up 0.175s behind Rossi.
With this result, Marquez has a total of 288 points from a possible 300 this season. Pedrosa remains second with 199, ten more than third-placed Rossi.
Marc Marquez >> Audio
1st, 40:51.835
“I’m very happy with this win! I expected the race to be slightly different, given what happened in practice yesterday, but today with higher temperatures it seems that both Jorge [Lorenzo] and Valentino [Rossi] took a step forward. Above all, Jorge, because he had a great pace and we were fighting right to the end. It was important to win today, after missing out at Brno. I also had a score to settle from last year, when Jorge beat me on the final corner, so I am happy to be back on the top step of the podium!”
Dani Pedrosa >> Audio
4th +8.694 sec.
“Today’s race wasn’t easy. I had a bad start and on the opening laps I lost a little ground on the frontrunners, although to be honest I didn’t have the same pace as the leaders afterwards either. However, we fought with Valentino and Andrea and in the end we gained a place on the final lap. It hasn’t been our best weekend, but we will try to be back up at the front again at the next Grand Prix.”
