Jorge Lorenzo added another victory to his name at Mugello, Marc Marquez showed us what he can do best, a triple crash at the very first corner and truckloads of bad luck for the Italians. This is the #ItalianGP in a nutshell.
Saturday's qualifying session made people realize many things. A 37 year old can still clinch pole positions and win races, a 21 year old can be a frequent visitor of Parc Ferme and a potent factory realizing that they let go of the wrong rider. But come race day, the tables turned over, because it's the race that counts.
Rossi Got a great start from the front of the grid but Jorge Lorenzo got a brilliant launch off fifth place, getting the holeshot into turn one. Or San'Donato, the hardest braking zone in the GP calendar according to Brembo. Bradley Smith started well and found himself in third at the first corner alongside Rossi and Lorenzo, bowing out to the likes of Marc Marquez and Aleix Espargaro. Andrea Dovizioso proved his mettle by climbing into the top 5 very early, gaining seven places by the end of lap 1. While we talk about great starts, lets take a moment and peep into the bad ones too.
Andrea Iannone and Maverick Vinales who have been faster throughout the weekend and having demonstrated a very strong race pace, had bad starts and got swamped by the likes of Dani Pedrosa and the two Pramac bikes. Iannone P11, Vinales P12 at the first turn, win hopes- Gone. Their luck was so bad that they were 6 seconds behind the leader in 4th and 5th but are lapping almost half a second quicker than the frontrunners. Iannone eventually bridged a mammoth 2.5 second gap to clinch third, while "Baby Samurai" Dani Pedrosa stole P4 from Dovizioso at the closing stages. Talk about bad luck here!
There was an enthralling battle going on for top independent honors, riders like Scott Redding, Bradley Smith and Danilo Petrucci fighting hard for a slot in Parc ferme. Redding's string of misfortunes continued as his water pump was malfunctioning and had to retire again. The tires held on well as there were only three crashes and two retirements over the 23 lap race. 3 riders crashed at one place, breaking Loris Baz's Metatarsal bones in a Pileup involving himself, Jack Miller (Estrella Galicia Marc VDS Honda) and Alvaro Bautista (Aprilia Racing Gresini). The Avintia Ducati man might be forced to miss the Catalan round of the championship in two week's time.
Valentino Rossi painted his AGV in "Giallo" (Yellow in Italian) and had the pace to paint the Province in Giallo by winning, but misfortune struck him badly.
Almost everyone related to the Italian suffered misfortunes- Romano Fenati had a Broken Chain on his KTM RC250GP in the Moto3 race while challenging for victory, Andrea Migno and Nicolo Bulega dropped off in the final stages of the race to finish P8 and P11 respectively. Rossi's half brother Luca Marini was taken down by Marc Marquez's brother Alex, damaging the former's bike and couldn't be repaired in time for the restart. But the man had a dismal end to his race when his beloved M1 gave up- An engine blowup. It wasn't the only Yamaha Engine that blew up today, Jorge Lorenzo's engine bade goodbye at the end of the morning warm up session, the Spaniard using his Fourth engine of the season for today's race.
With clear track in front of him and with no Yamaha burbling around his rear tire to pressurize him, everyone expected Jorge Lorenzo to pull away into a world of his own. He couldn't as Marc Marquez was in a world of his own. The 22 year old Spaniard reduced the gap between him and the leader to a mere tenth, maintained it till the penultimate lap of the race and pounced on Lorenzo on the brakes at San'Donato. The battle commenced there, the Highlight being Lorenzo's phenomenal move on Marquez at the Biondetti-1 corner on the final lap. Marquez fought back like he does, leading Lorenzo out of the Pecchini (last) corner.
It was a drag to the line, something Marquez excelled in the past. It was the thing of the past, the RC213V wheelieing violently while he got onto the throttle on the exit costing him crucial acceleration. Jorge Lorenzo sat in Marquez's slipstream and bested his young compatriot by a mere 0.019 seconds. True Blue Rossista's (Rossi's fans) who turned their televisions off after Rossi's exit, or closed the streaming tab to save FUP have missed one of the best races in the 1000cc era.
Fact: All the three races ended in a photo finish. MotoGP had two riders separated by 0.019 seconds, Moto2 had two riders separated by 0.031 seconds and Moto3 having an incredible 5 riders separated by 0.062 seconds. The Moto3 race was so close that nobody knew the podium places until they updated it on the big screens. Something like this.
There's no doubt that FIM-Dorna's MotoGP championship offers the best racing action on the globe at the moment. The finishes at the iconic Italian Circuit proves it.
By: Suraj
*** The Dream Finish for Lorenzo!
Saturday's qualifying session made people realize many things. A 37 year old can still clinch pole positions and win races, a 21 year old can be a frequent visitor of Parc Ferme and a potent factory realizing that they let go of the wrong rider. But come race day, the tables turned over, because it's the race that counts.
Rossi Got a great start from the front of the grid but Jorge Lorenzo got a brilliant launch off fifth place, getting the holeshot into turn one. Or San'Donato, the hardest braking zone in the GP calendar according to Brembo. Bradley Smith started well and found himself in third at the first corner alongside Rossi and Lorenzo, bowing out to the likes of Marc Marquez and Aleix Espargaro. Andrea Dovizioso proved his mettle by climbing into the top 5 very early, gaining seven places by the end of lap 1. While we talk about great starts, lets take a moment and peep into the bad ones too.
Andrea Iannone and Maverick Vinales who have been faster throughout the weekend and having demonstrated a very strong race pace, had bad starts and got swamped by the likes of Dani Pedrosa and the two Pramac bikes. Iannone P11, Vinales P12 at the first turn, win hopes- Gone. Their luck was so bad that they were 6 seconds behind the leader in 4th and 5th but are lapping almost half a second quicker than the frontrunners. Iannone eventually bridged a mammoth 2.5 second gap to clinch third, while "Baby Samurai" Dani Pedrosa stole P4 from Dovizioso at the closing stages. Talk about bad luck here!
There was an enthralling battle going on for top independent honors, riders like Scott Redding, Bradley Smith and Danilo Petrucci fighting hard for a slot in Parc ferme. Redding's string of misfortunes continued as his water pump was malfunctioning and had to retire again. The tires held on well as there were only three crashes and two retirements over the 23 lap race. 3 riders crashed at one place, breaking Loris Baz's Metatarsal bones in a Pileup involving himself, Jack Miller (Estrella Galicia Marc VDS Honda) and Alvaro Bautista (Aprilia Racing Gresini). The Avintia Ducati man might be forced to miss the Catalan round of the championship in two week's time.
Valentino Rossi painted his AGV in "Giallo" (Yellow in Italian) and had the pace to paint the Province in Giallo by winning, but misfortune struck him badly.
Almost everyone related to the Italian suffered misfortunes- Romano Fenati had a Broken Chain on his KTM RC250GP in the Moto3 race while challenging for victory, Andrea Migno and Nicolo Bulega dropped off in the final stages of the race to finish P8 and P11 respectively. Rossi's half brother Luca Marini was taken down by Marc Marquez's brother Alex, damaging the former's bike and couldn't be repaired in time for the restart. But the man had a dismal end to his race when his beloved M1 gave up- An engine blowup. It wasn't the only Yamaha Engine that blew up today, Jorge Lorenzo's engine bade goodbye at the end of the morning warm up session, the Spaniard using his Fourth engine of the season for today's race.
*** Rossi's M1 says "Bye Bye Baby"
With clear track in front of him and with no Yamaha burbling around his rear tire to pressurize him, everyone expected Jorge Lorenzo to pull away into a world of his own. He couldn't as Marc Marquez was in a world of his own. The 22 year old Spaniard reduced the gap between him and the leader to a mere tenth, maintained it till the penultimate lap of the race and pounced on Lorenzo on the brakes at San'Donato. The battle commenced there, the Highlight being Lorenzo's phenomenal move on Marquez at the Biondetti-1 corner on the final lap. Marquez fought back like he does, leading Lorenzo out of the Pecchini (last) corner.
It was a drag to the line, something Marquez excelled in the past. It was the thing of the past, the RC213V wheelieing violently while he got onto the throttle on the exit costing him crucial acceleration. Jorge Lorenzo sat in Marquez's slipstream and bested his young compatriot by a mere 0.019 seconds. True Blue Rossista's (Rossi's fans) who turned their televisions off after Rossi's exit, or closed the streaming tab to save FUP have missed one of the best races in the 1000cc era.
*** MotoGP's Photo finish. (Source: Tissot| MotoGP.com)
Fact: All the three races ended in a photo finish. MotoGP had two riders separated by 0.019 seconds, Moto2 had two riders separated by 0.031 seconds and Moto3 having an incredible 5 riders separated by 0.062 seconds. The Moto3 race was so close that nobody knew the podium places until they updated it on the big screens. Something like this.
*** The finishing order: 41 - 4 - 21 -23 and 20. (Moto3)
There's no doubt that FIM-Dorna's MotoGP championship offers the best racing action on the globe at the moment. The finishes at the iconic Italian Circuit proves it.
By: Suraj