A very exciting race at Assen earlier today saw as many as eight riders within one second of the lead during much of the race. Near the end, it looked like the fight for the win would be close, but Marc Marquez (Honda) found extra pace in the last three laps to pull out a sizable gap and take the win.
Behind Marquez, Alex Rins (Suzuki) beat Maverick Viñales (Yamaha) to the line for second place. Viñales finished third.
Marquez stretches his already sizable lead in the championship points. Follow this link to full race results. For additional details and points, visit the official MotoGP site.
See more of MD’s great photography:
Assen, while unquestionably one of the most exciting races this year or last, unfortunately fell short at the end when Mark Marquez unleashed his brilliance to gap the other contenders with three laps to go. Like I said three races ago, Marquez has the championship wrapped up. Good for him, he certainly deserves it, but it sucks a lot of the drama out of the rest of the season. Then again, as noted below, at least it’s closer than Johnny Rea and Kawasaki dominating World Superbike again this year.
Boy, I can’t wait to see this race on YouT, according to what I seen here. I’ll have to have a roll of toilet paper handy in case the excitement gets to be too much! 🙂
Seen the race today! Wow, what a race, non-stop action and passing. I still have to wipe once in a while. Great race!
I don’t know if it was me, or different camera angles, but it appeared these bikes were flying in comparison to other races. How the hell do these guys rub and crash against/into each other and stay upright and on pace? I’m jealous. I wonder if anyone had genetically dissected a racer to find they were not born with the “flight” gene or that they simply were born with no fear….
Awesome race! I wish it were on a more broadly available network. Right now I have to pay extra for the sports extra on Comcast and still only get the Spanish version of BeIn sports. Sigh. Looks like Marquez will have the championship again but anything can happen. Got to love it.
I was expecting a good race, and we got it. It seems a shame that Jorge wound up 7th after that amazing start and run in the front, but that’s racing. The tank pad obviously helps, but it wasn’t enough at Assen. Four and half seconds off the lead would have been 2nd or 3rd at half the tracks so far this year.
It should still be a great fight for 2nd in championship, and I’m confident that 2018 will continue to be filled with great races.
One could make a good argument that race is among a handful of the all time best sporting events. It was absolutely epic in its level of almost constant excitement.
It’s one thing to see such competition in Moto 3. It’s another to see it in bikes weighing over 100 lbs more with 5-6x the power.
We all knew and admitted this to ourselves, but this race only multiplied the obvious. MM is one of the all time greatest competitors on 2 wheels. Many mortals may have been picking asphalt from his bones in MM’s near miss. MM? He backed off for 1.5 S, and was back in the game WFO, no thought of just almost binning it at 125+mph.
Yeah, he looks like a 12 year old girl, and rides with a solid titanium pair. If he was a fighter, guys one step above his weight class would rue the day MM was born.
Barring injury and/or desire, he appears to have the bike and ability to eventually own every record in this series. Not saying he will, but won’t be surprised now if/when it happens.
On a different note, convince me I’m wrong: Zarco was a fool to not snatch a Suzuki, Honda, or Yamaha factory ride.
You know what they say about hindsight. Maybe Vinales should have stayed at Suzuki.
Thanks! Yup, I knew the evidence was thin for my barely-hypothesis!
I suppose, another point is the constant debate among the best in any sport: do I “take the money,” or do I accept less pay for a perceived better chance at snatching the ring? (Key word is “perceived.”)
Not saying it’s impossible for KTM to win the Championship, but they have no history so far in this the world’s fastest paved series. One could at least point to Suzuki’s multiple Championships in this series, though the last one was ages ago.
But yeah, sure, KTM could win it all next year. I was going to unsubscribe 2019, but it’s shaping up to be a “bad year to quit,” no?
Don’t even think about quitting sniffing glue. 😀
I can’t believe he went with KTM. Maybe the $$$ was just too good to pass up. Maybe he is the guy to give KTM the feedback and the next echelon of skill level that they need to threaten the podium in the next two years. Who’s to say?
I wondered what KTM offered as well. I think it is the people, and solid funding. They are smart, and all in. I know this is true of all on top of the grid, but that’s the piont. Plus they are going to support him 100%. There was enough Red Bull money to dangle at Marquez, Zarco will want for nothing… As long as he can head up development. What other factory is willing to let Zarco develop what he wants. Suzuki would, but they don’t have the same resources including a satellite. Two extra current bikes gathering data (No one else is diong that.) Another plus is Zarco likes Tech 3.
Wow. What a race. Probably the best MotoGP race, ever!
how is alberto puig still in the Honda/marquez pit? the tv cameras always show him being congratulated. if I were old man marquez I wouldn’t let puig anywhere near my sons. good to see a suzi up there…
I called in advance last week Marquez’ move to a softer tire after Lorenzo won twice on soft tires. Honda did their homework on tire choice and Marquez rode like the champion he is.
I’m 45 and have been watching these races ever since I can remember with all the great legends. I agree with the commentators that this was one of the best races ever! I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Anyone in the top 15 could have won (except for MM93 having something special in the end that he might have hiding) Amazing!
And this is why Johnny Rea and Kawasaki dominating World Superbikeplanet is so boring and predictable. Go MotoGP!
how/why is alberto puig still in the Honda/ marquez pit? after a race the camera ALWAYS shows puig being congratulated, if however briefly. if I was old man marquez, I wouldn’t let that guy anywhere near my sons…
Great race. Lots of action. Its hard to believe that Marquez was playing possum in that chaotic lead group but he certainly had a little extra at the end. Maybe he’s playing it a bit safer than usual.
Impressed with Rins.
According to Marquez, he needs to use wide, sweeping lines to go fast at Assen. But he said without a sizeable enough gap that the other riders will just run a tighter line and block-pass him into the corner. He said once he realized he had a gap of 2/10ths he was able to stop riding defensively and pull the cork.
Then everyone behind him were still fighting it out for position, unable to get into a faster rhythm of their own.
The crucial moment of the race was when Rossi led Dovi and refused to give it up, but his Yamaha just didn’t have the steam to keep him ahead of the faster Ducati at the end of the straight. He held on until he finally ran out of track and had to run wide, and that was that. He still may not have had anything for Marquez at the end, but his brutal domination under braking in the chicane was so absolute that it looked like he might have been the only one who had a trick up his sleeve to use against Marc.
Yamaha simply needs more acceleration and top speed. The M1 no longer holds a decided handling advantage, as it used to, which used to compensate for being a bit down on power.
No more. Now the Tuning Fork guys are clearly at a decided deficit. They can’t hang with the Ducati at the fast tracks. They can’t hang with the Honda at the stop-and-go tracks. They’re no longer any faster than the Honda at the flowing tracks. With the Honda and Ducati having improved again this year, there is nothing left. Yamaha has run out of Yamaha tracks. In order to end their losing streak, they simply have to make their bike faster.
And next up is Germany, which is just as much of a Marquez lock as the U.S. rounds always are. So, unless Marc suffers at least a couple more DNFs in the second half of the season, this championship chase is already over.
I agree with you: the Yamaha needs to go faster. I think even the Suzuki with its new engine was pulling a little on the M1. With the Hondas and Ducatis able to brake so late and deep while still staying composed enough to finish the turn, those round, sweeping, high corner-speed lines the Yamahas have traditionally used to go fast just leave the door open too often for someone to sneak in on the brakes. And then the slaughter on the straights.
It’s time they swallow their pride and plot a new course. The formula for getting around most of those tracks quickly has changed.
I don’t think Rossi would have had anything for Marc at the end, but I believe he had a solid chance to finish second had he yielded that corner to Dovi instead of trying to cling to the position. Dovi had a lot of practice playing chicken with Marquez last year.
Worth remembering, Assen is not really a horsepower track. It’s only on the long straights that an hp advantage can really be employed as the bikes are all powerful enough that wheelie & traction control systems are governing through all phases of acceleration. It’s possible that the Yamaha’s problem is chassis or electronics I’d theyre getting pulled on Assen’s shorter straights.
Also, there is the engine allocation to consider. The factory teams have only so many, so they inevitably have to choose times to use older, “weak” engines. Assen is a safer place to do that than one of the bigger, faster tracks.
I disagree. True, it’s a fast flowing track that makes it difficult for a horsepower advantage alone to dominate. But the nature of the track may be the only reason the Yamahas were there at all. A Honda won the race, a Suzuki came in second, and a Ducati was a whisker’s length from taking third… The former and latter of which are designed to excel at tracks that don’t reward corner speed the way Assen does.
If you watched Lorenzo and Dovi during the race, they stayed in contention and initiated a lot of passes by straightening out a lot of those turns, using the power to surge forward and the brakes to dive in. Marquez and Rins can be seen doing much of the same, thought not in as exaggerated a fashion as the Ducatis.
The Yamahas do still need to improve the electronics – Mav and Rossi both say so. But that isn’t enough in my opinion. They are losing what they gain from their corner speed designs on the straights, and their typically wide lines are getting cut off on the brakes by the bikes designed for the more “V-shaped turns” as Crutchlow would say.
I think there has been a paradigm shift on how to make a GP bike go faster around the track more often during a race, and I believe Yamaha has more work to do than just fix the electronics. The most worrying thing for Yamaha should be that Marquez did battle Honda-style in the sections where that worked best, didn’t give up as much to the Ducatis when power was called for, and rode the track like a Yamaha as soon as he opened up a little gap.
The results show 4 “flowy” bikes and 4 “v-turn” bikes in the top 8. Aside from Marquez (who clowned the rest of them), the younger, less established riders on Yamaha/Suzuki out performed the higher pedigree riders on Honda/Ducati in a very close race, where the more experienced riders on their bikes that should’ve created more passing opportunities. If Yamaha/Suzuki is down on power and line options, how did they prevail?
I think more is being made of Yamaha/Suzuki’s power deficit than is real. Yamaha does have work to do. I don’t believe they need to reinvent the platform.
There must have been 30 or 40 overtakes in that lead group of eight riders. Plenty of overtaking opportunities were created! Despite four flowy bikes being in the mix, none of them were able to ride in a flowy style. They had to ride defensively the entire race.
In the past, the Yamahas would have picked up a couple of tenths in the sections where they were strongest and not given too much of it back in the others.
And I think that is the problem with flowy, now. On a track where flowy should have offered a clear advantage, the other bikes stayed close enough to disrupt the game and stay in it. For the entire race. On tracks where vshapes reign, flowy isn’t making much of a showing.
I’m not saying that the Yamaha needs to become the Honda. They probably shouldn’t. Crutchlow says the Honda is the most difficult bike to ride, and only Marquez seems to have the magic to do it effectively all the time. Nor do they need to be as powerful as the Ducati. But I do think they need to move more in those directions.
I just was looking through the championship standings and noticed that 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the title chase are Yamaha’s.
Márquez has the Magic, but nobody else is able to get and keep the Honda up front at the moment.
Very valid point. Pedrosa can’t seem to figure the Honda (or maybe the Michelins) out. Crutchlow can run at the front but apparently needs to ride at detrimental risk level to do so.
The Yamahas have been consistent, though not terribly threatening. Assen was the first time a factory Yamaha even led a race this year.
Points are close though, save for Marquez’s gap. Crutchlow, Lorenzo, Dovi or all three of them could well be in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions over the next three races. Or the Yamahas could really start bringing it. A lot of races left. It will be fun to see how it develops.
Interesting point. Of all the companies – see King Kenny/Indy Mile – to forget that it’s a MOTORcycle…
How did this end up HERE? I see a couple other weird dupes too so I guess it’s not just me. The one below replying to the OP was the intent.
Rossi has tried to turn the Yamaha into something it isn’t and they have lost the advantages that they once had with regards to maneuverability. he did the same when he went to Ducati, and rather than build on a bikes strengths, he has it whittled away looking for other bikes strengths instead.
I think trying to pin the manufacturers bike issues on Rossi is a scapegoat move. Yamaha had the dominate bike for years with Rossi on it and now you want to say he is the reason for its downturn? The Ducati was a pile of crap in pretty colors and even Stoner knew this and moved on, and you pin this on Rossi. The manufacturer has to adapt and change, as they always do. I don’t think you’ll find any facts that one of the greatest riders is tanking the bike development.
VLJ…so right …Yamaha needs to give them more to get in the front of Duc and more more to stay there and beat Marquez.
Interesting point. Of all the companies – see King Kenny/Indy Mile – to forget that it’s a MOTORcycle…
There was a Yamaha on the podium, so apparently the M1 was working very good. Rossi’s recent podiums have been the result of carnage in front of him. That didn’t happen at this race and hence no podium for Rossi.
Yes the M1 was working well, and Rossi ran an amazing race IMO. He came up short, but he was definitely in podium contention the entire time.
There JL goes again….
Not even mention in the results…
Lorenzo actually had a heck of a race, even if his final position doesn’t reflect that. He just eventually ran out of traction with all the slicing and dicing taking place.
Maybe you should watch the race before passing judgement on it, xLaYN.
JL was right in contention, and given the whack to the rear of the bike, and the fact that Ducati won’t say what’s in the black under-seat box, there’s every chance it affected something. His dicing with Rossi, Marquez and Rins reminded plenty that the bloke isn’t shy. He never was, and he’s gone toe-to-toe with Marquez more than any rider in the series.
Lorenzo shagged his tires early in the race, he wasn’t far off in the end.