A close race in Brno today saw several riders near the front until three of them created a bit of a gap. A tight battle in the final laps between Ducati teammates Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso, as well as Honda star Marc Marquez, ended with Dovizioso taking the win ahead of Lorenzo, and Marquez third.
With Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) finishing fourth today, Marquez increases his championship points lead to 49. Follow this link to full race results. For additional details and points, visit the official MotoGP site.
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Worst race of the season, possibly the last two seasons. Was an 18 lap free practice followed by a 3 minute race. Too bad as the rest of this season has been spectacular.
Funny, I thought it was a great race. Only a handful of riders were able to keep up with the “slow pace”, and only 3 were able to uncork the bikes at the end.
If you read Taruffi’s ‘The Technique of Motor Racing’, in the earlier days of auto racing, drivers had to conserve tires and brakes (and often, engines). It’s all part of the sport.
When is a race not a race? When it becomes a tyre conservation run. They may as well start limiting the fuel to 15L or introduce pit stops. Is another tyre manufacturer is needed? Stoners initial success on the Ducati was partly due to their adoption of Bridgestone while everyone else used Michelin.
I still enjoyed the race but I am ‘tired’ of all the riders complaining that their tyres went off so we never see a straight fight.
Tire conservation has been a component of motorcycle racing for as long as I can remember. Some tracks are worse on tires than others. The only way to make tire wear a non-issue is to reduce the number of laps.
There is a great article on MotoGP tires linked over on MotoMatters
Sounds like an exciting race. Wish I could have seen it but Comcast dropped bein sports recently due to a pricing dispute. They need to get that resolved soon, or it’ll be one more reason to cut the cord!
Stickman..cut the cord and buy the MotoGP video pass. I did that years ago. More fun and save money,can’t beat that. By the way all three races were great!
Not sure where all the Rossi fans are, if it wasnt for Marquez, he would be leading the championship… and i bet that just irritates him to no end. Rossi impresses me, he continuously whether having a poor qualifying, or difficult set-up, seems to know how to move up in the race. Surely the top three, in the last laps moved up, in unison. Lorenzo mentioned Marquez got in his way to pass Dovi, but i’d bet Marquez was thinking the same thing. Dovi, was fast during qualifying, and not only lead most of the race, but was leading at the end. Has Ducati finally found its footing? And Lorenzo, on hard tires, didnt fade at the end, why does he choose soft tires all the time? Vinales, poor Vinales, taken out. Someone posted it was a boring race, but everyone was at the edge for the first 3/4 of the race, riding the wheels off their bikes, cant you see that?
The leaders were all conserving their tires for the first 3/4s of the race. They were intentionally setting an unusually slow, cautious pace. It was only at the very end that the three frontrunners increased the pace, at which point Rossi could no longer stay with them.
Rossi is getting everything he can out of that bike. This is made obvious by his transcendent one-lap bursts in P3 and qualifying. He simply doesn’t have the equipment to beat the Ducatis over race distance on their best days, or Marquez on that Repsol Honda most days.
Yep, Rossi continues to demonstrate why he is one of the GOATs. He is always a contender, and the guy may yet get his 10th in the years to come if Yamaha can get their act together and get a bit more out of the bike. I don’t consider that as long a shot as most people do.
As far as the race goes, all riders said they were running a conservative pace through all but the end. Even Lorenzo said he held back rather than try to break for the front and establish a fast rhythm, all in the name of tire conservation.
Pretty boring race for the first 18 laps, then it became quite entertaining for the last three. Thank goodness the two Ducatis didn’t take each other out and hand the victory to Marquez (as if he needs any help for the championship). There were several close calls that could have spelled disaster for Dovi and Lorenzo, which would have been very sad.
stoner quits-ducati goes 1,2… hmmmmmm
Oh sure, there’s a direct correlation there.
I think it had more to do with the way the horoscope and the chemtrails aligned than Stoner retiring.