MotoGP: Jerez, Spain, Wrap-up

Jerez kicked off the first race of the European season for the MotoGP grid this Sunday and it was a fantastic showing for the hoards of Spanish race fans that turned up to witness a cracking Spanish GP. The race weekend kicked off as any other with no out of form performances for any of the riders. Marquez and Dani were fast, Cal was faster and Lorenzo was finally feeling fast again. The Yamaha factory riders were still complaining of grip and tyres but were significantly better off than a year ago as far as lap times are concerned.

Warm-up sessions and Qualifying

Qualifying saw the championship leader Andrea Dovizioso and third position Maverick Vinales having to make their way through Q1. While it was Cal Crutchlow with a record breaking lap of 1:37:635 who took pole ahead of Dani Pedrosa and Yohann Zarco. Marquez qualified in fifth alongside Jorge Lorenzo and Alex Rins on the second row with points leader Dovizioso in eight. The factory Yamaha riders Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales were understandably disappointed with tenth and eleventh on the grid.

Check out the official MotoGP lap of the Jerez circuit with Simon Crafar here.

The Race

Jorge Lorenzo was finally feeling comfortable with the GP18 and flew off the line into the lead at the first corner, with Dani Pedrosa and Johann Zarco hot on his tail. Marquez hasn’t done extremely well at Jerez and he says he struggles a little at the tight and twisty circuit. He was soon up to speed and past Zaro and Dani by lap three. He spent a couple of laps sussing out Lorenzo’s pace at the front before passing the Ducati rider on the eight lap. Once at the front he slowly started to build a gap to Lorenzo and kept the lead till the end of the 25 lap race. The only hiccup to his race was some gravel brought onto the track at turn ten by Tito Rabat’s crash. Marc came into the corner at full tilt and saw the gravel at the last moment, closing the throttle. The result was a big slide saved only by his cat-like reflexes and he barely lost any time on his rivals as well. In fact this seems to have spurred him on and he set his fastest three laps of the race straight after, building a lead of up to 7.23s on lap 24 before coasting to a win on lap 25. In case you missed it, check out the weekend’s highlights reel here. 

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The biggest talking point of the race, though, was the collision on the 18th lap at the end of the back straight. Dovizioso tried a move on Lorenzo that he had been lining up for a few laps but left his braking a little too late. This took them both wide off the racing line, leaving a gap that Dani Pedrosa dived for. In the meantime Lorenzo had cut back behind Andrea, and in a bid to defend the position, came back onto the racing line right in front of Dani. The collision saw the Honda rider highside spectacularly after scuttling Lorenzo’s bike into an unlucky Dovizioso. who also crashed out. While possibly only Lorenzo had the ability to avoid the situation as he probably was the only rider who could see Dani’s trajectory converging with his, the incident was classified as a racing incident by the stewards panel.

Riders Reactions

Marc Marquez

The Repsol Honda factory rider was super happy with his race at a track that he says he always struggles at a bit. He knew that Lorenzo with the soft front tyre would be fairly fast in the first part for the race and so he had to be always on it from the get go. He then waited for what he thought was the best time to overtake and then pushed hard for a number laps as hard as in qualifying to keep in front and try and build up a gap. Then he noticed on his pit board that the gap had increased to five seconds and when he came around again he realised that there was a crash. Marquez said the slide over the stones really scared him but after he stayed on the track it sort of spurred him on a little and he was able to push a little more. He also said it was a great experience winning in front of his home crowd in what to him is one of the nicest GPs on the calendar.

Johann Zarco

The satellite Yamaha rider was already a talking point of the weekend, having officially been confirmed for a move to the factory KTM team in 2019. He said he was happy to keep living in this ‘dream season’. His surprise second place sees him jump to second in the championship standings, just 12 points behind Marc Marquez. He is looking forward to the next race at Le Mans where he hopes a home crowd will be able to give him the extra push to make the right moves at the right time in search of his first victory in MotoGP.

Andrea Lannone

Lannone was overjoyed with his first back to back podium in the premier class. He also said that the Suzuki team had made a mistake of changing to the hard rear tyre just before the race and that he was losing a lot of acceleration but was lucky to get third place after the crash of Dovi, Lorenzo and Pedrosa.

Andrea Dovizioso

The unluckiest of the three riders who went down on lap 18, Dovizioso was understandably fuming. He clearly blamed Dani and Jorge for the crash, saying that it was clearly the Honda riders’ responsibility to see what was happening as he was behind both the Ducati riders and had the clearest view of the situation unfolding. He also said that Jorge was also to blame because he cut back too aggressively on to the racing line to protect his position.

Dani Pedrosa

Dani said that he knew he was at a disadvantage against the acceleration of the two factory Ducatis so was biding his time, waiting for their tyres to fall off or for them to make a mistake. When he saw them both run wide he stayed on his normal line, and once into the corner he lost sight of them as he was fully crouched over his own factory Honda. He also said that since Lorenzo was leaning into the corner he would have had a clear view of Dani to his right and since he was coming back on the racing line he should have been more careful coming back on to it.

Jorge Lorenzo

Lorenzo said that things were happening so fast he didn't see the Honda rider coming from behind him. He also added that all he knew from his pit board was that he was being followed by Dovizioso and had no idea who was following behind them and how close they were. He also added that the rider behind always has the only view as they don’t have eyes behind their heads.

Valentino Rossi & Maverick Vinales

Rossi and Vinales were both in the doldrums this weekend struggling with… you guessed it, electronics. They both just can't seem to get the 2018 M1 to work with the control Michelin tyres. Both Yamaha riders were looking forward to more solutions from Yamaha to solve their grip woes but they are both fairly certain that the problem lies in the electronics and they also know that improving that setup will take time.

One more landmark in Rossi’s career occurred this weekend though. The Italian rider has completed 40,075km of racing in the championship, equal to the distance of a whole lap of the earth’s circumference. Check out this video tribute to the Doctor.