Jorge Lorenzo wins Catalunya MotoGP

Jorge Lorenzo marks his fourth amazing victory at Barcelona. Still on the second, he is just 1 point behind his teammate Valentino Rossi who came second today after a really tough-to-catch-Lorenzo race. Repsol Honda is somewhat happy and sad at the same time as Marquez had a second consecutive crash after Mugello and on the other hand Dani Pedrosa finished 3.

It was turning out to be a race of crashes when Cal Crutchlow and Marquez had a crash in the initial laps. Both the riders lowsided while they tried to go quicker than normal. Aleix Espargaro of team Suzuki had the second pole position of his career in this race, but had a bad start on his GSX-RR and fell eight places behind in the first lap itself. Lorenzo on the other hand took the lead from the first corner and started pulling hard, yet again.

It was a battle for the first among Lorenzo, Dovizioso, Marquez and Rossi. After three hard laps, came the crashes that killed the hopes of many MotoGP fans. Marc Marquez went wide when he slammed his front brakes really hard, leaving him and his misbalanced Honda off the track into the gravel leaving Lorenzo, Dovizioso and Rossi on first, second and third respectively. Battle for the first was left between Rossi and Lorenzo when Dovizioso also lowsided. By then, Lorenzo had created a gap of 1.5 seconds between him and Rossi.

Rossi pushed himself really hard to catch up to Lorenzo this time. The gap closed down eventually to 1 second by final lap and frankly people were expecting something remarkable to happen. Lorenzo, even after being pushed really hard, didn’t let this one-second gap to decrease and finished the race at the first position with Valentino Rossi on second and Dani Pedrosa on third.

Wilco Zeelenberg, manager Yamaha Movistar would definitely be enjoying his evening with Rossi and Lorenzo as both the Yamaha racers were spectacular today. Reigning world champion Marc Marquez, on the other hand has a lot of catching up to do if he wants to win this year’s MotoGP.

Race Standings