The French GP was a tough race for Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez, who nevertheless showed grit and determination to overcome their difficulties and bring home as many points as the situation allowed.
Dani Pedrosa started from 11th on the grid and struggled at the beginning to get a good pace, but remained focused and recovered as much ground as possible. With some assistance also from other riders crashing, he finished in a solid fourth position and earned 13 important points to maintain fourth place in the championship standings.
One of the aforementioned crashes unfortunately involved his teammate Marquez on lap 7, while he was fighting for second position with Andrea Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi. Marc re-joined the race in last place and finished 13th, earning three championship points.
Marc Marquez currently lies second in the overall standings, five points down on Jorge Lorenzo.
Dani Pedrosa
4TH
“I cannot feel satisfied with today’s fourth place because obviously I would prefer be much higher up the order and have better races. I give my all, but the conditions are not always there to do well. We are also making some mistakes, and one that is hurting us most is in qualifying, because starting far back makes things more difficult in the race. At the beginning of the race today we did not have good grip and it was hard to get enough of a feeling to go a little faster. The second part of the race went better, and there were some laps in which I even rode quicker than Rossi’s pace, but it was too late. What makes a difference is starting well, starting high up on the grid and putting in good opening laps.”
Marc Marquez
13TH
“It was a pity about the crash today. I was having a good race, but these things can happen when you’re at the limit on every lap. I could have opted for a more conservative race, but here you can end up far back if you do that, so today I had to take risks. In the race I saw that I was losing ground under acceleration, and I had to make that back with my braking. Finally I lost the front and crashed. The positive is that I managed to get three points and I’m only five off Jorge Lorenzo in the standings, which isn’t a lot. Now we have a run of tracks that we found a little tough last year, but they’re quite different to Jerez and Le Mans, so I hope to be fast and have some good races.”
French GP 2016 Results
Pos. Rider Num Nation Points Team Time/Gap
1
LORENZO Jorge 99 SPA 25 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP
43’51.290
2
ROSSI Valentino 46 ITA 20 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 10.654
3
VINALES Maverick 25 SPA 16 Team Suzuki Ecstar 14.177
4
PEDROSA Dani 26 SPA 13 Repsol Honda Team 18.719
5
ESPARGARO Pol 44 SPA 11 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 24.931
6
ESPARGARO Aleix 41 SPA 10 Team Suzuki Ecstar 32.921
7
PETRUCCI Danilo 9 ITA 9 Octo Pramac Racing 38.251
8
BARBERA Hector 8 SPA 8 Avintia Racing 38.504
9
BAUTISTA Alvaro 19 SPA 7 Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 48.536
10
BRADL Stefan 6 GER 6 Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 54.502
11
LAVERTY Eugene 50 IRE 5 Aspar MotoGP Team 1’02.677
12
BAZ Loris 76 FRA 4 Avintia Racing 1’07.658
13
MARQUEZ Marc 93 SPA 3 Repsol Honda Team 1 lap
14
SMITH Bradley 38 GBR 0 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 9 laps
15
MILLER Jack 43 AUS 0 Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS 11 laps
16
DOVIZIOSO Andrea 4 ITA 0 Ducati Team 13 laps
17
IANNONE Andrea 29 ITA 0 Ducati Team 17 laps
18
RABAT Tito 53 SPA 0 Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS 21 laps
19
CRUTCHLOW Cal 35 GBR 0 LCR Honda 22 laps
20
HERNANDEZ Yonny 68 COL 0 Aspar MotoGP Team 22 laps
21
REDDING Scott 45 GBR 0 Octo Pramac Racing 23 laps
REPSOL HONDA TEAM PRESS RELEASE
