With his fourth win in a row, Jorge Lorenzo‘s winning streak keeps continuing. The Movistar Yamaha rider started from the third place on the grid and benefited from one of his usually good starts. With Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso and Repsol Honda rider Marc Márquez behind him, Lorenzo tried to build up his lead as fast as possible.
He managed to do so, but behind him things got difficult. LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow crashed out of the race within the first lap. The brit suffered from the exact same crash in the last two races, so his bad luck kept on.
Márquez, who had started from fourth place, surely wanted to secure his second win of the season in front of his home crowd, so the spaniard kept pushing. Unfortunately he made a mistake, braking way too late, went into the gravel and fell. With his third time leaving a race without any points, Márquez is only fifth in the overall standings behind both factory Yamahas and Ducatis.
Looking at the front, nobody was able to catch up to Lorenzo. Dovizioso tried to do so, but sadly the Ducati rider made a mistake with 19 laps to go and had to give up on the race as well. This opened up the gap to Lorenzo, but gave his teammate Valentino Rossi the chance for another podium position.
Rossi had started from seventh place and recouped two slots right away after the start. Just as he did at all the other races this season, the italian kept pushing his M1 and quickly moved up the scale. Unfortunately for Rossi and his many fans, it wasn’t enough to catch Lorenzo, who had won the race with a +0,885 gap on Rossi.
Márquez’s teammate Dani Pedrosa joint the Yamaha duo on the podium for the first time this season. Pedrosa struggled at the beginning of the race. Starting as sixth he fell back several places down to tenth place, but made his way up through the whole race distance of 25 laps. Surely he benefited from riders in front of him crashing out, but since Pedrosa managed to secure his place, it seems his arm-pump surgery went well and he’s not in too much pain.
Left the only rider for the Ducati factory Team, Andrea Iannone saved a fourth place for the ever-increasing italian team. Iannone had to go to Q1 on saturday, but even if the italian could make it into the second qualifying, he still ended it in 12th place. Keeping that and Dovizioso’s crash in mind, a fourth place surely is a good result for him and his team.
A result that could have been Bradley Smith‘s as well, since the Tech3 rider had been in front of Iannone, but couldn’t fight back against the power of the Desmosedici. Smith tried anyway, but ultimately had to go with a still very good fifth place.
Ecstar Suzuki rider Maverick Viñales finished the race as sixth. Coming from second on the grid, it surely wasn’t what the MotoGP rookie expected, but since he finished all of his premiere class races in the Top Ten, it proves that there’s definitely more to come from the young spaniard.
With Marc VDS rider Scott Redding following Viñales in seventh place, Forward Yamaha rider Stefan Bradl received his until now best result of the season. With his eighth place the german ended the race as the best open class rider in the Catalunya Grand Prix, followed by Danilo Petrucci (Pramac Ducati) in ninth place and Aprilia rider Álvaro Bautista completing the Top Ten.
Alongside Crutchlow, Márquez and Andrea Dovizioso, also Tech3 rider Pol Espargaró and his brother, Ecstar Suzuki pilot Aleix Espargaró, Aprilia’s Marco Melandri, Pramac rider Yonny Hernández and Nicky Hayden (Aspar Team) crushed out of the race.
Pramac’s Hector Barbera came back to the pits throughout the race, but could luckily rejoin the race. He finished in 16th and therefor last position.
The next round of MotoGP takes place at Assen, Netherlands on Thursday, 25th of June.
