Ducati’s Jorge Lorenzo and Honda’s Marc Marquez had an epic duel in MotoGP’s Austrian Grand Prix last weekend where Lorenzo came out on top at Red Bull Ring.
A MotoGP victory is already a special thing but for Lorenzo, winning against a ‘monster’ like Marquez was all the more enriching during last weekend’s Austrian GP where the Ducati took his third of the season in a wheel-to-wheel tussle with Marquez.
The Honda rider had built a considerable lead up front but the two Ducati riders Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso were on his tail throughout. Dovizioso fell back but Lorenzo hung on and eventually won the battle against his future teammate.
“Yes, it is one of my best victory,” claimed the Spaniard. “But my best victory? I don’t know my best one because luckily I got very beautiful ones, not only MotoGP but also in other categories.
“For sure, when [you] beat Marc, it is always special. When you win with Ducati it is special. So this victory is going to be one of the special ones apart from the first in Mugello, especially because I had fight till the end with a a monster like Marc.
“Fighting for life till the last lap, braking very hard and taking bit of my strong points so, it is very special.” The soft rear option for Lorenzo worked against Marquez’s hard rear. The Honda rider pulled away initially but not by much.
In fact, it was a calculative move on the part of Lorenzo to pounce on Marquez in the last 10 laps. The third win has helped Lorenzo move to third in the standings albeit still 71 points adrift Marquez, but 12 only behind Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi.
At one stage, Lorenzo was languishing 14th but he has had a remarkable turnaround to third. Even with the position, Lorenzo has more or less conceded that it will be difficult to catch Marquez for the title but second is certainly possible.
“For the classification for sure it will be better if Marc would have finished fifth or sixth but he’s always there, if he is not winning he’s second,” said Lorenzo. “So, it is very difficult to catch him in points, but it is not really our goal.
“If we are lucky we can recover some points, maybe we can fight [against him] at the end, but is it very difficult. The most probability is we can fight for the second place of the championship, now it is very close as Valentino is not so far.
“I overtook Andrea by one point, so our goal is to keep having fun, to keep learning with this bike till the end and to keep in that form – to stay always on podium and fight for victories,” he explained.
