Ducati’s Jorge Lorenzo made it a double MotoGP victory in his home Catalan Grand Prix, keeping off Honda’s Marc Marquez handsomely to edge himself closer in the 2018 title fight after seven races in the season.
The Spaniard has now 66 points to Marquez’s 115. The Honda rider took the lead at the start of the race with Lorenzo dropping to fourth behind Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone and Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso.
But he fought back to get ahead of Dovizioso and Iannone to get himself right behind Marquez. He eventually made the move on Lap 3 to take the lead and keep it until the end of the race to win his second consecutive for Ducati.
Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi recovered from an average qualifying to finish third on the podium. The Italian remained unchallenged after he was gifted third when Dovizioso crashed at Turn 5 from the podium position.
Fourth place went to LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow after a hard-fought battle with Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Pramac Racing Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci. The Italian held fourth but a wide moment allowed Pedrosa and Crutchlow to sneak past.
The British rider then made way through Pedrosa to take fourth with the Spaniard having to settle for fifth after fending off a late charge from Yamaha’s Maverick Vinales. Pedrosa had a difficult qualifying but made up chunk of places at the start of the race.
At the same time, Vinales had a poor start from fourth to drop down at the back of Top 10 but made headway in the race to finish fifth, only 0.348s behind Pedrosa. Tech 3 Yamaha’s Johann Zarco finished sixth with Petrucci coming home in eighth.
Angel Nieto Ducati of Alvaro Bautista climbed up to ninth with early race leader Iannone saw the chequered flag in 10th after his troubles midway. KTM’s Pol Espargaro finished a distant 11th from Aprilia’s Scott Redding.
It was double points for Angel Nieto Ducati as Karel Abraham took 13th and was the last finisher on track with Marc VDS Honda’s Franco Morbidelli classified 14th despite not seeing the flag – but taking the two points.
It was a crash-filled race though which saw as many as 12 riders not seeing the chequered flag. It started with the two wildcard entrants, KTM’s Mika Kallio and Suzuki’s Sylvain Guintoli in the opening laps.
The were followed by Marc VDS Honda’s Thomas Luthi, Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro, Avintia Ducati’s Xavier Simeon followed by Dovizioso. Suzuki’s Alex Rins retired by himself after which KTM’s Bradley Smith and LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami came together.
The Japanese just moved ahead of Smith in their battle when he lost control which the KTM rider couldn’t avoid – thereby ending their chances of any points after a solid start to their races. Pramac Racing Ducati’s Jack Miller was the next.
For Avintia Ducati’s Tito Rabat, it was a fiery end after his GP17 caught fire on the main straight while he fought for ninth place with Tech 3 Yamaha’s Hafizh Syahrin, who had his own crash a few laps later.
