Marquez completes American hat-trick
Marc Marquez capped a perfect weekend in Indiana to complete an American hat-trick as the rookie extends his lead at the head of the championship.
Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo rounded out the podium making it yet another all Spanish podium in 2013.
The MotoGP rookie was expected to win the race after being fastest in every session, although he didn’t make it easy for himself.
Jorge Lorenzo was the man who got the holeshot, and kept the lead for almost half the race distance, as the two Repsol Honda’s settled in behind the world champion.
It wasn’t until lap six that Marquez made his first move on his team mate. It was an aggressive pass around the outside of Pedrosa, before setting on catching the World Champion.
It was only five laps later when the rookie took the lead, with a similar move around the outside of Lorenzo before edging into the distance.
Speaking after the race Marquez said: “I didn’t make a good start but I knew before the race that the end was the most important part. During the first ten laps I just tried to follow Dani (Pedrosa) and Jorge (Lorenzo) and save the tyres. Once the fuel had gone down a little I went on the attack. Then I tried to push a bit more, I opened up a gap and I was able to enjoy sliding the bike. It was so good.”
When asked about the championship standings the rookie continued, “The 25 points are important. I feel great here in the USA and I’ve won three races here this year now. That’s important. Now we go back to Europe and we will try to continue in the same way.”
“I had a perfect weekend and I will try to repeat that in the future but it will be difficult. There are still a lot of races to go and Jorge and Dani have a lot more experience. I know I will be stronger at some circuits than others so we will see.”
Lorenzo and Pedrosa managed to stay in touch with Marquez, until with nine laps left Marquez managed to brake his rivals, and smashed out four blistering laps in 1.39.0’s, leading him to a win by +3.495 seconds.
Dani Pedrosa struggled to stay with Lorenzo, however with just three laps left in the race, the still recovering Honda rider decided that he couldn’t let Lorenzo take second for championship reasons, and hunted the world champion, before passing him on the penultimate lap, leaving the world champion further adrift and frustrated with third.
Valentino Rossi finished the race in fourth position after a fantastic battle with Cal Crutchlow and Alvaro Bautista which went right down to the last corner. The Italian was struggling down in seventh for more than half of the race, before his strategy suddenly came to him, as he started to lap with similar times to the leaders.
The Doctor caught, passed and dropped the slightly disappointing Bradl quickly before catching Crutchlow and Bautista who were in a race long battle for forth place with plenty of aggressive and exciting moves.
With just three laps left Rossi managed to get onto the back of the back of the fourth place battle.
Rossi first passed Bautista and then began pressuring the Tech3 rider, with places swapping and changing like a Moto2 race, and on the penultimate lap Rossi made his move, only to run wide letting Crutchlow back through to retake the position. But on the final corner Rossi dived back up the inside of Crutchlow, who in turn nearly took out Bautista, before the three riders all dragged to the line with Rossi pipping Crutchlow and Bautista.
With more final corner excitement to come, Hayden put a very hard pass on team mate Dovizioso to try to take 8th, however he ran wide, causing the teamamtes to touch, and both run wide over the rumble strip and the pass made them jump over the kerb onto the outside banking but as they returned to track, Bradley Smith snuck through and finished ahead the Ducati’s by 0.011s.
2013 MotoGP Indianapolis race results:
01- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – 27 laps in 44’52.463
02- Dani Pedrosa – Repsol Honda Team – Honda RC213V – + 3.495
03- Jorge Lorenzo – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 5.704
04- Valentino Rossi – Yamaha Factory Racing – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 19.895
05- Cal Crutchlow – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 19.955
06- Alvaro Bautista – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – Honda RC213V – + 20.061
07- Stefan Bradl – LCR Honda MotoGP – Honda RC213V – + 24.842
08- Bradley Smith – Monster Yamaha Tech 3 – Yamaha YZR M1 – + 40.690
09- Nicky Hayden – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 40.701
10- Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Team – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 40.823
11- Andrea Iannone – Energy T.I. Pramac Racing – Ducati Desmosedici GP13 – + 59.668
12- Aleix Espargaro – Power Electronics Aspar – ART GP13 – + 06.650
13- Colin Edwards – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – FTR Kawasaki – + 1’09.462
14- Claudio Corti – NGM Mobile Forward Racing – FTR Kawasaki – + 1’15.207
15- Hiroshi Aoyama – Avintia Blusens – BQR FTR – + 1’20.159
16- Hector Barbera – Avintia Blusens – BQR FTR – + 1’25.897
17- Danilo Petrucci – CAME Iodaracing Project – Ioda Suter BMW – + 1’29.616
18- Michael Laverty – Paul Bird Motorsport – PBM 01 – + 1’36.388
19- Bryan Staring – GO&FUN Honda Gresini – FTR Honda MGP13 – + 1 lap