Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda RC213V) again increased his lead in the 2013 MotoGP World Championship with a thrilling ride to second place in today’s San Marino Grand Prix. Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC213V) finished third, just behind his team-mate, while the race was won by Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha). Pedrosa and Lorenzo are now tied on points, 34 behind Marquez, with five of 18 races remaining.

Although Marquez dominated qualifying yesterday, more than half a second ahead of Lorenzo, he went into the race after a fall in this morning’s warm-up, his second tumble of the weekend. The remarkable MotoGP rookie didn’t make the best of starts and had to work to pass Pedrosa – who had made a brilliant start from the second row – while struggling to find his best-possible rhythm with a full tank of fuel. That difficulty caused the 20-year-old to make a couple of mistakes at the Quercia left-hander, the second of which saw him run off the track while right behind his team-mate. That lost him a lot of time and put him behind Valentino Rossi (Yamaha).

By this stage of the race Lorenzo was already well gone – 2.9 seconds ahead of Pedrosa. Marquez spent the next 13 laps making up for his mistakes, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process. It took him eight laps to pass Rossi and a further five to get the better of Pedrosa.

For the next few laps the Spanish pair livened up the race as they attacked and counter-attacked each other. Pedrosa found a way past with six laps remaining, but Marquez came back at his compatriot later the same lap. He then started chipping away at Lorenzo’s three-second advantage, but soon realised that trying to catch the reigning champion would demand too many risks, so he settled for second. It was his 12th podium from his first 13 MotoGP races.

Pedrosa stayed close to Marquez but the former 250 and 125 World Champion was struggling with grip issues, as he had during practice, so he couldn’t find a way through and crossed the line half a second down on the reigning Moto2 World Champion.

Stefan Bradl (LCR Honda RC213V) spent the race shadowing Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha), then passed the Briton at Turn Seven on the final lap to take fifth place, seven seconds behind Rossi. It was a strong result from the young German who came back well from a big tumble on Friday.

Alvaro Bautista (Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini RC213V) had a mostly lonely ride to seventh at his team’s home Grand Prix. Although he recorded the fifth fastest lap of the race he struggled throughout getting his bike to turn into corners, a problem he hadn’t come across in practice.

Bryan Staring (GO&FUN Honda Gresini FTR Honda) had a luckless race, his machine struck by gremlins that causing him to pull out with only a few laps to go.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda: 2nd

“We’ve taken another 20 World Championship points today and, considering how the race went, I think that is a good reward! At the start of the race I knew that I had to be careful, but I made two mistakes and lost a lot of time with the second of those. Maybe I was lacking a little experience – it’s my rookie season and it is normal to make a few errors. I also didn’t feel completely comfortable with a full fuel tank. From the midway point onwards I felt a lot better. To finish second is a great result, even though Lorenzo has gained five points on us, we are an extra four ahead of Dani. We are happy and have a lot of motivation to keep fighting hard at Aragon!”

Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda: 3rd

“I gave my all in the race today. I rode as well as I can ride, putting everything into every lap and trying to take every corner perfectly. Overall, this hasn’t been our weekend, generally speaking, because I had a lot of grip problems with the rear tyre on every day of the GP. In the race today it was even more noticeable, so I couldn’t have done things any better.”

Stefan Bradl, LCR Honda MotoGP: 5th

“Definitely it was the best day of the weekend for us. We improved the bike from Friday to Saturday and today the team made a great job. I suffered a big crash on Friday and they had to work even harder to give me a competitive bike for the race. In the beginning of the race I was not so confident because, on the warm-up lap, I was not sure about rear tyre performance. But after a few laps I could set my pace easily and I followed Cal for the whole race. He was a good reference for me and I was able to see where I was stronger than him so in the last lap I made my manoeuvre in turn seven. I had fun and I am happy now because I made a strong race after such a tough weekend.”

Alvaro Bautista, Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini: 7th

“We expected a different result because we were competitive during practice and in the warm-up this morning but during the race I was struggling to get the bike turning into the corners, which is strange because we didn’t touch the setting. Our pace was slower than practice and that’s not normal so it’s important we understand why this happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s a shame because we had the potential today to fight for fifth or even fourth place. This is racing and now we have to put the result behind us and concentrate on the next race in Spain. I am disappointed for the team because it’s their home race. We were on the podium here last year and I would have loved to give them another great result.”

Bryan Staring, GO&FUN Honda Gresini: DNF

“I had a good feeling with the bike today and I was happy with how the race was going but suddenly the bike gave up and we had to pull out. I am disappointed because I at least would have liked to complete full distance in the team’s home race but these things can happen and we have to keep looking forward. The engineers will have a look at the bike now and try to work out what went wrong.”

Pole position : Marc MARQUEZ
Fastest lap : Marc MARQUEZ - 1'33.935
Circuit record lap : Jorge LORENZO - 1'33.906
Circuit Best Lap : Marc MARQUEZ - 1'32.915


Event results - Round 13 - Race 1

1 Jorge Lorenzo 44'05.522 SPA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
2 Marc Marquez 44'08.901 ESP HONDA Repsol Honda Team
3 Dani Pedrosa 44'12.890 SPA HONDA Repsol Honda Team
4 Valentino Rossi 44'20.584 ITA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
5 Stefan Bradl 44'27.877 GER HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP
6 Cal Crutchlow 44'28.121 GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
7 Alvaro Bautista 44'36.581 SPA HONDA Go & Fun Honda Gresini
8 Andrea Dovizioso 44'48.224 ITA DUCATI Ducati Team
9 Nicky Hayden 44'50.380 USA DUCATI Ducati Team
10 Michele Pirro 44'53.340 ITA DUCATI Pramac Racing
11 Bradley Smith 44'53.533 GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
12 Colin Edwards 45'08.676 USA FTR NGM Forward Racing
13 Aleix Espargaro 45'13.122 ESP ART Power Electronics Aspar
14 Hiroshi Aoyama 45'21.050 JPN FTR Avintia Blusens
15 Danilo Petrucci 45'23.429 ITA IODA Came IodaRacing Project
16 Claudio Corti 45'35.177 ITA FTR NGM Forward Racing
17 Randy De Puniet 45'39.512 FRA ART Power Electronics Aspar
18 Michael Laverty 45'42.382 WAL ART Paul Bird Motorsport
19 Bryan Staring DNF AUS HONDA Go & Fun Honda Gresini
20 Hector Barbera DNF SPA FTR Avintia Blusens
21 Yonny Hernandez DNF COL ART Paul Bird Motorsport
22 Karel Abraham DNF CZE ART Cardion AB Motoracing
23 Andrea Iannone DNF ITA DUCATI Pramac Racing
24 Lukas Pesek DNF CZE IODA Came IodaRacing Project

Championship standings

1 Marc Marquez 253 pts ESP HONDA Repsol Honda Team
2 Jorge Lorenzo 219 pts SPA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
3 Dani Pedrosa 219 pts SPA HONDA Repsol Honda Team
4 Valentino Rossi 169 pts ITA YAMAHA Yamaha Factory Racing
5 Cal Crutchlow 146 pts GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
6 Stefan Bradl 124 pts GER HONDA LCR Honda MotoGP
7 Alvaro Bautista 112 pts SPA HONDA Go & Fun Honda Gresini
8 Andrea Dovizioso 104 pts ITA DUCATI Ducati Team
9 Nicky Hayden 95 pts USA DUCATI Ducati Team
10 Bradley Smith 71 pts GBR YAMAHA Monster Yamaha Tech 3
11 Aleix Espargaro 71 pts ESP ART Power Electronics Aspar
12 Michele Pirro 50 pts ITA DUCATI Pramac Racing
13 Andrea Iannone 41 pts ITA DUCATI Pramac Racing
14 Colin Edwards 31 pts USA FTR NGM Forward Racing
15 Hector Barbera 27 pts SPA FTR Avintia Blusens
16 Danilo Petrucci 23 pts ITA IODA Came IodaRacing Project
17 Randy De Puniet 20 pts FRA ART Power Electronics Aspar
18 Ben Spies 9 pts USA DUCATI Pramac Racing
19 Yonny Hernandez 7 pts COL ART Paul Bird Motorsport
20 Claudio Corti 7 pts ITA FTR NGM Forward Racing
21 Hiroshi Aoyama 6 pts JPN FTR Avintia Blusens
22 Karel Abraham 5 pts CZE ART Cardion AB Motoracing
23 Alex de Angelis 5 pts ITA DUCATI Pramac Racing
24 Michael Laverty 3 pts WAL ART Paul Bird Motorsport
25 Bryan Staring 2 pts AUS HONDA Go & Fun Honda Gresini
26 Javier del Amor 1 pts ESP FTR Avintia Blusens
27 Martin Bauer 0 pts AUT S&B SUTER Remus Racing Team
28 Lukas Pesek 0 pts CZE IODA Came IodaRacing Project
29 Ivan Silva 0 pts ESP FTR Avintia Blusens
30 Blake Young 0 pts USA APRILIA Attack Performance

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