Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo took victory in today’s Aragon MotoGP and cut his gap to series leader Valentino Rossi by nine points to 14 as The Doctor lost out to Dani Pedrosa in a titanic battle for second place while local hero Marc Marquez crashed out on lap two trying to live with Lorenzo’s scorching pace.
Lorenzo went off like Jack Miller at opening time when the lights went out, towing Marquez with him and the pair put half a second on Andrea Iannone, Pedrosa and Rossi in the first couple of corners. The Mallorcan put in a 1’48.120 on his opening circuit to open a gap on Marquez who promptly lost the front at turn 12 trying to keep up.
Pedrosa dispensed with Iannone, who is riding with an injured shoulder, one lap later and Rossi came past on the next lap and it was then a straight fight between the Yamaha and Honda men for the last podium spots as Lorenzo put in a three-second lead in five laps.
Rossi sat behind Pedrosa, watching for where he might make a pass, until there were only five to go when The Doctor tried a move into turn one but went wide and Pedrosa struck back. He did it again with four to go but ended with the same results as Pedrosa was able to cut back under the Italian.
Pedrosa was passed again by Rossi into turn one with two laps left but still managed to return the favour so it went to the last lap. Rossi tried again at the first corner and this time it worked, but Pedrosa was back under him on the brakes, pushing Rossi wide on the exit and he had no other option but to try a pass on the brakes into the slow right-left before the back straight.
Rossi duly tried it but braked too hard, lost all his momentum and it allowed Pedrosa to use his drive grip to power ahead and Rossi had no answer, crossing the line some 0.90s behind Pedrosa and the pair were 2.683 slower than Lorenzo.
Iannone came home in fourth with his works Ducati team-mate Andrea Dovizoso, who has been nowhere all weekend, in fifth but more than 16s behind his compatriot. Aleix Espargaro pulled sixth place out of nowhere, beating Cal Crutchlow to the line by half a second with Bradley Smith a second further back.
Pol Espargaro and Yonny Herhandez completed the top ten while Scott Redding ended in 12th. Eugene Laverty won the Open class battle for the first time, beating Aspar team-mate Nicky Hayden by 0.093s and took two points for 14th place.
