Reigning MotoGP World Champion took an easy win at the Jerez race this afternoon after a lap-18 pile-up saw Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso and Dani Pedrosa go down.
Marquez had taken the lead and opened a gap on the trailing two Ducatis and his own team-mate. As the trio approached Dry Sac, Dovizioso went under Lorenzo but ran wide, Lorenzo pulled his GP18 down to the apex but found Pedrosa’s RC213V in space.
The little Spaniard was pinged high into the air as the Bologna men clattered into the gravel trap but none were injured. It is the second time Pedrosa has been the victim of someone else incident this season and it leaves Marquez 12 points clear in the championship standings.
After struggling with an full fuel tank early doors, Johann Zarco found his Monster Yamaha in second place with a five-second gap back to the fight for third place between Danilo Petrucci, Andrea Iannone, Jack Miller and Valentino Rossi.
With three laps to go, Iannone took two-tenths out of Petrucci while Rossi passed Miller for fifth. Iannone passed Petrucci for third on the penultimate lap while Rosso went back into the 1’39s and eight-tenths faster than the Pramac Ducati in front of him.
However, Iannone had just enough to take his second podium in a row while Petrucci just held off his great mate Rossi by a tenth of a second for fourth place. The Doctor has now racked up enough GP racing miles to have circumnavigated the glove, which is some statistic.
After challenging hard mid-race, Miller just didn’t have enough to go with his team-mate and finished in sixth place, one ahead of Maverick Vinales who will thank his lucky stars that so many fell in front of him.
The Movistar Yamaha man was 13th on lap one and didn’t have anything like the pace of the other works riders but the three-rider incident in front of him and a late pass on Alvaro Bautista saw the Spaniard claim seventh.
Britain’s Cal Crutchlow crashed out of fourth place on lap eight, losing the front into turn one. He re-mounted but went down again late on. Fellow Honda man and series rookie Franky Morbidelli slipped into ninth with Mika Kallio, on the development 2019 Red Bull KTM, taking tenth.
The works KTM boys were line astern until the last lap when Taka Nagagami passed Smith for 12th place but didn’t have enough to pass Pol Espargaro. Tito Rabat took 14th on the Avintia Ducati with Scott Redding taking the final point.
Marquez now has 70 points at the top of the table with Zarco on 58 and Vinales third with 50.
