Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez extended his MotoGP championship lead to 36 points at Le Mans this afternoon as he cruised to victory over Danilo Petrucci and Valentino Rossi.
But it was disaster for both Andrea Dovizioso and Johann Zarco as the pair crashed out of contention in separate incidents and scored no points.
Ducati’s Dovizioso went down into La Chapelle on lap five after unsettling his GP18 and running wide after just passing Jorge Lorenzo for the lead and then, three laps later, Zarco slid off at turn eight to the horror of the home crowd.
It left Pramac Ducati’s Petrucci and nine-time world champion Rossi to chase Marquez for the win but they had nothing for the Spaniard and he took victory by 2.3 seconds over the Italian with the Yamaha man a further three seconds in arrears.
Petrucci’s team-mate Jack Miller bagged an excellent fourth place after passing Jorge Lorenzo with 14 left to run and Dani Pedrosa eventually followed him through after spending way too much time trying to find a way past the Italian.
Lorenzo’s chances of keeping his works ride have just got smaller, getting beaten by two satellite Ducatis, and his soft/soft tyre combination was fast in the opening laps but he just couldn’t keep it together and he eventually finished nearly three seconds behind Pedrosa.
Rossi, who chose a soft rear, managed to keep his rhythm in increasing track temperatures but the same could not be said for team-mate Maverick Vinales, who ended some 13s behind Lorenzo and only two seconds ahead of Cal Crutchlow, who was still in hospital this morning.
Crutchlow suffered a monster highside in qualifying yesterday and had to spend the night in the Le Mans hospital but was passed fit for morning warm-up and battled to an heroic eighth after finding his way past Aleix Espargaro and and Alex Rins.
Pol Espargaro finished in 11th with Hafizh Syahrin picking up top rookie in 12th, one ahead of Franky Morbidelli. Bradley Smith and Taka Nakagami completed the top 15. Scott Redding crashed out while Iannone didn’t finish lap one, going down at La Chapelle.
Marquez is now on 95 points with, amazingly, Vinales second on 59. Zarco is third on 58, Rossi fourth on 56 and Petrucci moves to fifth on 54. Dovizoso is now ninth and almost two race wins behind.
