Marquez: Spanish GP is very long and you must manage many things

MARC MARQUEZ won his home Spanish Grand Prix and took the overall MotoGP lead yesterday after the reigning champion’s main rivals collided spectacularly.

The Honda rider was in a race of his own for the last eight laps after the Ducati pairing of Andrea Dovizioso, the previous championship leader, and Jorge Lorenzo collided with Honda’s Dani Pedrosa while fighting for second place.

Pedrosa, who had wrist surgery less than a month ago, was thrown high over his bike after trying to go past the two Ducatis on the inside.

Lorenzo came across into the corner as Dovizioso went wide, colliding with Pedrosa and sending the two Ducatis into the gravel. All three riders walked away from the crash.

French Tech3 Yamaha rider Johann Zarco was gifted the runner-up slot, 5.241 seconds behind, and is now 25-year-old Marquez’s closest rival in the championship.

Four-times world champion Marquez,

pictured, who started the race from fifth place, now has 70 points after four races to Zarco’s 58. Dovizioso dropped to fifth overall with 46.

Italian Andrea Iannone finished third for Suzuki.

“I was convinced before the race that I was able to win,” said Marquez, who had a big wobble when he ran over gravel left on the track earlier.

“Okay, we started on the second row but anyway today I was clever. I pushed... here the race is very long and you must manage many things.”

Italian Valentino Rossi was fifth at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain in a race that saw him reach a career milestone by completing the circumference of the planet in race kilometres.

Rossi has now covered 40.075km in competition over 23 seasons, starting at the 1996 Malaysian Grand Prix.

Britain’s Cal Crutchlow started on pole position for the LCR Honda team but failed to finish, crashing out at turn one after nine laps while in fourth place.

Meanwhile, double Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso returned to the top of the podium when he won his debut World Endurance Championship (WEC) race with Toyota at Belgium’s Spa circuit on Saturday. The McLaren F1 driver, sharing his TS050 hybrid number eight car with Japan’s Kazuki Nakajima and Switzerland’s Sebastien Buemi, led a Toyota onetwo in the season-opening Six Hours of Spa.

The victory, from pole, was Alonso’s first in any motorsport championship since he won his home Spanish Grand Prix for Ferrari in 2013.

Alonso is competing in both the WEC and Formula One this season in a bid to become only the second driver, after Britain’s double F1 champion Graham Hill, to win the so-called “Triple Crown of Motorsport”.

That involves the Formula One title, or Monaco Grand Prix which he has also won , the Le Mans 24 Hours sportscar race and Indianapolis 500. The 36-year-old will race Le Mans in both 2018 and 2019 with Toyota.

The Spaniard entered the Indy 500 last year, leading the race for a while before retiring.