Marquez emerges from Dutch thriller
MOTOGP
ASSEN (NL)
JULY 1
ROUND 8/19
A glance at the results of this year’s Dutch TT could fool you into thinking it was just another ordinary Motogp race. After all, clear pre-race favourite Marc Marquez converted pole into win number four of 2018, doing so by a little over two seconds.
The reality could not be more different. While Marquez had the pace to break away on his Honda in the closing stages, the Assen race was an instant classic, with no fewer than five different leaders and more than 100 overtakes packed into 26 thrilling, spellbinding laps.
Although the identity of the winner was expected, this race had it all, evoking memories of an equally chaotic encounter at Phillip Island in 2015. Marquez was victorious then too, and this again was a sublime display of attacking gusto combined with patience and guile.
Jorge Lorenzo – winner at Mugello and Barcelona for Ducati – set the tone for what was to come by grabbing the lead on the opening lap, despite starting from 10th on the grid, but he was never able to edge more than a few tenths away from the chasing pack. The Spaniard was also extremely fortunate that a hefty whack on the rear from Valentino Rossi’s Yamaha as he fought to hold onto the lead didn’t result in a trip to the gravel.
That was just one instance of contact in a race that featured plenty of on-the-limit moves, although incredibly – with the sole exception of Pramac Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci some way further down the field – there were no crashes.
Suzuki’s Alex Rins ensured there were four manufacturers represented in the lead group, attracting the attention of the stewards when he muscled pass Marquez for second behind Lorenzo at the slow Strubben left-hander on the 12th lap. No action was taken.
Honda man Marquez returned the favour in a near-identical move a couple of tours later and, with six laps to go he had managed to find a way by the Ducatis of Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso to retake the lead, after Maverick Vinales had also enjoyed a brief spell out front.
Vinales went all out in his bid to claim a first Motogp win for Yamaha since Rossi’s triumph at Assen last year, but his attempt to repass Marquez ended with both riders running out wide at the Turn 9 left-hander, allowing Dovizioso and Rossi into the top two places. Rossi became the race’s fifth different leader when he made it past Dovizioso at the final chicane, but was shuffled back on a mesmerising 22nd lap of 26 that resulted in Marquez emerging from a stunning piece of three-wide
action with a lead he wouldn’t lose.
Attention then turned back to the fight for second, as Rossi ran wide at Turn 1 after trying to brave it out on the outside against Dovizioso. Rossi later criticised his compatriot for being “not clever”, but Dovizioso was equally adamant he didn’t do anything “over the limit”. Whoever was to blame, the episode allowed both Rins and Vinales through, and it was Rins who managed to overcome Vinales by 0.039s to score his best-ever Motogp result.
Dovizioso had to be content with fourth, followed by Rossi and Cal Crutchlow, who was always lurking at the rear of the lead train on his LCR Honda but never able to get stuck in. Lorenzo fell away to a seventh ahead of the Tech3 Yamaha of Johann Zarco.
While Yamaha was the most competitive it had been for some time at Assen, the Iwata manufacturer is about to enter its longest winless spell in the Motogp era, with a barren run of 18 races matching a dry spell that spanned the back end of 2002 and the whole of ’03 prior to Rossi’s arrival in ’04.
Rossi and Vinales may be second and third in the standings, but that’s down more to consistency than anything else. Meanwhile, Marquez’s advantage now stands at 41 points with more Hondafriendly tracks such as the Sachsenring and Brno coming up next on the schedule.
Marquez had expected to lose ground at Assen, and yet he came out on top. After two defeats at the hands of Lorenzo in the past two races, his march towards title number five looks to have resumed in earnest.