Drama as Márquez gives away points in Australia

© David Davies/PA Wire

By Dan Moakes
October 28 2013

Jorge Lorenzo’s title defence was still alive as the 2013 FIM MotoGP World Championship reached round sixteen in Australia, but 20-year-old Marc Márquez had a very handy 43-point advantage with three races left to run. Could he wrap it up at the first attempt?

The Australian Grand Prix has been held at Phillip Island in consecutive years since 1997, with one previous visit in 1990, and it is a challenging and well-liked circuit. Valentino Rossi is a seven-time GP winner at the track, including five consecutive years in MotoGP, but the man to beat from 2007 onwards was local hero Casey Stoner - and nobody had done so. In 2013, the 28-year-old was absent for the first time, following his retirement the previous November, so it was like a whole new era for the home fans.

Stoner would quite possibly not have enjoyed participating competitively on the track this time round, as there were significant tyre problems for the riders to deal with. The circuit had been resurfaced, with the result that there was too much grip, and the rear Bridgestones were seemingly only able to last about ten laps at full chat before things became dangerous. The only answer to this in the end was to reduce the race from 27 to 19 laps, with an unprecedented mandatory mid-race pit stop.

In qualifying, there was the usual Honda versus Yamaha contest for supremacy and, in the continued absence of Stefan Bradl, the seven machines in question took the first seven places. Yamaha’s factory team leader took pole position, with Lorenzo taking this honour for the first time since round three of the series - but not doing so with the lap on which he suffered a bird strike, with one of the local seagulls getting lodged as a reluctant passenger.

Lorenzo was joined on the front row of the grid by team-mate Rossi, in third position, with the customer Tech 3 Yamahas of Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith in sixth and seventh respectively. The best of the Honda men was Repsol-backed Márquez in second, and team-mate Dani Pedrosa was fifth, with the Gresini team’s Álvaro Bautistá ahead of him in fourth. Ducati machinery followed on behind the dominant Japanese bikes, with Nicky Hayden eighth for the factory team, ahead of team-mate Andrea Dovizioso and then Pramac Ducati’s Andrea Iannone.

First of the CRT runners was Colin Edwards on the FTR-Kawasaki for NGM Mobile Forward Racing, ahead of the two Aspar team-mates, Randy de Puniet and then Aleix Espargaró in P13. For Frenchman de Puniet the race would be his 250th GP start. Edwards’ team-mate Claudio Corti was next, with Yonny Hernández only in P15 on the second Pramac Ducati. He was followed by Hiroshi Aoyama, Danilo Petrucci, Michael Laverty, Héctor Barberá, Luca Scassa, Bryan Staring, Lukáš Pešek and Damian Cudlin.

The arrangements for the tyre stops were very much like the flag-to-flag rules for wet-dry races: each rider would come in and swap to his reserve bike. The bike settings would be the same but obviously the key was the switch to a fresh set of tyres. Because of this, in the event of conditions changing from dry to wet the race would have to be red-flagged to a stop, giving everyone time to sort out all the relevant settings before restarting proceedings. With the tyre life set at ten laps, there was a strict pit stop window. Riders were expected to stop on lap nine or lap ten, the longest stint therefore not exceeding the agreed tyre life.

Teams and riders were able to use the warm-up session to practice their stops, with the aim obviously being to lose as little time as possible. For the race, the front row Yamaha men went for the extra soft front tyres. The start saw Lorenzo and Márquez retain their positions at the front, with Pedrosa up to third. Rossi was fourth, but the fast right at turn one, known as Doohan corner, saw Smith get through on the inside of ‘the Doctor’. Bautistá was sixth, from Iannone, Crutchlow and Hayden.

The expected action involving the three leaders was immediate, with positions changing at the first heavy braking zone. Turn four is called Honda Corner, and is a tight right-hander following on from the Bass Straight and then the fast left at Stoner Corner. Lorenzo ran wide at Honda, and meanwhile Pedrosa was mounting an attack on the inside of Márquez. This move briefly put Dani through into the lead, but Jorge fought back, and through the left at Siberia the original order was restored.

Fourth man Smith was not in that position for long, with Rossi getting ahead at MG corner, where they dive downhill then have to negotiate a tight right-hander. The long left-handed Southern Loop at turn two saw Bautistá also get through past the rookie Yamaha rider, and soon he fell victim to team-mate Crutchlow as well. Hayden was now up to eighth, from Iannone, Dovizioso, de Puniet, Espargaró, Hernández and Edwards. Barberá was making progress just as Scassa was dropping back, with the Avintia Blusens man now heading Petrucci, Corti, Aoyama, then Scassa, Staring and Laverty.

Lorenzo set a new lap record as he looked to escape from the pursuing Honda pair, and the gaps seemed to be opening up; but then second man Márquez began to close in again, and then Pedrosa was able to follow suit. When Jorge didn’t get the usual amount of drive on the way out of MG, the two Repsol men were right on his heels again. But perhaps the key to the race was going to be how the pit stops unfolded, and the mid-point was now looming.

Lap nine saw Pedrosa head for the pits, opting to be the first man to go in, with Lorenzo and Márquez ahead staying out. Dani was followed in by Bautistá, Smith, Dovizioso, Iannone, Edwards and Petrucci. It would transpire that Pedrosa had not slowed sufficiently to the regulation speed before crossing the ‘neutral line’ for the pitlane, and within a couple of laps a sanction would be issued. Meanwhile, on lap ten, Márquez was caught out by a hairy ‘moment’ on the Honda at Lukey Heights, the left-hand crest before MG.

The two leaders went through MG, the left at turn eleven and on into the final left at Swan Corner, where Lorenzo went for the pits on the inside. Márquez, however, continued onto the main Gardner Straight and began lap eleven. For some reason, he had missed the pit stop window. Had the moment at Lukey Heights distracted him; did he not realise that Pedrosa had pitted a lap earlier; or did he think that Dani had done so a lap too soon; or had his pit signals been the cause? Whatever the reason, he continued in the lead, with Staring in an unexpected second place as he too had stayed out on track; Cudlin appeared to be in the same boat.

While this went on, Lorenzo had been followed into the pits by Crutchlow, Rossi, Hayden, Espargaró and de Puniet. Lorenzo rejoined in front of Pedrosa, and then Márquez made his delayed stop. When he emerged, Márquez cut across to the right for the Doohan curve, and there was a brief clash with Lorenzo, who was there on the inside for the corner. Jorge continued, and Marc was delayed for a moment, regrouping in third position behind Pedrosa. By now, it was known that Dani had been penalised by one position for his pit infringement.

Márquez was soon up to speed with a new fastest lap, and he moved up to second place with a move on the inside of Pedrosa at Honda Corner. What was not clear at this stage was whether this move counted for Dani’s penalty, with some believing that he would be demoted one position in the final results. In fact, the on-track switch covered this requirement, which was good news for Pedrosa in light of what was to come. With five laps remaining, the black flag was shown to Márquez, and to Staring and Cudlin. In this instance it meant return to the pits as you have been disqualified, and that was all that Marc could do.

This left Lorenzo in the lead, and with a fairly handy advantage over Pedrosa. Before the exit of Márquez, Jorge had held his hand up briefly as if he thought it was starting to rain. But he carried on and the race finished safely, with a heavy shower hitting the circuit right at the finish. Pedrosa was in a clear finish at the flag, despite a slower and more cautious final lap, but would otherwise have had to drop right back to the next group if his team-mate had not passed him before having to take his leave. He would go on to describe the fact that his second bike had not handled as well as his first.

The pit stop phase had seen Rossi get back up to fourth position, ahead of Crutchlow and Bautistá, and this trio made a close group for most of the remaining laps. Cal was through in front of Valentino at one stage, making his move at Southern Loop, but the experienced Italian won this tussle and therefore earned his podium slot behind the two remaining title-contending Spaniards. Álvaro overtook the Tech 3 team leader during the last lap, but it was Crutchlow who took the flag in fourth place. Meanwhile, Smith was in a solitary sixth at the end. For Crutchlow, his result moved him onto 400 points for his 52-race MotoGP career.

The Ducati contest for seventh position was won by Hayden, ahead of Iannone and Dovizioso; with the usual CRT class winner, Espargaró, on this occasion bested by tenth placed team-mate de Puniet. Edwards took twelfth, and then it was Hernández, Barberá, Petrucci, Scassa, Corti, Laverty, Pešek and Aoyama. All riders reached the finish bar the three to be black flagged.

Marc Márquez could have virtually sealed his title with a win, but instead his timing error during the pit stop phase had been quite costly: now Jorge Lorenzo is only eighteen points adrift. In the two remaining races, Marc still has quite a bit to do to reach his goal - ideally he has to finish ahead of Jorge both times. For Dani Pedrosa, the chance is still there, but it’s a slim one. Márquez only needs one podium result to prevent his team-mate being the champion. The consolation for Dani, perhaps, was reaching the 2000-point milestone for his eight-year MotoGP career. What will come next for the three Spaniards?

Standings after sixteen races: Márquez 298; Lorenzo 280; Pedrosa 264; Rossi 214; Crutchlow 179; Bautistá 147; Bradl 135; Dovizioso 127; Hayden 111; Smith 99 ·· CRT leader: Espargaró.
Honda 336; Yamaha 331; Ducati 140; ART 91; FTR-Kawasaki 57; Ioda Suter-BMW 24; PBM-ART 3; FTR-Honda 2.

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