After two days of hot and dry weather in Brno, the race day served up a nice portion of extreme rain conditions.
Warm-up session
In the morning warm-up session, Scott Redding led the pack with fastest lap of 2 minutes, 9.500s and a top speed of 287km/h. That was quite a bit down from Saturday’s results when Mark Marquez set a new track record with 1m 54.596s speeding down the straight at 310 km/h. Scott was followed by Loris Baz and Eugene Laverty, who were also exceling in the bad weather conditions.
Unfortunately for Jack Miller, winner of the wet Assen race, he was not racing in Brno due to a hairline fracture of the T6 vertebrae in last week’s Austrian GP.
MotoGP race start
At the beginning of the MotoGP race the temperatures started rising and it was anyone’s guess if the track will dry up so all of the riders started on wet tires.
Iannone got the jump but ran wide at turn one allowing Marquez to get back into first position. Lorenzo was down to 3rd and was quickly losing places. By the end of first lap we saw a nightmare performance by the reigning world champion. Rossi was not doing any better and had fallen down to 12th while Lorenzo was in 10th.
Things started to look amazing for Ducati, who were leading the race in first, second and third by Dovizioso, Iannone and Redding respectively but then Dovizioso was forced from the race by a mechanical issue with his bike.
Final third of the race
In the final third of the race we could see that Cal Crutchlow and Valentino Rossi were starting to get a second better times than the competition thanks to the hard rear tire choice, slicing through the lineup going straight up to the top.
Lorenzo, however, decided that being the fastest man on the track, going from 15th to 10th, was not enough. He made a complete tactical mistake by entering the pits and changing to intermediates even though Forcada, his crew chief, was imploring him to stay out. Just a lap later he pits again changing back to the old bike, but the race was over for him.
Crutchlow and Rossi were dominating the track at the end of the race coming in first and second, followed by Marquez in third.
It’s a shame that Ducati’s didn’t manage to get to the podium. Iannone had extreme problems with his front tire shredding to bits making him finish in eight while Avintia Racing riders Loris Baz and Héctor Barberá brought their Ducati’s into fourth and fifth position.
Final results of the Brno MotoGP race
1. Cal Crutchlow GBR LCR Honda (RC213V) 47m 44.290s
2. Valentino Rossi ITA Movistar Yamaha MotoGP (YZR-M1) 47m 51.588s
3. Marc Marquez ESP Repsol Honda Team (RC213V) 47m 53.877s
4. Loris Baz FRA Avintia Racing (Desmosedici GP14.2) 47m 56.848s
5. Hector Barbera ESP Avintia Racing (Desmosedici GP14.2) 47m 57.383s
6. Eugene Laverty IRL Aspar MotoGP Team (Desmosedici GP14.2) 47m 58.102s
7. Danilo Petrucci ITA Octo Pramac Yakhnich (Desmosedici GP15) 48m 7.704s
8. Andrea Iannone ITA Ducati Team (Desmosedici GP) 48m 8.852s
9. Maverick Viñales ESP Team Suzuki Ecstar (GSX-RR) 48m 8.871s
10. Tito Rabat ESP Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS (RC213V)* 48m 21.421s
11. Yonny Hernandez COL Aspar MotoGP Team (Desmosedici GP14.2) 48m 24.201s
12. Dani Pedrosa ESP Repsol Honda Team (RC213V) 48m 25.387s
13. Pol Espargaro ESP Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (YZR-M1) 48m 27.492s
14. Stefan Bradl GER Factory Aprilia Gresini (RS-GP) 48m 29.977s
15. Scott Redding GBR Octo Pramac Yakhnich (Desmosedici GP15) 48m 46.491s
16. Alvaro Bautista ESP Factory Aprilia Gresini (RS-GP) 49m 3.131s
17. Jorge Lorenzo ESP Movistar Yamaha MotoGP (YZR-M1) +1 lap
Andrea Dovizioso ITA Ducati Team (Desmosedici GP) DNF
Bradley Smith GBR Monster Yamaha Tech 3 (YZR-M1) DNF
Aleix Espargaro ESP Team Suzuki Ecstar (GSX-RR) DNF
Add comment