2015 German MotoGP: Marquez rules the Ring

Marc Marquez arrived at Sachsenring with vengeance on his mind as he felt that Valentino Rossi cheated in the last corner at Assen and he was the rightful winner at the Dutch GP. Well, the race officials didn’t think so and termed it as a racing incident to his despair. The Spanish rider couldn’t have asked for a better track other than Sachsenring to take revenge as Honda have been traditionally strong at the German track and Marquez himself had won every race at the Ring since 2009. The reigning champion made a perfect start to the weekend by qualifying on pole position while his Repsol Honda team-mate started from second position and Jorge Lorenzo in third place. Valentino Rossi had a disappointing outing after the high of Assen as he started the race from sixth position on the grid behind Andrea Iannone and Yonny Hernandez (his best qualifying performance in MotoGP). 

As the lights went off, it was Marquez and Pedrosa who seemed to enter the first corner ahead of their rivals. But in what can be labelled as the most spectacular start of the 2015 season, Lorenzo passed both the Repsol Honda riders from the outside to grab the race lead. Rossi also made a good start that saw him pass Hernandez for fifth place. Iannone made a mistake in the opening lap that allowed the championship leader to grab fourth position from him. Despite grabbing the race lead, Lorenzo wasn’t able to break free from Marquez who was in hot pursuit and was followed by his Honda team-mate Pedrosa. This battle for race lead played into the hands of Rossi as he was soon on the tail of Pedrosa after setting the fastest lap record for Sachsenring. The reigning MotoGP champion was putting a tremendous amount of pressure on Lorenzo, and it worked, as the Yamaha rider buckled and Marquez grabbed the race lead with 25 laps remaining.

In the following lap, The Doctor made his move stick on Pedrosa to be in podium reckoning. Marquez was in his element as he started posting blisteringly fast lap times to etch a lead of over 1.5 seconds on Lorenzo. Soon, Rossi was on the rear tyre of Lorenzo and made a pass but the Spanish rider responded swiftly to safeguard his position. But Rossi attacked again and was able to clinch second position from his Yamaha team-mate who seemed to struggle. By the time the Italian rider was up in second position, Marquez had extended his race lead to almost two seconds. Lorenzo was soon swallowed by Pedrosa for third position as he continued to struggle with the Yamaha M1. With 14 laps remaining in the race, Pedrosa passed Rossi to climb up to second place.

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In the meantime Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso crashed out from the race which was his third crash in the last four races. Despite the Italian riders best efforts he wasn’t able to pass Pedrosa and the pecking order didn’t change for the following laps. With three laps remaining in the race, Marquez had expanded his race lead to over four seconds while Pedrosa finally managed to break free and scrape out a over one second lead on Rossi. Marquez comfortably crossed the finish line and was followed by Pedrosa and Rossi respectively. Lorenzo came home a distant fourth place which means Rossi now leads the championship by 13 points as MotoGP heads for a mid-season break and a month of hiatus.