Lorenzo still in it after 2013 Japanese MotoGP win

Points given away by rookie Marc Márquez in Australia meant that the 2013 FIM MotoGP World Championship was still alive for defending title holder Jorge Lorenzo as the competitors arrived in Japan for the penultimate round of the season.

The mandatory pit stop race at Phillip Island in Australia had seen a major error as Repsol Honda’s Márquez had changed bikes one lap after he was permitted, with the 20-year-old subsequently disqualified. By the time they reached Motegi, for the Japanese Grand Prix, it seemed that this has been down to a joint decision involving the Spaniard and members of his team; a choice that was still difficult to comprehend. It meant that Yamaha’s Australian race winner, Lorenzo, closed to within only 18 points of the championship leader.

Márquez still held the advantage, and the Honda works rider was one of ten men from the 2013 MotoGP field to have previously won championship events at the Motegi circuit. Lorenzo was included in this list, but the most successful of them all was Repsol Honda’s more established rider, Dani Pedrosa, with four victories under his belt. Motegi is a circuit that requires heavy braking in a few different places, and on this occasion many of the riders would therefore compete with larger brakes - but lightweight Pedrosa was one of the exceptions.

Significant news in the MotoGP world in the run up to this race concerned the fate of 28-year-old Pramac Ducati team leader Ben Spies. The former Yamaha works rider, and winner of the 2011 MotoGP race in Assen, had missed out on most of the current season with injury problems. Unable to successfully get back to race fitness, the former Superbike champion had now decided to retire from racing, joining Casey Stoner as another man to leave the sport prematurely.

For those in action at Motegi, a more pressing concern was the weather, with practice affected by rain and qualifying taking place in the wet. Indeed, the only opportunity to run in dry conditions would come with the 50-minute session on the morning of the race, and therefore some riders’ grid positions were not quite ‘as usual’. One man to benefit was Ducati factory rider Nicky Hayden, who would start from third position, for his first front-row grid slot since early 2012. He was joined at the front by the two championship rivals, with Lorenzo on pole position and Márquez second.

Mostly, the usual pace setters, on MotoGP prototype machinery, were near the front; however, Tech 3 Yamaha team leader Cal Crutchlow was worse off than usual in P11. Pedrosa was fourth, followed by Lorenzo’s team-mate, Valentino Rossi; then it was Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati), Álvaro Bautistá (Gresini Honda) and Stefan Bradl (LCR Honda). Aleix Espargaró was once again the top CRT man, in ninth ahead of Yonny Hernández (Pramac Ducati) and Crutchlow.

Cal’s team-mate Bradley Smith was in P13, separated from his countryman by 32-year-old Yamaha man Katsuyuki Nakasuga. The local wildcard rider had been entered for seven previous Grands Prix, earning second place in the MotoGP race at Valencia in 2012. Row five was completed by Colin Edwards and Andrea Iannone, and then it was Danilo Petrucci, Randy de Puniet, Hiroshi Aoyama, Michael Laverty, Luca Scassa, Claudio Corti, Héctor Barberá, Damian Cudlin, Bryan Staring and Lukáš Pešek.

For the race the conditions were dry and bright, but one of the top men was perhaps feeling a little bit second-hand, as Márquez had suffered a crash in the warm-up. However, the usual trio of Spanish front-runners got off to a good start, with the four main Japanese factory riders leading away: Lorenzo led Rossi, Márquez and Pedrosa. Espargaró was up to an impressive fifth place initially, until passed by Bradl, just the first of the prototype pilots to relegate his ART, with Smith seventh, in front of Dovizioso, Crutchlow, Bautistá, Hayden and Nakasuga. Iannone had an early off-track excursion.

Lorenzo knew what he was about as he started off with the hottest pace, beginning to extend his lead. He might have benefited from support from team-mate Rossi against the Honda duo, but Valentino was having a bit of trouble at the end of the back straight, with downhill braking for the right-handed 90° Corner. When the Italian ran wide there it was enough for both Márquez and Pedrosa to overtake. Rossi looked like he might be having trouble with his brakes, and the second time he had an issue at the same corner it saw him go off track and rejoin down in eleventh place.

Even before that, fifth man Bradl had begun to drop out of range from the leaders, but with a similar advantage over the next group. But after Rossi’s excursion, Márquez improved on Lorenzo’s fastest lap and was soon catching the leading Yamaha, followed by Pedrosa, who would go faster still. Behind these three, the man on the move was Bautistá, who passed Crutchlow then Smith and was soon homing in on Bradl. Ninth man Dovizioso, and the rest, had dropped some distance behind the Honda and Yamaha satellite riders.

The gaps between the three leaders closed up, with Lorenzo heading Márquez and Pedrosa, and Marc looking for a way to attack the leader. With Dani now starting to drop back a touch, the 20-year-old came closest to getting through with a move that didn’t quite work out at 90° Corner. With eight laps to go, Lorenzo was under 0.5s ahead of Márquez, with Pedrosa just over one second behind the Yamaha man. Jorge set a new fastest lap at this stage, and with six to go the gaps were now extending. In the end, Lorenzo was 3.2s clear at the flag, the order of the three men unchanged.

Bautistá had won the contest for fourth, passing Bradl on the inside for the right-handed turn one and then pulling clear of the German. Rossi could not hope to catch the leaders again, but his recovery ride saw him make good progress. Passing Nakasuga, Hayden, Dovizioso and Smith, the Italian was up to sixth when he overtook Crutchlow on the inside at turn one, but he remained behind Bradl at the finish. Crutchlow had earlier passed team-mate Smith at the left-right S-Curve, when Bradley went a bit wide for the first part, so that Cal took P7, from Smith, with Hayden besting Dovizioso and Nakasuga eleventh.

Espargaró had led the CRT class ahead of Edwards and de Puniet, but the Spaniard had suffered a fall on the way down to 90° Corner, which made him the third non-finisher following the early exits of Pešek and Scassa; therefore Edwards took P12, from de Puniet. From last place, Iannone had worked his way back through the CRT pack to pass team-mate Hernández for P14, both of them defeating Barberá. Then it was Aoyama and Petrucci, with Laverty having to push his ART home, but still heading Corti - recovering from a crash - plus Cudlin and Staring. In the light of Laverty’s experience, it was perhaps less surprising that Rossi suffered fuel issues after crossing the line, with Dovizioso possibly also affected late on.

Jorge Lorenzo’s victory was his 30th in the MotoGP class, the 80th for Yamaha in the modern four-stroke era, and also the 200th premier class success for that manufacturer. More importantly to the rider, his deficit in the championship chase was reduced by five points and now stands at 13. With one race remaining, Marc Márquez needs a top four result in Valencia to be crowned, and so far he has been on the podium for every race he has finished. With these two almost inevitably joined by Dani Pedrosa, this race saw the number of MotoGP podium results for Spanish riders this season rise to forty, which looks to be an unchallenged figure for any nation. Would you bet against the same in the final round?

Standings after seventeen races: Márquez 318; Lorenzo 305; Pedrosa 280; Rossi 224; Crutchlow 188; Bautistá 160; Bradl 146; Dovizioso 133; Hayden 118; Smith 107 ·· CRT leader: Espargaró.
Honda and Yamaha 356; Ducati 147; ART 94; FTR-Kawasaki 61; Ioda Suter-BMW 24; PBM-ART 3; FTR-Honda 2.