Lorenzo Crushes Rivals With Brno Brilliance

Aug 16, 2015
4 min read

Jorge Lorenzo put in a display of utter superiority in Brno to take a vital win in the championship fight and draw equal with Valentino Rossi at the top of the standings.

Lorenzo lined up on the grid with the medium tyres on both the front and rear of his bike, a combination he'd been running with in practice all weekend. This turned out to be an inspired choice as he romped away from the rest after nailing the start. The Yamaha rider had Marc Marquez with him for the opening half of the race, but by lap thirteen Lorenzo had pulled the pin and didn't look back. His advantage in the end was 4.4-seconds.

This result sees Lorenzo go top in the standings by virtue of his five race wins, but sits on 211 points with team-mate Rossi.

Rossi had two things he needed to improve his position in the standings: a good qualifying and a race win. He achieved the former with a front row start in 3rd. But it was the start that let him down. The Italian dropped behind Bradley Smith and Andrea Dovizioso at turn one, and it took him till the end of the second lap to reclaim his 3rd spot. The damage was done by now as the gap to the leading duo had opened up to 2.1-seconds. It seems Rossi also went the wrong way with tyres. He chose the hard option for his M1, but the cooler track temperatures meant that the hard rear yielded less grip.

Marc Marquez also ran with an alternate tyre choice. The Repsol Honda rider fitted the medium front and hard rear to his RC213V, but couldn't make any dent into Lorenzo and settled for 2nd. This result has seen the reigning champion close the gap in the standings to 52 points which will give him just that little bit more impetus in the final seven races.

Team-mate Dani Pedrosa's weekend started terribly after oil from his front forks leaked onto his tyres and caused him to high-side coming out of the penultimate corner in FP2. Badly damaging his foot, the Spaniard qualified down in 9th and had himself a difficult afternoon in prospect. However, Pedrosa had a fantastic ride to finish a heroic 5th after spending the final half of the race fighting the Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso. The Honda rider made several attempts at a move in the closing stages, but the grunt of the GP15 outmatched anything the RC213V could throw at the track. Pedrosa managed to slip up the inside of the Italian at turn eight and just held on through the final sequence of bends.

Ducati had a much more pleasant afternoon, despite finishing quite distant from the podium. Andrea Iannone, who was running the older specification GP15 and not the one with the new engine and fairing Dovizioso had, was able to clear away from his team-mate and comfortably finish 4th. With Desmo Dovi 6th, the team seem to be heading back in the right direction.

Bradley Smith was once again top Satellite rider after a strong race in 7th. He was unable to match the pace of the front runners but at such a power dependant circuit, this result will not be massively disappointing to him. Pol Espargaro, in his 150th GP appearence, crossed the line behind him, whilst Aleix Espargaro and Danilo Petrucci completed the top ten.

Espargaro's Suzuki counterpart, Maverick Vinales, was enjoying a decent return to form in 9th when he crashed at turn eleven – the front-end folding out form underneath the Spaniard. A lap prior Cal Crutchlow succumbed to the same fate, an all too familiar story for Honda riders in 2015. They joined Eugene Laverty and Alex De Angelis on the sidelines.

Aprilia had their best result of the season after both Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl crossed the line 13th and 14th to score the team's first double points finish of 2015. Loris Baz took the final point in15th on Forward Racing's return to Grand Prix action.

2015 Czech Grand Prix – Result

1st Jorge Lorenzo, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP

2nd Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

3rd Valentino Rossi, Movistar Yamaha MotoGP

4th Andrea Iannone, Ducati Team

5th Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda Team

6th Andrea Dovizioso, Ducati Team

7th Bradley Smith, Monster Yamaha Tech 3

8th Pol Espargaro, Monster Yamaha Tech 3

9th Aleix Espargaro, Team Suzuki Ecstar

10th Danilo Petrucci, Octo Pramac Racing Ducati

11th Yonny Hernandez, Octo Pramac Racing Ducati