Marquez delights home fans again with an exciting victory at Aragon after a thrilling battle with Dovizioso. The pilot form Cervera stretches his lead to 72 points and can almost touch the trophy with his own hands.

The fall of Jorge Lorenzo on the first lap (and for the second race in a row) caused a slight loss of pace to all the riders who were running on the outside at that moment and was decisive in the development of events.

How the race unfolded

Lorenzo started from pole followed by Dovizioso and Marquez only to be sent flying into the air moments later after opening too much on the first corner. Luckily, he fell off the track avoiding being hit by other drivers and suffering only from a dislocated toe.

Dovizioso speeded form the incident at the lead followed by Marquez, while the Suzukis of Andrea Ianone and Alex Rins started a fight for the third place that would last until the end. In fifth and sixth place respectively Pedrosa and Espargaró maintained their own battle, the latter having performed an admirable comeback from starting position 13th.

It wasn’t until the middle of the race, however, that Dovi and Marc would finally take off from the rest. At 11 laps from the end, Dovizioso sped up and managed to open 0.7 seconds’ distance with the Spaniard, but Marquez was thriving in the fight and shortly after he managed to overtake the Italian by cutting through the inside of turn 12. An indefatigable Dovizioso took the lead shortly after and in the struggle, Iannone also managed to catch up with both.

With the track reaching temperatures of up to 44 degrees, the fight for the title could have easily become a matter of preserving tyres and Marc’s risky decision to switch to a soft back tyre at the last minute could have backfired… but it didn’t: 

“Today, I took a risk, a gamble,” Marquez said. “I put the soft rear tyre because during the weekend every time I put the hard I felt okay, but I didn’t feel good. “Sometimes I put the hard to be safe, but today I said, ‘okay, I’ll take a risk’. 

After the intense battle, in which leaders exchanged positions in several occasions, Marquez performed the decisive pass with three laps to go. The Spaniard further managed to increase his distance up to the finish line. Iannone took third place, followed closely by his teammate. Pedrosa came in fifth; his best result of the season. 

With a 72 point advantage over number two, Dovizioso, and with only five races to go, it is nearly impossible for anyone to snatch the title away from the Spaniard at this point.

By T.C. | Photo: El Independiente