by M.C. – photo: @marcmarquez93 | Undergoing an unsettling experience can either serve as a wake-up call that makes you stronger in the end, or otherwise give way to self-doubt and the arousal of insecurities. Luckily for Marc Marquez, it seems that the first applies in his case. He seems to have come out stronger of his scare in Argentina, where he was involved in Valentino Rossi’s fall and subsequently heavily criticised for his aggressive takeover manoeuvre. One just has to look at what happened this past weekend in French MotoGP where the Spanish pilot from Repsol Honda Team, bagged his third consecutive triumph of the season.

After the Argentinian GP, Marquez hasn’t stopped counting victories: he was the undisputed leader at the American GP in Austin, one of his favourite circuits; he again single-handedly dominated in Jerez at the Spanish GP, and has now culminated it all by winning the French GP, a prize which he hadn’t been able to get hold of since 2014. If he carries on like this, his leadership of the world championships would seem increasingly unshakeable.

The number 93 took the risky choice of running with hard tyres which made him slower at the beginning, but as laps went by the gamble started to pay off. At the start of the race he did well holding off some of his rivals and performing some very clean and calculated overtakings; later on luck was on his side when his main title rival Andrea Dovizioso fell for the second race in a row and then Johann Zarco and his Yamaha also went down just when the Frenchman was leading the race.

The excellent performances of Petrucci and Rossi

Other memorable performances were those of Danilo Petrucci, who finished second on board his unofficial Ducati, and Valentino Rossi whose performance should be enough to make Yamaha proud. When it came to celebrating however things remained ice cold between the mega champions Marquez and Rossi. Not even the fine champagne was able to smooth things out between the two pilots, who hardly looked at each other. Only time will tell if they can get some sort of camaraderie back.

Not so lucky was local hero Zarco, whose overall good performance was cut short when he fell right at the home stretch, despite having started in pole position. Jorge Lorenzo also disappointed after a great first half, when he dominated at times, only to fall back to sixth position during the latest part of the race. The Spaniard of Ducati is not going through one of his best moments and is faltering under the pressure from both rivals and team-mate (Dovizioso), of this possibly being his last season on board the official Italian bike.