MARK Marquez has won the Australian MotoGP at Phillip Island in what is being hailed as the best race in a decade.
A four-way battle between Marquez (HRC), Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha), Andrea Iannone (Ducati) and Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) for the entire race – with Dani Pedrosa mixing it up early – was an enthralling battle.
At the start of the last lap Lorenzo had a half-second lead which was pegged back by the flying Spanish defending champion in what would be the fastest lap of the race.
Innone was on the podium too, the Italian Ducati rider fighting incredibly hard and happy to swap paint with the other front runners right through the race, doing almost anythign it took to take the victory. Incredibly, Innanone was riding a damaged bike when he collided with a seagull at MG Corner early in the race.
“An amazing race, an amazing fight, my first race with a fight with the top riders,” said Andrea Innone.
In a race littered with incredible overtaking moves, Iannone mde the best one, diving up the inside of both Marquez and Rossi into MG.
Lorenzo was disappointed to have finished secon dbut was pleased to have taken points back from Rossi’s championship .
“During the race I felt well, but may overtakes early in the race. Last two laps I say ‘push’. This victory is really nice for us.”
The series heads to Malaysia very much still alive, Rossi leading the charge by 11 points from Lornezo.
Jack Miller finished 15th, the first open-class machine.
Anthony West returned to the MotoGP class in a guest ride. He finished last. Damian Cudlin did not finish.
WIN FOR OLIVEIRA AT PHILLIP ISLAND; MOVES TO 2ND IN MOTO3 CHAMPIONSHIP
Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Miguel Oliveira took a dramatic victory at Round 16 of the MotoGP Moto3 World Championship at Australia’s Phillip Island Circuit on Sunday and moves up to second place on the leader board with two rounds to go.
Efren Vazquez was second and Oliveira’s teammate Brad Binder took the podium third in a race that saw six of the top eight riders on the KTM RC 250 GP. Following Jorge Navarro in fourth place was a steam train of KTM riders led by Jakub Kornfeil, who was followed by Roman Fenati, Philipp Oettl and Isaac Vinales who finished in positions 5-8.
Karel Hanika, the third of the trio of Red Bull KTM Ajo riders went off the track and out of the lead group in lap 12 but made a good recovery to finish just inside the points at fourteenth.
Oliveira, who started second on the grid, has now won two races and finished twice in the last four rounds. He was the lead rider for much of the sweeping 23-lap race. Once again he proved to be a master tactician, riding in the front group for almost the entire race that finally came down to a group of five riders all within one second of each other going into the closing laps. Oliveira then carefully positioned himself to take full advantage of the slipstream opportunities. He made a short break in the penultimate lap but was still challenged by the hard charging contenders. He then managed to escape and crossed the line just 00.132 seconds ahead of Vazquez.
Gardner top 10 at the Island
Remy Gardner clinched the 10th position in his home Grand Prix after a thrilling race full of incidents. The Australian has done a great job in front of his local crowd and obtained the first points of the season so far.
Gardner started from place 26 but after two laps he was already 20th and recovered 10 more places in the first half of the race. With eight laps to go he was 8th and fighting in a big group after a crash in the front of the race that placed the Australian group a little far from de leaders, but he continued fighting till the end to round a great weekend at home with a great result. At the end of the race, the gap between Remy and the winner was just 7.5 seconds.
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