Argentina delivered a bizarre race
befitting an equally bemusing lead up, Marc Marquez taking his first MotoGP win
of 2016 simply by staying out of trouble. The Honda rider seized the lead early
and held off a feisty Valentino Rossi ahead of compulsory pit stops at the
halfway point of the shortened 20 lap race, both measures due to tyre issues
suffered by Michelin during practice.
Marquez was peerless after the
stops, Rossi unable to match his early pace and allowing his chief rival to
race to a comfortable 7.6 second victory. There should have been a pair of
Ducatis between them but, in a total disaster for the Italian team, Andrea
Lannone took out teammate Andrea Dovizioso at the final corner as he tried to
nab second place. The pair went tumbling into the gravel, allowing Rossi
through to second and a surprised Dani Pedrosa into third.
Jorge Lorenzo, the Yamaha Man got
the holeshot off the start but immediately began to slip down the order as he
struggled with Michelin emergency spec rear tyre. His day ended early with a
crash on the sixth lap. A promising race for Jack Miller also ended with his
machine tumbling through the gravel. The Australian made a lighting start to
pass the fading Lorenzo for sixth on the third lap, only to endure his fourth
crash of the weekend on the next tour.
The upshot of it all is that Marquez
now leads the championship on a machine that locked in all sorts of trouble in
pre-season testing, with Rossi eight points in arrears, Pedrosa 14 points back
and Jorge Lorenzo 16 behind. The next race is the Grand Prix of the Americas in
Austin in one week’s time.
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