MotoGP 2020: Alex Rins wins Aragon MotoGP

Suzuki’s GSX-RR may be down on top speed at Aragon but the bike is the current master of Michelin’s MotoGP tyres. Plus Fabio Quartararo’s pressure disaster and Alex Marquez’s insight into the mysteries of Honda’s RC213V.

Suzuki's Rins became the eighth winner in this season's ten races as the vacuum created by the early season injury to reigning champion Marc Marquez has created a volatile and unpredictable title race. This is the third victory for the 24-year-old Rins who won twice last year but was injured at the beginning of this season.

The other Suzuki factory rider Mir takes over the championship lead even though he has not won a MotoGP race. He has 121 points in the championship ahead of Quartararo (115), Spaniard Maverick Vinales (109), and Italian Andrea Dovizioso (106).

Frenchman Quartararo, who started from pole, struggled and finished down in 18th place. One of the riders attempting to fill the void left by Marquez is his younger brother and Honda teammate Alex Marquez who, after a slow start to his rookie season, has finished second in two straight races. Six-time champion Marc Marquez was overjoyed.

Meanwhile, seven-time MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi's quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19 means he will also have to miss next weekend's Grand Prix of Teruel at the same Aragon circuit.

MotoGP 2020: Brad Binder wins Czech Republic Grand Prix

Brad Binder dominated the Czech Republic Grand Prix at claim a maiden win for him and KTM in MotoGP, while points leaders Fabio Quartararo, Maverick Vinales, and Andrea Dovizioso struggled.

Binder, the 2016 Moto3 champion, was promoted to the factory KTM team for 2020 after Johann Zarco's exit from the squad and eased to the chequered flag for a historic victory in just his third race in the premier class. Poleman Zarco (Avintia Ducati) botched his launch off the line at the start and dropped to sixth, while Franco Morbidelli put his Petronas SRT Yamaha into the lead having been tipped by many pre-races as the favorite for victory.

Morbidelli began to drop pace in the latter stages but held on to claim a maiden MotoGP podium in second. Zarco held third after expertly taking the long lap penalty, keeping the fading Quartararo at bay, but came under massive attack from the charging Suzuki of Alex Rins he began to struggle with rear grip issues.

 

Rins couldn't find a way through, as Zarco pinched his first podium since Malaysia 2018 and the first for Avintia. Rins' fourth came as he continues to recover from a fractured arm suffered at Jerez last month, with Valentino Rossi rising to fifth from 10th as the top factory Yamaha runner.

 

Miguel Oliveira took his best MotoGP result in sixth on the Tech3 KTM, heading Quartararo, Takaaki Nakagami (LCR), Pramac's Jack Miller, and Aprilia's Espargaro. In a woeful day for the factory Ducati team, Dovizioso was 15s from the win in 11th ahead of Danilo Petrucci, while Maverick Vinales plummeted to a mystifying 14th on the second factory Yamaha.

 

Alex Marquez took the last point on the works Honda. Vinales' miserable afternoon means Quartararo extends his championship lead to 17 points over his Yamaha stablemate, with Morbidelli now third after ending Sunday's race as top Yamaha runner.

British MotoGP 2019: Alex Rins wins

Alex Rins snatched a dramatic victory on the line on his Suzuki to win the British Grand Prix ahead of MotoGP world champion Marc Marquez. Marquez appeared to have held off the younger Spaniard, only for Rins to produce a spectacular piece of riding for his second win of the season. But Marquez still extended his lead in the Championship to 78 points after second-placed Andrea Dovizioso of Italy suffered a bad crash on the first lap.

Britain's Cal Crutchlow was sixth. Marquez led virtually all the way round and was on course for his seventh win of the season, but he could not shrug off Rins. It looked like the 23-year-old from Barcelona was going to finish agonisingly close until he zoomed past Marquez with the last manoeuvre of the race. Another Spaniard, Maverick Vinales, was third, with MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi a place further back.

It was another disappointment for Marquez, who had begun on pole position, as the same thing happened to him last time out in Austria. But the Honda rider is still 78 points clear of nearest challenger Dovizioso in the riders' standings with only seven races remaining and on course for his sixth world title. Rins climbs to third following his victory, while Crutchlow remains ninth overall after picking up 10 points for finishing sixth.

The Championship fight took a huge turn though when Albert Arenas wiped out Aron Canet, who is second in the standings, in the early stages, allowing Lorenzo Dalla Porta, who was third, to move 14 points clear with a seventh podium of the season.

Czech MotoGP 2019: Marc Marquez wins

The amazing Marquez show continued at Brno, where Repsol Honda star Marc claimed a sixth win in ten races. With just one non-finish with a crash in Texas, Marquez has not finished lower than second so far – and today’s start to finish win by an eventual 2.452 seconds over Andrea Dovizioso extended his points lead over the Italian to a comfortable cushion of 63 points.

Weather struck the track on Saturday, leaving all riders short of set-up time and giving Marquez the chance to claim a blistering pole by some 2.5 seconds, with a high-risk run on slick tyres on a damp track. Today, confounding dry-weather forecasts, more showers hit the sweeping 5.403-km Brno circuit during the lunch break, forcing the start of the premier-class race to be delayed by 40 minutes to allow the patchily wet track to dry, and with race distance cut by a lap from 21 to 20.

 

Marquez led from the first corner to the last, closely pursued the first half by Dovizioso, Alex Rins (Ecstar Suzuki) and second qualifier Jack Miller (Pramac Ducati). After that, it was time to push. Marquez survived a scare at the bottom corner but was soon drawing away remorselessly. Dovizioso was safe in second; but Rins was struggling with wheelspin at the end, giving the determined Miller the chance for a late attack, to claim his second podium of the season.

Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) came through from 11th on the grid for fifth. His last victim had been Valentino Rossi (Monster Yamaha), who was three seconds ahead of star rookie Fabio Quartararo (Petronas Yamaha). Danilo Petrucci (Pramac Ducati) was ninth; Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda) still close in tenth, managing to fend off a charging Maverick Vinales (Monster Yamaha), who had finished the first lap 15th after a dismal start from the third row.

Johann Zarco (Red Bull KTM), who had given the Austrian marque its first front row in wet practice dropped to a distant 14th in the dry race. Marquez now has 210 points – an average of 21 out of a possible maximum of 25; then Dovizioso 147, Petrucci 129, Rins 114 and Vinales 91.

Italian MotoGP 2019: Danilo Petrucci takes maiden victory

Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci secured his maiden MotoGP victory on home soil at Mugello after edging out Marc Marquez at the conclusion of a thrilling Italian Grand Prix. Petrucci held on in a tense showdown, beating Honda rider Marquez by only 0.043 seconds on the drag to the finish line, with Andrea Dovizioso making it two Ducati’s on the podium in third.

It marked the first win on his 125th start in the premier class for 28-year-old Petrucci, who replaced Jorge Lorenzo at the factory Ducati team for 2019. Petrucci led much of the second half of the race after he hit the front of the field at the start of the 11th lap of 23, as a pack of five riders broke clear of the rest following a chaotic first half.

Dovizioso, Marquez, Alex Rins and Jack Miller all followed in Petrucci's wake, but the Pramac rider crashed out of fifth spot. Petrucci briefly ceded the lead to team-mate Dovizioso at San Donato at the start of lap 20, but the less experienced Ducati rider was able to wrestle back the advantage later that lap at Scarperia. Dovizioso was able to draft back ahead to lead the final lap, but found himself squeezed by Marquez - who benefitted from a double tow on the outside and Petrucci on the inside.

In the morning, Petrucci rode a 1min 46.056sec lap, surpassing the previous record achieved by seven-time MotoGP champion Rossi last year. Dovizioso established a new outright speed record in MotoGP, clocking 356.7km/h in the third practice, to overtake the mark of 356.5 km/h also achieved at Mugello last year.

US MotoGP 2019: Alex Rins claims Maiden Victory

Alex Rins secured Suzuki’s first MotoGP win since the 2016 British GP after edging out Valentino Rossi to an extraordinary win at the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas, which saw the king of COTA Marc Marquez crash out of the lead.

As the lights went out it was Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda Castrol) who got the better launch out of the front three on the grid, with Valentino Rossi (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) also getting off the line well as the duo pulled alongside Marquez up the hill, but it was the pole man who was bravest on the brakes to grab the holeshot. Rossi and Crutchlow slotted into second and third as the duo tried to keep tabs on the leader, with Andrea Dovizioso (Mission Winnow Ducati) making a stellar start from P13 to move up to P6 on the opening lap.

Marquez didn’t get away from the clutches of Rossi straight away in an opening couple of laps, but the reigning World Champion then started to pull the pin and by lap five, the gap was 1.4 seconds. It was quickly becoming a battle for second and in it was Rossi and Crutchlow, with Jack Miller (Pramac Racing) and Rins right in the hunt.

10th went the way of Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda Idemitsu), the leading Honda in Austin, with Maverick Vinales (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) 11th. Both he and compatriot Joan Mir (Team Suzuki Ecstar) were handed ride through penalties after jump starts, with Vinales taking the long lap penalty at least once before coming through pit lane. Andrea Iannone (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini), Johann Zarco (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing), Miguel Oliveira (Red Bull KTM Tech 3) and Reale Avintia Racing’s Tito Rabat completed the points.

Argentina MotoGP 2018: Cal Crutchlow wins lead

Cal Crutchlow claimed victory in the Grand Prix of Argentina, a race that will go down in MotoGP history as one of the most bizarre and dramatic of all time. This makes him the first British rider to get to the head of the MotoGP championship standings since Barry Sheene in 1979. Finishing in second place behind the LCR Honda rider was Monster Yamaha Tech 3's Johann Zarco, while Alex Rins took third place for Ecstar Suzuki.

The start of the race was delayed because of safety conditions. Jack Miller lined up on the grid on slick tyres, while the rest of the grid was on wet weather tyres. The rest of the grid then decided to go into the pits and change tyres, because the circuit was drying up. This meant that Miller was at the head of the grid, having qualified on pole, while the rest of the riders started nine rows behind him, but in qualifying order.

There was further drama even before the race started, as Marc Marquez stalled his motorcycle on the grid, and then rode the wrong way down the track to resume his starting position on the grid. It would earn him a ride-through penalty, and would trigger a series of strange; some would say dangerous moves from the Spanish rider who seemed to be in a hurry to catch up. It would begin with a clash with Aleix Espargaro that would result in a one-place penalty for Marquez.

Crutchlow now heads the MotoGP standings with 38 points, while Andrea Dovizioso is second with 35 points, and Johann Zarco, with 28 points is third. LCR Honda moves to the head of the constructor's standings with 41 points, while Monster Yamaha Tech 3 is second with 37 points and Movistar Yamaha ties with them with 37 points too.