Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez took his third MotoGP win from as many races in Argentina this afternoon, shadowing Jorge Lorenzo until there were nine laps left before passing his compatriot and pulling away with relative ease.
After making a mess of the start and getting mired in the early laps which wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Moto3 race, Marquez moved his way through, past team-mate Dani Pedrosa and set-off after Lorenzo, who had pulled a gap of one second.
It took Marquez a handful of laps to catch the Movistar Yamaha man but on lap nine, his pitboard showed that Pedrosa was catching the pair, so he passed Lorenzo and disappeared into the distance.
“I am happy with how the weekend went in general and I’d like to thank all my team! I think it was a nice race for the fans, with plenty of passes and I wasn't expecting it to be like that. As the race went on and I saw what the gap was to Jorge Lorenzo and I tried to catch up with him quickly and spend a few laps on his tail," said Marquez.
"When I saw that Dani was getting closer, I tried to overtake in order to maintain more of a gap. I took 25 more points today which are very important and I've put together three wins in a row, but we are aware that the season is very long and we are now heading to Jerez where Dani and Jorge are very fast. We will need to be up there with them, fighting for the win!”
Pedrosa was busy rattling off personal fastest laps and was more than half a second quicker than Lorenzo, eventually passing him on the brakes into the last corner with only one lap left on the board. Lorenzo admitted in parc ferme that he didn’t have the pace to even try and stay with the little Repsol Honda man.
Valentino Rossi found himself in a war during the opening laps, scrapping with Marquez and Pedrosa early on and then being pushed wide by Stefan Bradl, and he had to come back from sixth and behind Andrea Dovizioso.
He made short work of the Ducati man and then re-passed Bradl before taking off after Pedrosa, matching the Spaniard’s laptimes and putting in his personal best with eight to go. It was not enough, however, and he finished in fourth place, three seconds behind the HRC man.
Bradl settled for a lonely fifth place, just ahead of Ducati’s Andrea Iannone who held third place early doors. Bradley Smith beat his team-mate Pol Espargaro for seventh while Dovizioso slipped back to ninth.
Hiro Aoyama mugged Aspar team-mate Nicky Hayden for tenth place, crossing the line 0.073s in front of the American while Yonny Hernandez had a great ride for 12th place.
Scott Redding ended in 14th place, one behind Karel Abraham while Aleix Espargaro picked himself up from an early tumble to round out the top 15. Michael Laverty ended in 18th place.
