Reigning MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez cut through a chaotic first lap to win today’s Sachsenring race which saw all the top men bar Stefan Bradl start from pitlane after a rain shower just minutes before lights out threw teams into tyre choice confusion for the second weekend running.
In a repeat of the Assen raceday, a cloudburst saw race direction call a wet race but the track dried save for a big wet patch at the bottom of the waterfall. At the end of the warm-up lap, 14 riders but not LCR’s Bradl dived to change to dry bikes and then queued up Grand National style but had to watch as the German, who had opted for slicks in the first place, disappeared into the distance.
Marquez, Aleix Espargaro, Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi led the charge out of pitlane and set off after Bradl, who had a 7.7s advantage at the end of lap one with Michael Laverty in second place. Marquez sliced his way through to sixth by the end of lap one, bringing Repsol Honda team-mate Pedrosa with him.
The young Spaniard was fourth at the end of lap two, cutting the gap to 3.4s as Bradley Smith suffered his fifth crash of the weekend but he re-mounted in dead last. Pedrosa was still on his team-mate’s tail but Rossi, and Jorge Lorenzo on the second Movistar Yamaha, were making harder work of the traffic.
Marquez was under a second behind Bradl with 25 laps to go and by the time the pair got to turn 13, Marquez was under the German and away with Rossi cutting his way up to fourth but Lorenzo coming on strong and taking only another couple of laps to pass his older team-mate.
Bradl then scythed his way backwards and was picked off by Rossi, Lorenzo and leading Ducati Andrea Iannone in quick succession as Marquez and Pedrosa pulled an eight-second gap over Lorenzo in third place.
Pedrosa looked like he had the measure of Marquez until with 10 laps to go, Marquez wound up the pace and pulled his gap to a second and then extended it to 1.8s before crossing the line with a 1.4s gap and ten seconds over Lorenzo, who took the final podium spot.
Rossi finised almost 20 seconds behind the leader but with a four-second gap over Iannone, who has done his aspirations of a seat in the factory Ducati team for 2015 the world of good this weekend.
Aleix Espargaro finished in sixth, just ahead of brother Pol who had to get past both the factory Ducatis to take seventh. Andrea Dovizioso got the better of Cal Crutchlow in that particular dice and ended in eighth while Alvaro also got past the British rider with only a handful of laps left.
Scott Redding was the top production Honda rider, finishing only three seconds behind Crutchlow in 11th place while Smith eventually struggled back to 19th and will go into the summer break with a lot on his mind.
After being at the sharp end at the start of the race, PBM Aprilia’s Laverty crashed out with 12 laps to go, falling victim to a bump and losing the front in the first sector.
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