San Marino GP: Lorenzo takes victory as Marquez extends lead

Lorenzo celebrates on the Podium

The 2013 San Marino MotoGP race saw two time champion Jorge Lorenzo take his 5th victory this season. The Yamaha rider took the lead on the opening lap from Honda’s Marc Marquez and then took a commanding victory after 28 laps. This was Lorenzo’s third consecutive victory at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, which has been renamed in honor of Italian rider Marco Simoncelli.

Behind the reigning champion, rookie Marc Marquez took 2nd place, 3.3 seconds behind Lorenzo. Thus extending his record of finishing on the podium in 12 out of 13 races. Marquez’s teammate, Pedrosa, took third to complete the podium. The two Spaniards had a great race battling each other and swapping positions many times, before the rookie took over and held his position.

Local hero Valentino Rossi took his fourth consecutive 4th place and gave his fans a lot to cheer about.

LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl made a crucial move on Tech 3 Yamaha’s Cal Crutchlow in the final stages to take 5th, just two tenths ahead of Crutchlow.

Lorenzo’s 28th victory has come at the right time as he aims to close in on Marquez’s lead. Lorenzo has now moved to 2nd place in the Championship to equal Pedrosa’s haul of 219 points. The duo trail Marquez by 34 points with 5 races to go.

After the race, Lorenzo said: “It is important to win, but we have only recovered five points, so it is the same as Silverstone. It doesn’t make a big difference to the championship. But I’m very happy for this victory, because we struggled a lot during the weekend, especially on braking.”

Championship leader Marquez said: ” The second place is important, especially because with the fuel tank full, I was struggling. I did go wide twice and that penalised me a lot in the race but we had a good race to take points for the championship. That is important.”

The next race is at Aragon in Alcaniz, Spain on 29th of September.

Results- 28 laps:

Pos Rider             Bike                    Time/Gap
 1. Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                 44m05.522s
 2. Marc Marquez      Honda                   +3.379s
 3. Dani Pedrosa      Honda                   +7.368s
 4. Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                  +15.062s
 5. Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda               +22.355s
 6. Cal Crutchlow     Tech 3 Yamaha           +22.599s
 7. Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda           +31.059s
 8. Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                  +42.702s
 9. Nicky Hayden      Ducati                  +44.858s
10. Michele Pirro     Pramac Ducati           +47.818s
11. Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha           +48.011s
12. Colin Edwards     Forward FTR-Kawasaki    +1m03.154s
13. Aleix Espargaro   Aspar Aprilia           +1m07.600s
14. Hiroshi Aoyama    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki    +1m15.528s
15. Danilo Petrucci   Ioda-Suter-BMW          +1m17.907s
16. Claudio Corti     Forward FTR-Kawasaki    +1m29.655s
17. Randy de Puniet   Aspar Aprilia           +1m33.990s
18. Michael Laverty   PBM-Aprilia             +1m36.860s

Retirements:

   Bryan Staring     Gresini FTR-Honda        4 laps
   Hector Barbera    Avintia FTR-Kawasaki     7 laps
   Yonny Hernandez   PBM Aprilia              19 laps
   Karel Abraham     Cardion Aprilia          21 laps
   Andrea Iannone    Pramac Ducati            25 laps
   Lukas Pesek       Ioda-Suter-BMW           25 laps