Marquez Winning Streak Reaches Four

Hopes were high for Cal Crutchlow who secured his second ever MotoGP Pole here at Brno ahead of championship rivals Pedrosa and Marquez

Marc Marquez however claimed a fourth straight win to stretch his championship lead to 26 points after a hard fought race at the Czech Republic Grand Prix.

The 20 year-old Spaniard also became the first rider to win five races during his debut season in the top class, after coming out on top of a race long battle with Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.

Dani Pedrosa managed to nick second place from Yamaha's Lorenzo in the closing stages of the race, Lorenzo had led most of the race but had to settle for third behind the Honda pair.

“I enjoyed the battle,” Marquez said after the race.
“In the beginning Jorge pushed quite a bit and made a big gap, but in the end I was a little bit stronger.”

Pole sitter, Britain's, Cal Crutchlow had dropped to fifth by the end of lap one and his hopes of another podium finish disappeared completely after he crashed out on lap eight. He did manage to re-join but could not fight back into the points and finished a dissapointing 17th.

At the start, Lorenzo stormed from fifth on the grid to take the lead. He then set about building a gap but he was hunted down by Marquez and Pedrosa and eventually had to concede defeat as he was passed by the Repsol pairing in the latter stages. This result leaves the defending champion 44 points adrift in the standings. Lorenzo tried to fight back over the closing laps, his Yamaha quicker than the Hondas in the corners, but unable to compete over the full lap.

“It is a bit disappointing because I almost had the race, so to lose the first two positions in the last part of it is not the best,” said a disappointed Lorenzo.

Valentino Rossi was the best of the rest after he just got the better of Alvaro Bautista in a race-long scrap, the italian legend as popular as ever with the fans.

MotoGP now heads to Silverstone where another great race is promised, this year’s Championship certainly throwing up lots of surprises.

Results:

Pos. No. Rider Bike Time / Diff.

1 93 Marc MARQUEZ Honda 42’50.729
2 26 Dani PEDROSA Honda 0.313
3 99 Jorge LORENZO Yamaha 2.277
4 46 Valentino ROSSI Yamaha 10.101
5 19 Alvaro BAUTISTA Honda 10.178
6 6 Stefan BRADL Honda 19.807
7 4 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati 35.015
8 69 Nicky HAYDEN Ducati 35.354
9 29 Andrea IANNONE Ducati 51.149
10 41 Aleix ESPARGARO ART 56.392
11 5 Colin EDWARDS Kawasaki 57.42
12 51 Michele PIRRO Ducati 1’05.430
13 9 Danilo PETRUCCI Ioda-Suter 1’12.364
14 7 Hiroshi AOYAMA FTR 1’13.500
15 14 Randy DE PUNIET ART 1’14.128
16 68 Yonny HERNANDEZ ART 1’14.991
17 35 Cal CRUTCHLOW Yamaha 1’20.640
18 70 Michael LAVERTY PBM 1’34.462
19 17 Karel ABRAHAM ART 1’49.713
20 67 Bryan STARING FTR Honda 1’50.024
21 45 Martin BAUER S&B Suter 1 Lap

Not Classified

38 Bradley SMITH Yamaha
52 Lukas PESEK Ioda-Suter
71 Claudio CORTI FTR Kawasaki
8 Hector BARBERA FTR