Peerless Pedrosa takes his 50th GP victory at Motegi

The Repsol Honda rider came from sixth on the grid to take his 27th MotoGPâ„¢ win and first since Brno in 2014 on a drying track at the Twin Ring Motegi. Movistar Yamaha's Valentino Rossi (+8.573s) crossed the line in second to record his 14th podium of the season as he extended his lead over his teammate Jorge Lorenzo to 18 points in the World Championship standings. Lorenzo (+12.127s) completed the podium after struggling with front-tyre wear late on in the race to record his 94th premier class rostrum.
There were only really three riders in with a chance to win the race in tricky conditions at Motegi that saw 50,000 fans packed into the grandstands despite the rain. The race started on time despite a two-hour delay to the morning's Warm Up Session, but the track remained damp meaning all riders went for wets. At the start of the race the outcome looked very different, as Rossi got the holeshot into turn 1 only for Lorenzo to take him through turns 3 & 4 for the lead. At this point things looked ominous for Rossi as Lorenzo broke away at the front in his usual fashion and opened up a 2 second lead by the end of lap 3.
Rossi appeared to have no answer to his teammates pace and had to fight off the advances of the Ducati Team GP15 of Andrea Dovizioso during the early stages of the race. In a sign of things to come though, Dovizioso started to experience front tyre issues as a dry line appeared on track and began to drop back rapidly by lap ten. At this point Pedrosa had made his way up into fourth and was by far the fastest man on the track. On lap 11 the Spaniard passed Dovizioso as the Italian ran wide and started to chase down Rossi in second, who had a 2.7s advantage.
Lapping 1.5s faster that the two Yamaha's in front of him, Pedrosa caught Rossi with 9 laps to go and suddenly Lorenzo was struggling as his front tyre started to rip itself to pieces. Rossi went with Pedrosa and they both began to hunt down Lorenzo, who had a 2.7s advantage with the two-time MotoGPâ„¢ world champion appearing to be going backwards at this point. Pedrosa blasted past him on the straight as they completed lap 17 to take the lead, and never looked back as he went on to take a commanding victory and continue his record of winning at least one race in every season he has competed in MotoGPâ„¢.
It then became a game of risk versus reward between the two Yamaha teammates as Rossi closed in on his title rival, but both were tiptoeing around on their shredded front tyres. Rossi appeared to have looked after his slightly better though and Lorenzo ran wide at turn 3 with 5 laps to go to gift the 'Doctor' second. Pedrosa rode superbly in the final laps to take the race win by over 8.5s from Rossi, with Lorenzo completing the podium a further 3 seconds back.
Although it was clearly Pedrosa's day after a sensational ride in the wet, Rossi was delighted with extending his lead in the standings as he hopes to secure his tenth World Championship title in 2015.
Pedrosa's teammate Marc Marquez (+27.841s) crossed the line in a lonely 4th nursing the broken bone in his left hand ahead of the Dovizioso, who despite his tyre issues, held on for fifth.
LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow came out on top by just 0.404s in an excellent battle for sixth against his compatriot Bradley Smith on the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 to finish as the leading Satellite rider. Crutchlow passed Smith on the last lap to secure sixth, his best result since he also finished sixth at Assen. Smith crossed the line in seventh to make it 21 point scoring finishes in a row, but dropped down to sixth in the standings, 2 points behind Dovizioso.
Wildcard Katsuyuki Nakasuga (Yamaha Factory Team) rode brilliantly to finish in eighth ahead of Hector Barbera on the Avintia Racing Ducati. Barbera took the Open class win and also recorded his first top ten finish of the season to re-take the lead in the Open standings by two points from Loris Baz (Forward Racing), who was forced to retire from the race.
Scott Redding (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) completed the top ten ahead of Aleix Espargaro (Team Suzuki Ecstar) in 11th, with the second wildcard Takumi Takahashi (Team HRC with Nissin) 12th.
Nicky Hayden was the leading Open Class Honda in 13th, with his Irish teammate Eugene Laverty crossing the line in 17th.
Jack Miller (LCR Honda) crashed twice during the race, after at one point leading the Open class battle, and was forced to retire. There were also DNF's for Danilo Petrucci (Octo Pramac Racing), Pol Espargaro (Monster Yamaha Tech 3), Maverick Viñales (Team Suzuki Ecstar) and Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team).
Rossi (283pts) now has an 18-point lead over Lorenzo (265pts) with just three races remaining, while Marc Marquez remains in third with 197 points.

Moto2â„¢ champion Zarco takes 7th win of the season

Moto2â„¢ World Champion Johann Zarco put on a masterful display to take his seventh win of the season at the Twin Ring Motegi in the wet.

Ajo Motorsport's Zarco was crowned the Moto2â„¢ champion on Friday after the only man who could stop him lifting the title at Motegi, Tito Rabat, had to withdraw from the Motul Grand Prix of Japan due to injury. The Frenchman responded by riding brilliantly on a wet, but drying track, to take the race win from AGR Team's Jonas Folger by 4.505s. Dynavolt Intact GP's Sandro Cortese completed the podium a further 10.928s back, as a number of riders were caught out by front tyres issues in the tricky conditions.

The Moto2â„¢ race was reduced to 15 laps after a two-hour delay to the morning's Warm Up sessions due to track conditions. Zarco, starting from pole, found himself chasing down Folger in the early stages of the race after the German got the holeshot into turn 1. The newly crowned champion made his move on Folger for the lead on lap 7 and set off into to the distance to take his eighth career GP victory.

Folger finished in a lonely second as he returned to the podium for the first time since his win at the Catalan GP, his third rostrum of the season. Cortese, starting from 9th on the grid bided his time perfectly to move through the field and claim third from Idemitsu Honda Team Asia's Azlan Shah by 1.915s. Cortese passed Shah on the penultimate lap to record his first podium of the season and first since Brno in 2014.

Shah crossed the line in fourth to record his career best Moto2â„¢ result and first ever top ten finish. Petronas Raceline Malaysia's Hafizh Syahrin claimed his best result of the season in fifth ahead of Ricky Cardus on the JP Moto Malaysia Suter in Sixth. It was also Cardus' career best finish.

Simone Corsi (Forward Racing), Sam Lowes (Speed Up Racing), Marcel Schrotter (Tech 3) and Randy Krummenacher (JIR Racing Team) completed the top ten. Alex Rins (Paginas Amarillas HP40) had been competing for the podium, but was one of the riders to suffer from excessive front tyre wear as the track dried and had to settle for 11th after running wide a number of times in the latter stages of the race.

There were crashes for Luis Salom, Thitipong Warokorn, Thomas Luthi, Xavier Simeon, Xavi Vierge, Axel Pons and Joshua Hook who was substituting for the injured Dominique Aegerter.

Antonelli puts on a master class in the wet to win

Niccolo Antonelli wins in the wet at Motegi ahead of Oliveira and Navarro, while Kent finishes in sixth and fails to clinch the title.

Ongetta-Rivacold's Antonelli put on a brilliant display of riding in the wet at the Motul Grand Prix of Japan to take just his second career Moto3â„¢ victory by over a second from Red Bull KTM's Miguel Oliveira (+1.053s) with Jorge Navarro (+8.529s) completing the podium on the Estrella Galicia 0,0 Honda.
Championship leader Danny Kent saw his chances of lifting the title at Motegi fade after a bad start, but recovered to finish in sixth ahead of his main title rival Enea Bastianini on the Gresini Racing Team Moto3 Honda. This sees the title battle continue to the Australian GP with Kent extending his lead to 56 points over the Italian.

Track conditions in the morning saw Warm Up for all three classes delayed by two hours and therefore the Moto3â„¢ race was reduced to a 13-lap sprint in the wet.

Antonelli shot off at the start and established a 4 second lead at the front of the field, while Kent found himself down in 16th at the end of the first lap, while his main title rival Bastianini was running in sixth.

Kent managed to re-group and after 4 laps started to charge his way through the field and with 3 laps to go, he had made his way up to 7th and was chasing down Bastianini. Oliveira in second was now gradually reducing all the while Antonelli's gap at the front and with two laps to go the Italian’s lead was down to 2.1s.

On the last lap this gap was down to 1 second, and Kent had closed up on Bastianini. The Brit timed it perfectly to take Bastianini at turn 7 and move into sixth at the expense of the ‘Beast’.

Antonelli kept his cool to keep Oliveira at bay and take the race win with Oliveira claiming his sixth podium of the season in second. Jorge Navarro made it back-to-back podiums as he crossed the line in third.

RBA Racing's Isaac Viñales (+11.074s) crashed on the penultimate lap at turn 10 but incredibly remounted to finish in fourth ahead of Drive M7 SIC's Zulfahmi Khairuddin (+13.043s) who claimed his best result of the season in fifth.

Kent's (+15.224s) last lap move saw him finish half a second ahead of Bastianini, while Karel Hanika (Red Bull KTM Ajo), John McPhee (SAXOPRINT RTG) and Efren Vazquez (Leopard Racing) completed the top ten.

There were crashes in the tricky conditions for Remy Gardner, Livio Loi, Hiroki Ono, Alexis Masbou, Alessandro Tonucci and wildcard Ryo Mizuno.

Fabio Quartararo (Estrella Galicia 0,0) was forced to pull out of the weekend after Friday's practice due to the pain he was suffering from the broken ankle he sustained at Mugello.

Photos courtesy of motogp.com for media use only