Marc Márquez wins again in the Czech GP

MotoGP rookie Marc Márquez was on a roll as his established rivals fought back from injury, with the 20-year-old Honda rider winning three races in a row to cement his World Championship lead over Spanish compatriots Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo.

The Czech Republic Grand Prix is held on the modern Brno circuit, with plenty of gradient change, a place where Lorenzo (four) and Pedrosa (three) have both won more than once, as has seven-time victor Valentino Rossi. Indeed, several of the 2013 MotoGP field have tasted success at this venue, including Márquez during his Moto2 career, as well as the likes of Stefan Bradl and Álvaro Bautistá.

In qualifying, Gresini Honda rider Bautistá was on good form again as he took a season-best second position, although the 28-year-old gained extra advantage when he was able to follow Márquez around and get something of a tow. The Repsol-backed works rider ended up one place behind in third, whilst pole position on this occasion went to a Yamaha, with Cal Crutchlow fastest for the Tech 3 team, his second GP start from right at the front.

The Honda-Yamaha theme continued throughout the whole of the top eight, with Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) fourth, then Lorenzo (factory Yamaha), Bradley Smith (Tech 3 Yamaha), Rossi (factory Yamaha) and Bradl (LCR Honda). Ducati racers took the next three places, with factory men Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden heading Pramac team leader Andrea Iannone. His team-mate, Michele Pirro, was in P14 behind the fastest pair of CRT runners.

This time, as at Indianapolis, the top CRT honour went to Colin Edwards for Forward Racing, with the FTR-Kawasaki. Behind him in P13 was Aleix Espargaró, with the Aspar team ART machine. Randy de Puniet, for Aspar, was in P15, followed by Yonny Hernández, Danilo Petrucci, Claudio Corti, Héctor Barberá, Lukáš Pešek, Michael Laverty, Hiroshi Aoyama, Karel Abraham (with an injured shoulder) and Bryan Staring. 37-year-old wildcard rider Martin Bauer, making his GP début, was 25th and last with his S&B Suter-BMW for Remus Racing Team.

For the race, conditions were cool and cloudy, and rain was a possibility. At the start, Lorenzo shot into the lead from row two, heading Márquez, Pedrosa, Crutchlow, Bautistá, Rossi, Bradl and Smith, who would quickly pass the German for seventh. Lorenzo had good initial pace, to the extent that he set fastest lap early on as he went about building a handy looking advantage over the rest. Behind the top eight came the four Ducatis, with Dovizioso heading Hayden, and with Iannone and Pirro in fact split by Espargaró.

Among the remaining CRT representatives there were three early casualties, with Barberá clipping the rear of Corti, which meant both men crashed. Pešek had his own incident when he lost the front end of the Ioda Suter, and these occurrences left fourteenth man Edwards heading de Puniet, Hernández, Petrucci, Aoyama, Laverty, Abraham, Staring and Bauer. Among the front runners, Smith would also end up out of the running in the early stages.

Following his early burst, Lorenzo would soon find the Repsol Honda pair beginning to respond, with Márquez improving on the fastest lap and cutting the leader’s advantage, and Pedrosa tagging on; and meanwhile the battle for fourth would see to it that the next pair began to lose touch with the three ‘main men’. Brno has several corner pairings, where ninety degrees one way is immediately followed by much the same thing the other way. Following a short straight, turn three is a left-hander just before another right, and Bautistá went inside Crutchlow for the left to move up a place.

With Bradl losing ground in seventh, soon enough the leading trio would be out on their own again, leaving a three-way battle behind them between Bautistá, Crutchlow and Rossi. Cal repaid the earlier move when he used the outside line at turn four to regain fourth place, and meanwhile Lorenzo’s lead kept on being pulled back by the Honda duo. By half-distance they were all together, and a couple of laps later there were some spots of rain falling, bringing on flag-to-flag conditions. Before that happened, Crutchlow had suffered a lowside crash, resuming behind everyone except Bauer. That left a race between Bautistá and Rossi.

There wasn’t enough moisture for any pit stops to be necessary, with the rain virtually stopped after about three laps, and Lorenzo, Márquez and Pedrosa continued on in close company. The gaps between them were slightly different at varied points on the course, but there didn’t seem to be much in it, and Marc certainly looked threatening in some places. His first attempt came at turn three, where he was past on the inside, only for Jorge stay on the outside and therefore resume the best line for turn four and go through again.

Turn eleven is part of the uphill section leading back to the main straight, and is a left followed by an immediate right. Márquez made another inside move on Lorenzo there, this time taking over the lead, but without being able to shake off the Yamaha man. With four laps to go, Jorge was right behind, and at turn fourteen, the final right-hander, he was able to get ahead again with a pass on the inside. Then, at turn three, Marc was on the inside of his sparring partner, this time defending the line for turn four and staying in front.

With Lorenzo going a bit wide at turn ten, a looping right-hander, he now found that he needed to defend second place from the ever-present Pedrosa. Márquez just crept ahead - 0.5s in front with two laps remaining - to go on and take yet another rookie season win, with his Honda team-mate looking to limit the damage by at least finishing in P2. Dani made it happen on the brakes for turn ten, getting through on the inside of Jorge, who could not quite match the Honda pace and duly finished third.

Rossi won the battle for fourth with Bautistá, the Italian closing the gap in time to get back in front on the last lap; and with Bradl in a lonely sixth. Dovizioso maintained the edge in the contest between the two works Ducatis, with Iannone secure in ninth behind them. Espargaró was next, for his tenth CRT win of the season, but with Edwards quite close behind. Then it was Pirro, Petrucci and Aoyama, with de Puniet dropping back to P15. Crutchlow’s recovery brought him through to P17, behind Hernández, the final finishers being Laverty, Abraham, Staring and the lapped Bauer.

The three championship contending Spaniards were on the podium together for the fifth time but, after four wins in a row, Marc Márquez was yet further ahead of Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo in the table. It now seems to be a question of whether the youngster can put together an error-free run to the end of the season, because a consistent record of top-three scores might just be enough, even in the face of a charge from one of the other two guys. Anything can happen, of course, so how will things transpire?

Standings after eleven races: Márquez 213; Pedrosa 187; Lorenzo 169; Rossi 143; Crutchlow 127; Bradl 103; Dovizioso 96; Bautistá 92; Hayden 80; Espargaró 62 ·· CRT leader: Espargaró.
Honda 251; Yamaha 220; Ducati 99; ART 64; FTR-Kawasaki 39; Ioda Suter-BMW 21; PBM-ART 3; FTR-Honda 2.