MOTOGP
FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 16 / OCTOBER 19-21, 2018
TWIN RING MOTEGI / MOTEGI, JAPAN
P60
only to run off onto the dirt on the
following hairpin, and for Dovi to
get straight back again. A bit ear-
lier, Crutchlow—frustrated by the
slow pace—had got in front of him
for two laps, but when Marquez
got by again, the junior Honda
rider dutifully waited.
It was down to Dovizioso's
tactics, lap times seesawing so
much that by half distance the
pursuers had closed up, much to
Crutchlow's dismay. At this point,
Ecstar Suzuki's Andrea Iannone
was heading the group, ahead of
seven or more titles. The others
are Giacomo Agostini (15), Angel
Nieto (13), Rossi, Hailwood and
Carlo Ubbiali (nine), and John
Surtees and Phil Read (seven).
He also joins Mick Doohan, Rossi
and Agostini as one of only four
riders to have taken five or more
premier-class titles. In addition,
he has won at least five GPs per
season over the past nine years
in 125cc, Moto2 and MotoGP,
and is the first rider to achieve
this in the 70-year history of GPs.
Previously, Hailwood was the only
man to have achieved at least five
victories per season over seven
years.
BO BANGS HIS LEG
Dutch Moto2 rider Bo Bendsney-
der suffered a freak injury likely to
bring his first season in the middle
class to a premature close when
the Honda engine in his Tech3
suffered a catastrophic failure that
left him with a broken left leg. "He
didn't even crash," said Tech 3
team owner Herve Poncharal. "On
the last lap of the race his engine
broke, and a part of the engine
[flew] out and hit his left leg." He
pulled off, but was in severe pain,
said Poncharal. The first medical
report before he was airlifted to
hospital, he continued, was of "an
open fracture of his left tibia." The
Briefly...
Valentino Rossi and Yamaha's
improvement continued at a slower
pace than in Thailand, the veteran
sealing fourth place in Japan.
