ROUND 16/OCTOBER 20, 2013
PHILLIP ISLAND CIRCUIT/PHILLIP ISLAND, AUSTRALIA
MOTOGP
P66
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
The World Championship
leader was black flagged
for pitting a lap too late.
been his rapid bike-change, accomplished with an athletic leap.
"We practiced it a lot. And also
Marquez's black flag – he would
have been first or second otherwise."
Another key had been that
GOING THE
DISTANCE
The only real Grand Prix of the day
– or at least the only one to run full
scheduled distance – was the reliable
thrilling battle of inches, with the reliable Spanish KTM trio on the rostrum
again.
The company was a little closer
this time, however, at a track where
the bikes lacking the Austrian factorybacked machines' top speed were at
less of a disadvantage. The top seven
were covered by just over one second,
and included local hero Jack Miller's
FTR Honda in fifth and Efren Vazquez's
Mahindra in seventh.
A lap-one crash eliminated Miguel
Oliveira after he was jostled from
behind, missed his braking and also
took out wild card Lachlan Kavney.
Oliveira's bike had forward-looped in
while Pedrosa's tactics were
sound, his second bike was not
so: setting or chassis variations
meant, "I couldn't push at the
same pace."
Hopes of victory were gone directly after his own athletic bikethe pack, but everybody escaped and
he was able to remount and continue
at the back.
Up front title leader Luis Salom led
the first laps, and then Aspar KalexKTM's Jonas Folger took over until
half distance, interrupted once by new
record-setter Alex Marquez. But it was
all somewhat notional, with a pack of
seven swarming all over one another,
plus Vazquez striving valiantly not to
get dropped off the back, after losing
touch with a coming together with Niccolo Antonelli.
Maverick Vinales and the redoubtable Miller played a prominent part,
and with five laps to go Miller pushed
through to third.
By the end, however, the longer
legs of the KTMs prevailed in the run
to the line.
Alex Rins led only three of the 23
laps, but one of them was the 23rd,
if only by inches as a lunging Vinales
came almost alongside over the line, a
matter of three thousandths of a second. Salom was third, then Marquez,
Miller, Folger and Vazquez, who had
closed a gap of more than four sec-
