MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 51 ISSUE 26 JULY 1, 2014 P49
Briefly...
Marc Marquez laughed off sugges-
tions that the close race finishes at
the last couple of rounds have been
contrived, to improve the show of
races that he knew he could win.
Asked if he was teasing his rivals, he
instead said it was the result of them
getting better. "For the first races I
was at a very high level; now the oth-
er three are very strong. You must re-
member who the other guys are. It's
also different circuit by circuit. Last
year I had a difficult time at Mugello,
Catalunya and here at Assen, but I
enjoy riding this track more." Asked
if their level had risen while his had
not, he said: "It looks like mine has
stayed more or less the same; the
important thing is for me to stay con-
sistent on that level."
Moto3 rider Livio Loi is facing the
prospect of being fired after a slump
in his results following a surprise
fourth place at round four in Argenti-
na. In his first full season, the 17-year-
old Belgian has failed to replicate his
early form, and has scored no further
points. Team insiders at the Moto2-
leading Marc VDS squad question
MARQUEZ BROTHERS TRIUMPH AGAIN
gang and was third by lap six. Now he
moved away, and was soon closing on
Rins. He caught him with six laps left,
and went straight past. But Rins played
cat-and-mouse, stalking to the end and
studying his lines, to pounce success-
fully under braking for the final chicane.
It was a first Honda one-two of the
year; and Mahindra's first rostrum since
Malaysia last year.
Ongetta Honda's Alexis Masbou won
the brawl for fourth, from KTM's Nic-
colo Antonelli, Honda's Efren Vazquez,
KTM's Issac Vinales, Husqvarna's Dan-
ny Kent, Mahindra's Brad Binder
and Honda's John McPhee –
with fourth to 10th covered by
less than four tenths.
Fenati had a remarkable
comeback ride and was up
to 11th by lap 13 when he fell,
remounting for a pointless 18th;
star rookie Bastianini crashed
out on lap one.
This injected spice into the
title table. Miller has 117 points; Fenati
and Marquez are equal on 110; then
comes Rins (107) and Vazquez (102).
Moto3 winner Alex Marquez is flanked
by teammate Alex Rins (left) and third-
placed Miguel Oliveira.
continued on next page
The best on-track battle was the one
for third between pole qualifier Aleix
Espargaro (41) and Pedrosa (26).
The two went back and forth until
Pedrosa grabbed a solid hold of the
spot in the final laps.
In MotoGP, three riders failed
to heed that warning. Reason-
ably, perhaps, because it wasn't
raining much and the track was
all but dry. One of them was Mo-
vistar Yamaha's Rossi, but he
changed his mind again, pitting
after the warm-up lap to start
from pit lane, fitted with wets, ef-
fectively ruining his race.
Another was Pramac Ducati's
Yonny Hernandez, who pitted to
swap after one lap. The third was
GP rookie Broc Parkes on the
downbeat PBM machine, having
crashed his wet-shod bike on the
warm-up lap. Just to prove the
unpredictability of it all, he sol-
diered on to the end, earning a
career-best 11th after enjoying a
midfield scrap in unexpectedly
elevated company.
Marquez and the rest made a
more prudent choice, starting on
wets, then pitting after six laps to
