MOTOGP
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 9/JULY 13, 2014
SACHSENRING CIRCUIT/SACHSENRING, GERMANY
P80
19th; Michael Laverty crashed out.
Halfway through the championship, and Marquez now
has three clear races in hand: 225 points to Pedrosa, 148.
Then comes Rossi with 141, Dovizioso with 99 and Loren-
zo on 97. Happy holidays for Marc, anyway. CN
MOTOGP
1. Marc Marquez (Honda)
2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda)
3. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha)
4. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
5. Andrea Iannone (Ducati)
6. Aleix Espargaro (Yamaha)
Briefly...
race as a wild card. We will have to test there
after the race anyway," he told Dorna's official
website. That would be with the factory squad's
riders for next year – but mystery still surrounds
their identity, as the middle and lower orders of
MotoGP sort out their own deals for 2015.
Aleix Espargaro took a first run on the Forward
chassis in place of the usual M1 Yamaha unit on
the first day of practice – a chassis teammate
Colin Edwards has been running for the past
three races. The team must switch to this long-
delayed homegrown chassis next season, and
results for the Spanish rider were encouraging.
"It worked really well," he said "We set third-
fastest time, with a tire that had 22 laps on it.
The feeling was very positive." He reverted to
Yamaha for the rest of the weekend, however.
While Marc Marquez nails down all the young-
est-ever records, there was the opposite kind
of first for successful German female racer
Nina Prinz, a wild card in Moto2. At 31, she is
surely the oldest female to make a Grand Prix
debut. She explained the delay thus: "Last year
there was an [upper] age limit, so I could not
race, but this year the age limit is no more."
Prinz qualified a perfectly reasonable last, and
finished one place higher.
A fatal accident in Saturday's sidecar qualifying
session cast a pall over the weekend, and over
the presence of the traditional three-wheelers
in MotoGP. German veteran and six-time Na-
tional Championship runner up Kurt Hock and
passenger Enrico Becker ran on with possible
brake failure at turn 12 at the bottom of the Wa-
terfall straight, and collided heavily with the bar-
rier. Becker suffered fatal injuries; while driver
Hock was taken to the hospital in an artificial
coma, in "serious but stable" condition. The
three-wheelers had joined MotoGP for a sec-
ond successive race after Assen, but are con-
sidered an anachronism in the paddock; while
safety provisions suitable for solo motorcycles
may not be adequate for sidecars, with much
higher corner speed.
7. Pol Espargaro (Yamaha)
8. Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati)
9. Alvaro Bautista (Honda)
10. Cal Crutchlow (Ducati)
Nine in a row? Why not.
