Cycle News

MOTOGP MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 11/AUGUST 17, 2014 BRNO CIRCUIT/BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC P64 Marquez celebrated his tenth win in a row one week ago by holding up ten fingers. Perhaps fourth today was because he had run out of fingers. After the race he was his usual laughing self. "I feel much better now, that I don't have to answer the same ques- tion any more… whether I can win every race," Marquez said. The history books can close again now. Agostini's record of 20 consecutive wins (1968/69) is clearly inviolate; but likewise Hailwood's 12 in a row (1963/64) and Surtees's 11 (1958-60). What remains for Marquez – and clearly achievable – is to beat Doohan's record of 12 wins in a season. And to knock Spen- cer to third place in the Youngest Ever Champion's chart. For while the result upset the formbook, it had only a minor ef- fect on the championship. Mar- quez still has an advantage of 77 points. Yet Sunday's result was a warning, that foregone con- clusions are to be treated with care… they can too often lead to the discomfort of unexpected consequences. And an illustra- tion that motorcycle racing is a complicated business, fraught with potential pitfalls if just one of many hundreds of components isn't quite up to scratch. That component, in Marquez's case, was – well, none in particu- lar, but the overall balance in gen- eral. He had been struggling for set-up all weekend, he said. "It was okay on new tires, so I could get pole position." On worn tires, looking at Dani's data, "I was los- ing a tenth every acceleration." The others were faster, and when Rossi consigned him to fourth, "I thought of the champi- onship and relaxed a bit," Mar- quez said. "You get the same points for fourth whether you are one second behind or 20 sec- onds." Yet his loss shouldn't detract from Pedrosa's success. He has come the closest this year to beating Marquez, with a flawed last lap attack in Catalunya. This time, he led from the sixth of 22 laps of the sweeping 5.4-km Brno circuit, and while Lorenzo kept him honest - less than half a second behind over the line, there was no close action once he had got to the front. It was a well-earned win. "This year we have an amaz- ing rival in Marc," Pedrosa said. "Maybe today wasn't his best day, but I think we also worked well this weekend. At the end I was struggling a bit with the front – some sliding and chattering. I knew Jorge was catching me, but I was able to count the laps. "The best moment was com- ing into parc ferme and seeing my mechanics." Lorenzo was one of two facto- ry-team riders who used the soft front tire (Monster Yamaha rider Bradley Smith the other), and while it worked well to help him take an impressive early lead, "after two or three laps I had some problems with traction and braking, and Dani improved his pace," Lorenzo said. "I needed to be more aggressive, because he got away." In the final laps he was closing fast, and a gap that had been al- most two seconds shrank to 0.4.

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