MOTOGP
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 16/OCTOBER 19, 2014
PHILLIP ISLAND CIRCUIT/PHILLIP ISLAND, AUSTRALIA
P64
THE BIG FIGHT
Hold your breath. The Moto3 gang
is coming past. You wouldn't have had
to hold it for long at Phillip Island, with
a lead pack 11-strong until lap nine,
and still six-strong at the end, after
sundry collisions and other disputes
had sent five riders packing.
The first to go were front-row starter
Juanfran Guevara on the Mapfre Kalex
KTM and Calvo KTM's Isaac Vinales,
tangling together on lap 10.
Now there were nine, swooping
and swerving and slipstreaming and
diving. A false move could easily lose
five or more places, a well-timed lunge
gain that number.
The lap chart records that pole-sitter
Alex Marquez on the Estrella Galicia
Honda led 12 laps, Red Bull KTM's
Jack Miller seven, and SaxoPrint
Honda's Efren Vazquez and Romano
Fenati on the Sky VR46 KTM one each
- but that was only over the line, and
by the time they got to the first corner
it was almost guaranteed at least one
rider would have drafted past.
The numbers were cut by another
three on the second-last lap. Fenati
crashed out in the second corner,
after a nudge from Vazquez that
earned the Spaniard a penalty point;
on the way into Honda Hairpin Brad
Binder and Danny Kent got squeezed
by Miller and crashed out together.
Binder had been up to second on the
previous two laps.
It was all a matter of last-lap tactics,
and home hero Miller had taken tips
from good friend Maverick Vinales, who
had come off second-best in a seven-
bike Moto3 gang the year before, having
tried to win it by slipstreaming.
"He [Vinales] told me to get the lead
at turn four, then make sure nobody
came past down the straight," said
Miller.
In fact he regained the lead from
title leader Marquez earlier than that,
used all his late-braking skills to stay
there until the last corners, then a bit
of swerving to preserve it to the line.
It was an epic win by the narrowest
of margins. Marquez was second by
.029 of a second, then his teammate
Alex Rins; with Vazquez and his team-
