Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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MOTOGP FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 11 / AUGUST 16, 2015 BRNO CIRCUIT / BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC P84 MOTOGP 1. Jorge Lorenzo (Hon) 2. Marc Marquez (Hon) 3. Valentino Rossi (Yam) 4. Andrea Iannone (Duc) 5. Dani Pedrosa (Hon) 6. Andrea Dovizioso (Duc) 7. Bradley Smith (Yam) 8. Pol Espargaro (Yam) 9. Aleix Espargaro (Suz) 10. Danilo Petrucci (Duc) But in the championship for the main honors, it's now all even with the Yamahas starting from (almost) zero. "It is unbe- lievable," said Lorenzo, "that after 11 races we have equal points." But while Rossi also has 211, Lorenzo has more wins and thus the title lead. Marquez's hopes of catching up dwindled slightly, although he did close up margin- ally on 159. Iannone has 142, and Smith 106. CN was the 14th fastest of the race, but I couldn't stay in the 1:58s, where I needed to be. The grip was really poor and the bike was sliding around a lot. Barbera tried to escape, but I pushed hard to catch him and was finally able to make a move with five or six laps to go. At that point the pace was pretty good, but I made a couple of mistakes and Barbera and Baz came past. It's a shame because we had the Open victory in sight almost until the end of the race." ANTONELLI FINALLY COMES GOOD Brno lends itself to ultra-close Moto3 racing, and it was all a bit too close on the first lap, when four riders went down together on the first corner, and another four a couple of corners later. Argentinean rider Gabriel Rodrigo on the RBA KTM lay out cold in the gravel, and the red flags came out as medi- cal staff attended to him. He was later transferred to a local hospital with leg injuries. His teammate Niklas Ajo didn't make the restart, nor did Hiroki Ono on the Leopard Honda or, for that matter, Andrea Locatelli with his Gresini Honda. The rest lined up again 30 minutes later, with race distance cut from 19 to 12 laps. It was another feast of close action, with a leading pack of 10 crawling all over one another. Leopard Honda teammates Efren Vazquez and Danny Kent each had an early turn at leading over the line; then Niccolo Antonelli on the Ongetta Rivacold Honda was followed for several laps by Red Bull KTM teammates Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira. But that was only over the line; else- where on the track sustained mayhem meant constant reshuffling. That in turn made Antonelli's successful bid to claim a slender win over the last two laps all the more impres- sive. It was the 19-year-old Italian's first victory, and indeed his first podium. Gresini Honda's Enea Bas- tianini bullied his way to sec- ond ahead of South African Binder, with Vazquez fourth, then Jorge Navarro's Estrella Galicia 0,0 Honda and Ro- mano Fenati on the Sky VR46 KTM. The young Italian made it up from 22nd on the grid and at one stage looked like challenging for the lead. Kent was caught up in the thick of it and took seventh, ahead of Oliveira and Jakub Kornfeil's Drive M7 KTM in ninth. The first nine crossed the line within 1.42 seconds, with John McPhee's SaxoPrint Honda 10 th and off the back of the group. Mapfre Mahindra teammates Jorge Martin, Pecco Bagnaia and Juanfran Guevara led the next big gang, just over two seconds adrift, but with Fenati's Sky VR46 KTM teammate Andrea Migno slipping ahead of Guevara for 13th. The last point went to Philipp Oettl on the Schedl KTM, just a few feet behind. Darryn Binder, Remy Gard- ner and Indy winner Livio Loi were next in line. There were several more crashers, including local hero Karel Hanika on the factory Red Bull KTM, Isaac Vinales, Fabio Quartararo, and last year's winner Alexis Masbou. Kent's massive title lead shrank for a second race in succession, but he is still 45 points clear of Bastianini, 199 to 154. Then comes Fenati (122), Oliveira (111) and Vazquez (109).